The Man who Knelt

I know next to nothing about football. I played a very short game of flag football in Junior High, picked up the football after a down and everyone yelled at me. Apparently that was wrong? I had asked how to play and no one had answered, so after that I decided to return to not caring about the game.

Something I do know a lot about is racism. This is because I'm a racist. I could say recovering racist but there will always be something I have to unlearn and Colin was part of that.

In 2016, in response to the shootings of Alton Sterling and Charles Kinsley along with the acquittal of the police in the death of Freddie Gray, Kaepernick began sitting out the "Star-Spangled Banner" rather than standing. No one noticed until he was in uniform a week later and then he was asked why.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder," he told Steve Wyche.

Two things automatically happened: People hated it and there was a call for more respect.

Colin changed sitting to kneeling and the gentle protest began. The protest that would lose Kaepernick his job but gain him his mission.

In 2016, I was trying to find myself again. I live in a conservative area where there are few black people who don't come from the islands or are refugees (explaining to a black person what racism they might expect is a trip) and as someone who'd spent most of my life without minorities, the idea that somewhere they were suffering was hard to relearn. Especially when I felt surrounded by people who at the time only denied it.

I was torn when Kaepernick was sitting, as I usually sat out most of the national anthem too, being disabled, but not looking it, I felt like I got a lot of angry glances. When he switched to kneeling I felt better, but I was saddened that I felt he had to do this at all.

As he continued more people joined him and the ratings went down. President Trump put in his thoughts, stating that he wanted to see those protesting fired. In Colin's case, it looked like he got his wish when he was not hired back by any of the teams for the 2017 season, regardless of being a good player (I hear).

But that doesn't mean he doesn't have things to do. He and his partner Nessa, a radio personality, started a camp for disadvantaged youth called "Know Your Rights Camp," which helps teach history, legal rights, and empower them with what to do with both, should they need it.

Colin worked toward donating a million dollars toward similar communities, $25,000 to Mother Against Police Brutality, and $10,000 donations to other charities matched by celebrities. "Know Your Rights Camp" has started a relief fund for Covid-19 to which he's donated $100,000. As of January there's now a Ben & Jerry non-dairy frozen dessert called "Change the Whirled." 100% of Colin's earnings go to the camp.

In October 2020, Kaepernick began publishing "Abolition for the People" with Medium a collection of 30 essays written by activists calling for the restructuring of the police and prison system, which have been built about a systematically racist system.

From the second Colin began kneeling, people told him he was being disrespectful, protesting in the wrong place and the time. When people flooded the streets, they said the same of them. If you will not listen to the man kneeling, you will not listen to a man standing, or the man marching. At that point it is not them that is the problem.

Kaepernick still hasn't been rehired, even though it's generally been accepted that his cause is just and the few sports that did happen in 2010 had some form of protest. But I think that's okay. He's doing fine.