Taking a knee is standing for something

When Colin Kaepernick began protesting, he sat. The reason the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback opted to stay on the bench during the American national anthem was powerful and straightforward: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of colour.”

After a few games, 49ers safety Eric Reid joined Kaepernick in his protest. This time, they knelt.

“We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture,” Reid wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times this week. “I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.”

The metaphor is apt. They were marking a tragedy: the alarming number of unarmed black people being killed by police.

Unfortunately, judging from the events of the past week, a great many people — including, most vocally, U.S. President Donald Trump — don’t see it that way. The public debates about the #TakeAKnee protests in the NFL have become about whether kneeling during the national anthem is a disgrace to the nation, the military and the flag, or whether athletes have the right to protest at work, or whether we should stand for a national anthem during a football game at all.

All of these arguments miss the point. Just because Mr. Trump says something isn’t about race doesn’t make it so. These protests are unequivocally about race. These are protests against police brutality and systemic oppression. They are protests against racial injustice. And they are protests that have been done quietly, thoughtfully, and yes, respectfully, on bended knee.

Protests, even peaceful ones, are meant to be disruptive. They are meant to challenge and confront. They are, by design, meant to make people feel uncomfortable. And there has been discomfort caused by these protests, to be sure — but the outrage isn’t thanks to some newfound protectiveness over the sanctity of the national anthem, as evidenced by the behaviour of fans at Monday night’s game between the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals.

The Cowboys — “America’s team” — knelt in solidarity before the anthem and then rose, arms locked. They were booed, even though they did their kneeling before the first note of The Star-Spangled Banner. Which suggests, as many folks have rightly pointed out, that maybe the protest backlash is about something else — like being forced to think about uncomfortable truths while enjoying a football game.

Football has always been inextricably linked to patriotism, which is what makes these protests simultaneously effective and infuriating. Sports fandom is a kind of patriotism that can look an awful lot like nationalism: fans pledge allegiance to certain teams, and wear their colours, and sing their songs. The language of combat is often used in sports: teams are defeated, conquered. You are a winner or a loser.

Sports teams become canvases on which to project civic pride, too. Take Winnipeg, for example: Jets fans yell the name of a corporate entity — “True North!” — during the Canadian national anthem, yet you’ll hear very few debates about whether that’s disrespectful.

You can love your team and be critical of it, just as you can love your country and be critical of it. Those kneeling in protest aren’t unpatriotic; most of them will tell you that they love their country. They just want it to be better, and they’re risking public scorn, and possibly their careers, to stand — or kneel, as it were — for what’s right.

(This editorial appeared Sept. 28 in the Winnipeg Free Press and distributed by The Canadian Press.)