Anthem protests

So far as we know, no NFL players spat on or burned the flag this weekend. They didn’t drag it on the ground or tear it apart. When the national anthem was performed before games, some linked arms in a show of unity; others knelt, an act that connotes respect, piety and humility. Kneeling is not the protocol outlined in the US Flag Code – an unenforceable statute that says all should face the flag while the anthem plays, with hands over hearts – but it nonetheless suggested a commitment to fostering the freedom and justice that is America’s promise.

The NFL protests have nothing to do with the Star Spangled Banner or the flag. Rather, they began last year when quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to sit and later to kneel during the anthem as a means to draw attention to cases of police brutality against blacks. But Donald Trump has turned it into something else.

Former attorney-general Eric Holder tweeted an elegant rebuke to Trump on Sunday. ‘‘Taking a knee is not without precedent president,’’ he wrote over a photo of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr. and others kneeling. ‘‘Those who dared to protest have helped bring positive change.’’ But Holder’s tweet was also, in its way, a massive challenge to the NFL. President Trump wanted the optics of players kneeling to score political points. Will the players and coaches make it mean something more?