Not standing on principle
The National Football League, bowing to a fan base cynically riled up by a culture war commander-in-chief who branded peaceful protesters “sons of bitches,” will require its players to stand for the National Anthem if they’re on the field when the song is sung. As a purely legal matter, it’s well within the league’s right as a private employer to set codes of conduct for workers while they’re on the clock. As an expression of American values, it reeks. What’s next, an edict demanding unbroken eye contact with the flag, and for all of Francis Scott Key’s words to be sung in perfect key?
We say this having never been big fans of the specific form of civil disobedience made famous by former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick, which aimed to make a meaningful statement about police shootings of unarmed black civilians by seemingly targeting a core national symbol. It was just too wide open to misinterpretation.
But the protest was silent and solemn, not in the least bit disruptive: exactly how the establishment demands statements of political principle be reformulated when they dare to be unruly.
It is impossible to separate the virulent backlash from the politics of race. A white Christian pacifist who prayed during the anthem to protest a war would never in this day and age be scorned as these athletes have been.
Yes, Kaepernick and his fellow kneelers are all on company time when they refuse to stand at full attention. But that cuts both ways: Very few private employees in any industry are forced to make ritual displays of patriotism for all the world to see, then chastised — or blackballed — if they don’t comply.
Students, on and off the field, can’t be made to stand at public schools. So why should we revoke the right for adults?
In a clumsy attempt to split the baby, the new policy leaves it up to teams to decide whether to pay any fines for kneelers themselves, or pass it through to players. And gives conscientious objectors — be they believers in Black Lives Matter, or pacifists, or citizens of foreign countries, or whatever — an out. They can stay in the locker room.
Translation: Your statement of principle doesn’t bother us as long as it’s invisible. It’s no choice at all.