Protest is about systemic injustice
But many don’t want to delve deep into the issue
Kenny Stills said if anyone misinterprets his message of kneeling during the national anthem before NFL games to, “reach out to me, look at my website, look at my Twitter and all my social media platforms.”
Or you could drive 7.5 miles from where Stills talked in the Miami Dolphins locker room Thursday night after Miami’s preseason game against Tampa Bay at Hard Rock Satium to the police department of the leafy, trendy village of Biscayne Park.
This is the center of a federal investigation of cops framing innocent people — and blacks, specifically, according to documents obtained by The Miami Herald. All so the now-former police chief could tout the village’s perfect clearance record for burglaries.
On Friday, state prosecutors asked a judge to clear the record of a man who was wrongfully convicted of burglary in 2013, served five years in prison and was deported to Haiti. The case was untold before Friday.
The case of a teenager wrongly arrested for home burglaries in 2013 and a 31-year-old man wrongly arrested for five car burglaries in one day in 2014 already were public. All this raises the question:
How many more unknown cases are like this?
How long will the long arc of justice take to run?
relevantly to the issue of Stills and the anthem protesters: Does any of this matter to those against their kneeling at NFL games? Will it even be heard by those against his protest against systemic oppression?
They’ll never win this debate, of course. Not now. Not three years in. Not if by “winning,” the idea is to make people discuss, much less support, their ideas when the conversation was re-directed by President Trump into a referendum on patriotism via the national anthem.
“The NFL players are at it again — taking a knee when they should be standing proudly for the National Anthem,” Trump tweeted Friday morning after the first wave of NFL preseason games. “Numerous players, from different teams, wanted to show their ‘outrage’ at something most of them are unable to define. They make a fortune doing what they love …”
Of course, it wasn’t “numerous players, from different teams,” who kneeled that night. It was two players from one team. The Dolphins. Stills and fellow receiver Albert Wilson kneeled together during the anthem while teammate Robert Quinn raised a fist in the air, just as he did last year with the Los Angeles Rams.
The conversation the players want to have isn’t the one the president, NFL owners or the general pubMore lic is having. The players want to discuss social problems, including the unemployment of former lead protester Colin Kapernick. Everyone else is discussing their treatment of the anthem.
Team owners passed a rule demanding players stand, but now have that on hold while talking with the players union. The public has broken down into camps backing free speech and those condemning any disrespect of the anthem.
Then there’s Dolphins coach Adam Gase, who might be the most honest with his thoughts. “I’m coaching football, not dealing with all of this,” he said of the protests, even as his team is again central to the discussion.
At the heart of any protest is making people uncomfortable and hopefully view things differently. The players have succeeded at that first point. But if Stills, Wilson and others actually want the point of their protests to get heard over the anthem free-for-all, do they need another idea?
Kneel during the pregame coin flip? Kneel in the end zone after touchdowns?
There’s a level of bravery in what Stills has done the past three seasons. He’s made himself a target. He’s maintained a level of personal dignity, as well as football production, while at the center of a storm.
Reach out to him, if you don’t understand what he’s doing. Look at his website and Twitter account. That’s what he asks. You don’t have to agree with his ideas or the methods he’s taking.
We’d all agree that 15 minutes south of where Stills talked Thursday night, the village of Biscayne Park defines some dark problems. It’s not as fun as thinking about third-and-10. Nor, as this kneeling discussion has turned, is it as simple as supporting the national anthem.