Time to stop kneeling

NFLers can raise a fist or helmet to continue protest

Omar Kelly: There are better ways to protest; NFL to review policy.

Every time I sit down to write about anything regarding race, I’m paralyzed by fear.

As black journalist, the weight of the words I select are sometimes too heavy for my shoulders to carry, and the possible consequences — angering or alienating a certain segment of society — are sometimes too burdensome for my soul.

That’s the response I’ve developed from trauma I’ve experienced in my life because of one particular individual, who terrorized me and my family for over a decade.

He would drive his pickup truck through my lawn, ruining my grass with his oversized tires, and running over my mailbox every time I wrote about race in the Sun Sentinel.

Like clockwork, if I wrote a story, blog or column about race the very next day my lawn would be ruined, my mailbox would be knocked over, and a nasty note that featured the use of the N-word would be left in the destruction.

This routine didn’t stop until I reinforced my mailbox with concrete and it eventually messed up the grill of his truck when he tried to run it over after a piece I wrote about Randy Shannon becoming the University of Miami’s head coach.

I’ve since moved from that house, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about Mr. Pickup Truck every time I’m thinking about writing about race. That was his goal, and he achieved it. I bring this up because President Donald Trump — and now the NFL owners who will meet next week to decide whether teams can force players to stand for the national anthem — want professional athletes who choose to take a knee during the anthem to raise awareness for social injustice issues to think about what could hap-

pen if they continue to protest.

NFL owners like Dallas’ Jerry Jones and Miami’s Steve Ross are doing an about face when it comes to players kneeling during the anthem. Jones even went so far as to say that any player who protests during the anthem and, in his view, shows disrespect to the American flag will be benched and not play.

The NFL is a business after all and the owners don’t want protest by players to hurt their profit margin.

Only a handful of players were kneeling during the anthem at the start of the season until President Trump brought up the issue during a campaign rally, which led to many more players kneeling. And the President has continued to talk about NFL players taking a knee and “disrespecting our Anthem, Flag and Country” as he tweeted Tuesday morning.

It’s time for NFL players end this discussion about patriotism by choosing to stand for the national anthem, but lifting their fist, and maybe their helmets in the air.

Professional athletes who are continuing former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s cause need to take a page from Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who stood atop the medal podium at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City with their heads bowed and raised black-gloved fists in the air during the playing of the national anthem.

A raised fist is a symbol of solidarity and support. Isn’t that what this movement was all about before this patriotism distraction surfaced?

It’s time to call an audible on the anthem protests. It’s time for NFL players to avoid being label as unpatriotic by raising a fist instead of taking a knee.

Do that and we’ll then see what the point of contention, or better yet what the excuse is to continue avoiding the elephant in the room, which is that America remains a divided nation, and people prefer to ignore that because addressing it makes them feel uncomfortable.

It’s critically important that we learn to love ourselves, and one another. Support each other, and most importantly, stop fearing the repercussions of standing up, kneeling, speaking on, or raising a fist for what we believe in.

Omar Kelly