But, Kap — the flag is on your side

My issue with Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem has nothing to do with the righteousness of his cause. His concerns about racial injustice are serious and legitimate, even if his characterization of police officers’ bias and lack of professional training is a bit sweeping.

Nor can I get too bothered with the argument over whether an NFL game is a fitting place for a political statement. A venue that sells $12.50 beers, employs beefy security guards to break up fights in the stands and showcases scantily clad cheerleaders is not exactly sacred ground. As for those who suggest ingratitude or hypocrisy by an athlete who made millions in this nation: I respect people who achieve wealth and fame but are willing to risk their comfort to speak out against barriers to opportunity and justice for the many left behind.

Here’s what bothers me about the 49ers quarterback’s protest: its symbolic target. The American flag. One of the regrettable mistakes of the great 1960s movements against the Vietnam War and racial injustice was to equate the flag and other trappings of patriotism — and the word patriotic itself — with the status quo. No party, no ideology, no people in power ever hold a copyright on the flag, the national anthem or a claim of patriotism.

“When there’s significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent ... this country is representing people the way that it’s supposed to ... I’ll stand,” Kaepernick told reporters Sunday.

A tribute to the flag or the national anthem is not an acknowledgment of a perfect union; it is an affirmation of our commitment to the neverending quest for “a more perfect union” pledged by the framers of the U.S. Constitution. There is nothing unpatriotic about deploring racial discrimination and police brutality in emphatic terms, as Kaepernick has done.

Kaepernick follows a distinguished line of athletes who have paid a price for daring to call out injustice in America: perhaps none more than Muhammad Ali when he refused induction into the Army in 1967, and Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos with their clenched-fist protest on the victory stand in 1968.

Then, as now, angry critics will wave a flag in a dissenter’s face. It’s an unfortunate dynamic.

The flag is no less on the side of patriotic Americans willing to demand a more perfect union.