Let Him Sit Down

Oh my goodness.

So Colin Kaepernick set the world on fire by not standing up during the National Anthem in an NFL game and then stating:

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color . . . To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."  1

Lots of reactions to this - including this own coach who said "it's not my right to tell him not to do something."

Coach Kelly - of course it is in your rights to say what he should do.  Just as it is Kaepernick's right to say he doesn't support the flag, it is your right to say the flag is not a racist emblem.  You have the right to remind him that this is the same flag that came up over the hills of Maryland and then Tennessee and Georgia that eventually paved the way for a Constitutional Amendment that ended slavery.  It's not about the flag.  It's about who we are as people.

We don't change things by pulling out - we change things by standing up.  Getting involved.

In fact we all have a right to speak up and say, "look, the guy is a football player - we probably shouldn't take him too seriously."  I mean this is the same guy who got fined by the NFL for racial slurs in 2014.  The same guy who pronounced doom on Houston by Tweeting Houston flooding pictures. 2  Come on, people - let's take his sentiment seriously (we have a lot to work on in our nation) - but you and I can do a better job at leading this country toward change by the simple actions we take on our way to work, in our jobs and the communities we find ourselves in.

So let him sit down. 

The rest of us can live up to the ideals of what this country should stand for (and what our faith should lead us to do).