Taking A Knee
Colin Kaepernick. Two words. One name. Many narratives.
For every action a reaction. One knee. Two Americas. Split between liberal and conservative, black and white, right and wrong. Except what is right and wrong in this argument? Kaepernick – hero or fool? Is he both? Or neither? And what does it really matter either way.
I contemplated this as I sat in morning traffic in Los Angeles in early October, hoping that a journey around the United States might help me better understand both sides. From coast to coast, east to west, and back again, taking in Chicago, Kansas City, Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Baton Rouge and Montgomery.
I’d hoped to find answers. Instead I found a nation polarised. My destination on that morning was the Fox Television lot on West Pico Boulevard, home to shows like The Simpsons and Gotham. As I crawled along in the traffic I saw a sign for the Los Angeles Museum of Mediation which was sat almost equidistant between the beauty of Santa Monica and the dangers that lurk on Crenshaw Avenue, home of the Bloods and the Crips. It was sweet irony. And although I was less than a mile from its entrance, as far as this story is concerned, it could have been light years away.
To better understand this apologue, you could reach as far back as you like in American history to discover why young, predominantly black millionaires are using their national platform to address the ills of social injustice and racial inequality in the US. From slavery to the Klan, Selma to Jim Crow, Rosa Parks to Rodney King and more recently Charlottesville, these were all indicators for Colin Kaepernick and the millions of others who side with his stance. But the tipping points for the former 49er passer were the killings by police of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, of 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, and of Philando Castille, shot in front of his partner and daughter after being stopped because of a broken tail light. Castille, a nutrition services supervisor at a high school in Minnesota, had been pulled over by police on 52 separate occasions before his shooting.
“All of us as Americans should be troubled by these shootings,” said then President Obama in the aftermath of Castille’s death. “Because these are not isolated incidents. They’re symptomatic of a broader set of racial disparities that exist in our criminal justice system.” Disparities such as why African Americans are 30% more likely than whites to be pulled over. Three times more likely to be searched; shot by police twice as many times as whites. In fact, in the year after Colin Kaepernick first started kneeling, more than 224 African Americans were killed by police. Add it all up and you begin to understand why Kaepernick and others decided to make a stand by taking a knee.
“I’m going to stand with the people that are being oppressed,” he told journalists in the San Francisco 49ers’ locker room, two days after being spotted sitting on the bench for a preseason game. “To me, this is something that has to change. When there’s significant chance and I feel that the flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, and this county is representing people the way it’s supposed to, I’ll stand. This is because I’m seeing things happen to people that don’t have a voice, people that don’t have a platform to talk and have their voices heard, and effect change. So I’m in the position where I can do that and I’m going to do that for people who can’t. It’s something that can unify this country. If we have these real conversations that are uncomfortable for a lot of people, there’s a better chance of understanding of where both sides are coming from.”
As I drove from Baton Rouge to Montgomery, Alabama late one night, I was pulled over by the police. Unsure as to what I’d done, I sat there as the officer approached the window with a flashlight so blinding that I had to look away. After explaining that I’d driven half a mile without lights from a rest stop, he wanted to make sure I hadn’t been drinking – I hadn’t. Then he asked me if I was carrying a weapon. In itself, it seems so ludicrous for a Brit to contemplate that, and I said not. He inspected my passport. A minute or two passed when a second officer approached the passenger side window. As he moved through my line of sight in the rear-view mirror, I saw him draw his weapon. For a moment, I was petrified.
A 43-year-old white Englishman. How would I have been treated if I were a 43-year old black American? Perhaps in exactly the same way. Perhaps not.
In the end, I was free to go, but not before a conversation with the officers about the kneeling debate – they were both against it – and about what it meant to be American. And that’s at the heart of this debate. Colin Kaepernick has been accused of being un-American. That somehow his decision to take a knee for the national anthem makes him less of a patriot than, say, the President. The same President who referred to kneeling players as ‘sons of bitches’, who should be ‘fired by their respective owners’. When Kaepernick refused to stand during the Star Spangled Banner, people were angry all over America. Sure, their emotions were tied up in various tendrils of patriotism, but many of them felt burned, duped, hoodwinked, bamboozled.
One man who changed the early narrative of this allegory was Nate Boyer. A former Green Beret in the US Special Forces, he was the long snapper for the University of Texas for three years, carrying the flag onto the field before every home game. Boyer made it onto the Seattle Seahawks roster and played one game, in the 2016 preseason, against the Denver Broncos. A man for whom the flag means everything. Beyond everything. Who cried when the anthem was played at Century Link Field. A true Patriot some might say. And the man who got Kaepernick to kneel, not sit. “When I first saw him I made a snap judgement,” Boyer tells Gridiron on the Dallas Cowboys practice facility in Frisco, Texas. “I was angry, I was disappointed… I was disgusted. I grew up a Niners fan and I was pulling for him. And the irony is I had this signed football from him that sat in my parents’ house. And now he just pis*** on my flag. That’s what I thought.”
The Army Times newspaper reached out to Boyer and asked if he’d write an opinion piece on the issue and so he sat and penned an open letter to Kaepernick. “I wanted to write it as if I was sat there in the room with him for five minutes and I could tell him about how I reacted to it. Not anyone else’s feelings, just mine. And that’s what I did. And then the article came out.” He leans back in his seat and plays with his baseball cap. “Everything started going crazy, social media started blowing up, people getting in contact, it was madness.”
And then something extraordinary happened.
“My phone started ringing and it was Colin’s publicist. She said that Colin had been touched by my letter and wanted to know if I could meet him. He had a preseason game in San Diego that night so he sent an Uber to pick me up and I went down to see him. We sat in the hotel lobby for about two hours and we just talked. Not about this issue, at least not in the beginning. And he was very open to listening. He was planning on sitting that night and so I asked if there was any other way that he could ‘take a stand’ without sitting for the anthem. And so we agreed on this middle ground, that I would stand next to him if he agreed to take a knee. To me, taking a knee is respectful. It’s what we would do if we were to visit one of our fallen brothers at Arlington. It’s what religious leaders do. Heck, someone gets injured on the field, the players gather round and take a knee until he either walks off under his own power or he gets carted off. It’s about respect.”
Except Boyer and Kaepernick got little respect that night.
“I got called a lotta things from both sides. I was told I was a disgrace to the Green Beret by a couple Green Berets, one of ‘em I was friends with,” Boyer says. “And that hurts, you know? It really does. But then I also had a lot of people in the military and people in the Special Forces that said, ‘Man, I hadn’t really thought about that before. And I think you’re onto something’.
“I don’t necessarily agree with what he’s doing. But I respect his right to do what he’s doing. And that’s the important thing. If you don’t like it, then you have every right to feel that way. Whether he approached it in the right way is not the issue. What matters is that he started a discussion. I would love more than anything for everyone to feel that pride for country that I feel. And hopefully one day Colin will too.”
Aside from kneeling, Kaepernick tried to make an impact off the field with his words and actions. He said he’d donate $1m of his salary to various organisations, with another $100,000 pledged on the first day of the 2017-18 NFL season, to organisations focused on supporting the homeless and lobbying for immigration rights, supporting young baseball players and ending child incarceration. He addressed false rumours that he was Muslim, spread by people who treat that as an insult. “I don’t want to kneel forever,” he would say. But he also acknowledged that change doesn’t happen overnight. He received death threats, but also wore socks with police officers depicted as pigs (he’d been practising in the socks for weeks). “Cops are being given paid leave for killing people,” he said out loud. “That’s not right. That’s not right by anyone’s standards.”
All of this happened in just two months, between August 14 and October 14 2016. On the field, his play suffered. He’d been a declining force for a while, but were his protests helping or hindering his career? Was it just part of the natural curve of lessening talent? Or something greater? Was he being swallowed by a movement he’d started?
For Jason Whitlock, controversial presenter of Fox Sports One’s morning sports show, it’s all about his talent or lack thereof. “What he’s doing is non-strategic,” he tells Gridiron from his dressing room on the Fox lot in the north of Los Angeles. “I see it as something he fell into. I think quite frankly Colin Kaepernick was frustrated about losing his starting job and the frustration over that contributed to him having some negative feelings about race in America. So I think his initial sitting down during the national anthem was a combination of his career falling apart and about his… he has an interesting racial background. Being mixed race, raised by an all-white family in the suburbs and so I think all those factors led to him sitting and kneeling. I don’t think he was mentally in a position to take on the responsibility as leader of a movement. It made sense for him in the moment to say I’m sitting down over police oppression and that probably played a role. But I think if he were the starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers this would have never happened.”
Whitlock talked about a whole host of reasons why he felt Kaepernick was the wrong man for this. At times, it was an uncomfortable conversation: he’d previously referred to him as ‘Martin Luther Cornrow’ and he’d questioned Kaepernick’s ‘blackness’. Does he still stand by that? “I’m not going to get into a conversation about who is or isn’t black enough, but my comments are about is he secure enough in his identity, given the situation surrounding that identity: abandoned by his parents, one white, one black, raised by a white family. Anybody with any life experience or common sense would know that a young person in that situation has some identity struggles.”
We sat for an hour and talked about the subject, about his obsession with chess to overcome a gambling addiction, about things he’d loved on Netflix – Black Mirror – and things he wanted to start watching as soon as he got “some damn time”: Stranger Things. But it all kept coming back to Kaepernick. “We as African Americans aren’t strategic enough in fighting inequality or institutional racism. Kneeling down on your job while being paid millions of pounds isn’t a great sacrifice. Listen, I’m all for fighting the ills of society but I want to do it in a way that’s effective. If you sit down during the national anthem, you’re not provoking a conversation about oppression; you’re provoking a conversation about whether it’s appropriate to sit down during the national anthem. That’s what most of the conversation has been about.”
By the time Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers on March 1 this year, his football career and everything that had gone before on the field had been washed away, replaced by conversations that divided America in almost as drastic a fashion as the election of Donald Trump had. In a way, what was happening with Kaepernick was a microcosm of the election. On March 20, the new President bragged that NFL owners “don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump”.
But as Kaepernick remained unemployed and the new season rolled around, the debate about kneeling fell to the background. On opening day, it was resurrected somewhat as a few players took a knee, but the numbers were significantly down. In Week 2, less than 10 knelt or raised a fist, with many choosing to do their talking away from the field, taking on community work with organisations like RISE, the Ross Initiative for Sports Equality, run by Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. They would speak out at town hall meetings or take part in ride-alongs with local police to see the world through their eyes, to start a conversation about race and education and bring people together.
And then the President spoke at a rally in Alabama and poured hate on the dying embers of a story.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now? Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, ‘That guy that disrespects our flag, he’s fired.’ And that owner, they don’t know it [but] they’ll be the most popular person in this country.”
It was incendiary. It was hugely unpopular around the NFL, but it played perfectly to Trump’s core. He was winning where it mattered: with his mainly white populous who saw the protests as nothing more than privileged millionaires disrespecting America. Suddenly the debate became less about social injustice and racial inequality and more about the purity of the flag and the national anthem, of black versus white. “The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture,” said commissioner Roger Goodell. “Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.”
The league was angry, and the players apoplectic. The owners found themselves in a difficult position, especially the eight who’d made significant contributions to Trump’s election campaign. For one weekend, it seemed as though anything might happen. Who would kneel and how many? Would it just be black players? Did this debate need a significant white player to come out and kneel? When Aaron Rodgers put a photo on Instagram of him kneeling at practice alongside Jordy Nelson, Devante Adams and Randall Cobb, people wondered if the socially conscious Rodgers was set to make perhaps the biggest statement of all.
In the end he didn’t, but more than 250 players did, including Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, the most high-profile white player. But as the debate raged, the narrative changed. The fairly ludicrous sight of Jerry Jones kneeling before the anthem was tokenism at its finest. It wasn’t a statement about anything that Kaepernick ‘stood’ for. Some applauded, while the right turned their bile against Kaepernick. “I can’t find words that appropriately express how heartbroken I am to see the constant smears against Colin,” wrote 49ers teammate Eric Reid in the New York Times. “A person who helped start the movement with only the very best of intentions.”
After Trump’s statements and the subsequent reactions, could anyone really remember what those intentions were?
“The President is a troll,” says Whitlock. “And he trolled the NFL and the players took the bait, very emotionally. It’s not best to react to a troll if you’re trying to be strategic. Tump has trolled everyone. Everyone. Look up what he said about Ariana Huffington, that she was ugly on the inside and the outside and that her husband made the right decision to leave her. I don’t remember the reaction but I’m pretty sure it didn’t involve taking a knee during the national anthem. She probably handled it like an adult. What he said about NFL players is not surprising and not really very offensive.”
Yet the backlash has begun from teams. Jerry Jones announced after the Week 5 loss to Green Bay that kneeling Cowboys wouldn’t be allowed to play. Adam Gase, when asked, said that his Miami players would stand on the sideline for the anthem and that if they wanted to kneel, they’d remain in the locker room until it was over. And then the NFL, seemingly such advocates for the freedom of speech of its players, reined back with Goodell announcing the protest was threatening to “erode the game’s unifying power” and calling on teams to resolve the issue. “It has become a barrier to honest conversations and making real progress. Like many of our fans, we believe that everyone should stand for the national anthem. It is an important moment in our game. We want to honour our flag and our country, and our fans expect that of us. We also care deeply about our players and respect their opinions and concerns about critical social issues.” The statement came as the commissioner toured Miami schools and met local law enforcement as part of an education programme backed by long-term Dolphin kneelers, Kenny Stills and Michael Thomas.
Where things go from here remain to be seen. Where Kaepernick goes is another question entirely. Jason Whitlock believes his ship has sailed as an NFL player. “I think it’s 70/30 against him ever playing again,” he tells us. “I don’t think he’s all that interested in playing football. I think he’s interested in getting another fat pay cheque from the NFL, but if he were truly interested, he’d be talking about it. He’d be calling coaches and begging for jobs publically and privately. He’s just not into the game anymore. Loves the cheque and the celebrity it provides. But loving the game? No.” So is he being blackballed? “Yeah, at this point he is,” says Whitlock. “Harsh as it sounds, I wouldn’t want to take that risk as an NFL coach or owner. And I don’t blame them for being afraid of him.”
But Patriots owner Robert Kraft disagrees. In his suite ahead of the Patriots’ Thursday night Week 5 win against Tampa, he tells Radio 5 Live, “I don’t agree with that. I’ve never heard anyone talk about blocking him or excluding him.”
So who’s right? And does it matter? Perhaps if Kaepernick is to make a real difference then he needs to answer a higher calling. Nate Boyer, the man who got him to kneel, agrees. “He may never play again but I don’t fear that because he’s in a much more important position. He could be the face of something and really move this conversation forward if he’s willing to continue to listen and be open-minded and embrace those who disagree with him. And I think Colin has the potential to be an icon. But it will take a swallowing of pride and a humility and an understanding that just because you believe something, it doesn’t mean it’s the only answer.”
As I sat in the departure lounge at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport waiting for my flight home, I contemplated this story and what it means to so many people. I thought about the amazing Texas Ranger I’d spoken to who’d fought alongside Pat Tillman in Afghanistan and was there the night that the former Arizona Cardinal had been killed. He told me that it was his belief that Tillman would have knelt alongside Kaepernick. I thought of the high-school players at Glades Central in Florida who’d knelt for the anthem ahead of their game, all under the supervision of their head coach: former Raider, Jessie Hester. And the fans outside the Chiefs/Washington Monday-nighter who told me they’d boo if Kelce caught a touchdown pass.
And I thought about Colin Kaepernick: once a hero, now bad, previously talented, then lost the Niners the Super Bowl, recently ‘radicalised’, currently ‘hates the United States of America’. And I thought of the America I love and the people that truly believe those statements.
Life’s most liberating moment is when you refuse to be enslaved by the opinions and expectations of others. Colin Kaepernick is liberated. But this debate means he may never truly be free.