On Colin Kaepernick

Image by Mike Morbeck

Published in Grand Junction Sentinel

By Wayne Hare

On October 15, the Sentinel published an op-ed based on Colin Kaepernick’s protests. Kaepernick, of course, has been accused of disrespecting the flag, the military and the police for taking a knee on the football field during the National Anthem. 

Let’s get to the ‘honest conversation’ that the author County Assessor Ken Brownlee demanded. The National Anthem is a song written by a slaveholder and sung passionately by Americans. Kaepernick is bringing attention to how far we as a country continue to miss the mark of the values alluded to in our anthem. In bringing attention to numerous tragic shootings of black Americans by police officers, Kaepernick is neither disrespecting our police nor our military. He’s pleading with America to live up to our ideals, not our rhetoric. He’s challenging us to continue to march towards a more perfect union. 

As a black Marine, I recall with still-stunning sadness how happy and relieved many of my fellow white Marines were upon hearing of the assassination of Reverend Martin Luther King. At the time King, like Kaepernick, was despised as being ungrateful.  Too big for his britches. The reverence for King came years later as the country struggled to come to grips with the harsh realities of racism. 

The author conflates Kaepernick with Black Lives Matter – a movement formed out of despair, but in peace to draw attention to the often-fraught relationship between black Americans and police.  Nobody in that movement has ever suggested that “only black lives matter” but that black lives should simply be as sacred as all lives. Why write such dishonest and inflammatory statements? 

Protesting is not only a right, but a part of our national fabric. Kaepernick is following a long tradition of athletes protesting for a better society that goes back in modern times to at least the 1968 Olympics. As NC Senator Terry Sanford reminded us, "We need to remind ourselves that protest - even obnoxious and blood boiling protest - is the fundamental ingredient of a free people".

A couple of years ago I confronted a gentleman who was wearing a t-shirt proclaiming to harm anybody who burned the flag. I thanked him for supporting us vets, and then explained to him that I fought to protect all of our rights, not just those that he or I personally approve of. Isn’t that among  the values our anthem is supposed to portray?  

And since we’re talking, let’s talk about the moral authority of organizations and individuals to criticize a peaceful protest when they remained totally mute on those events that sparked the protest?   Where was the author, the Kaepernick haters, or the NFL for that matter when 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police for playing with a toy gun? Or when John Crawford was killed in Wal-Mart for handling an air gun he was considering buying for his son? Or when Freddie Grey was tossed alive and healthy into a police van and tossed out injured, suffering, and dying? Or when Eric Garner was strangled to death in NYC for illegally selling cigarettes?  Did the NFL and the author only find their outrage when a talented football player peacefully exercised his constitutional right to say, “Let’s do better”?

Let’s avoid getting confused. Kaepernick has the right to protest peacefully against cops who abuse their power and authority. Decent Americans of all stripes -  you and I, even cops, should be supporting him. Rogue cops endanger all cops. Police, unlike the rest of us, are granted a tremendous amount of authority to make very serious decisions. With authority like that, don’t we all want only good cops? As I have said to my many law enforcement friends, there is nothing better than a good cop. And nothing worse than a bad one. Who wouldn’t agree with that? Who wouldn’t advocate or protest for that? 

Today Kaepernick was presented with the Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. Beyoncé, who presented the award said, “It’s been said that racism is so American that when we protest racism, some assume we’re protesting America.” Kaepernick is asking for the exact same thing that Dr. Martin Luther King asked for. “All we ask is that America live up to what it wrote down.” Why aren’t we all asking for that? 

And again, I’m reminded of the Reverend King; “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”

We’re living through the most hateful, most divisive times I can remember. Let’s be less hateful, less divisive. Let’s make America continue to be great. And as the author advocated for but didn’t live up to, let’s not use lies to provocate. 

Wayne Hare is a retired U.S. Park ranger and decorated combat Marine. He writes freelance from Grand Junction CO.