Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, right, began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem during the 2016 preseason to protest police brutality and racial injustice in the United States.
Starting in the 2016 NFL season, San Francisco 49er’s quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, began taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem pregame; Kaepernick was choosing to protest police brutality towards Black American men and women by kneeling during the anthem. Despite choosing a very harmless form of protest, he has received more scrutiny and backlash than any athlete I’ve seen in my lifetime. Kaepernick was joined by teammate Eric Reid on September 1, 2016, the first time that the two chose to kneel- Kaepernick had remained seated previously during the anthem, but it went mainly unnoticed the first few times. Fast forward to the current season, and you will likely see many players choosing to kneel or make some sort of gesture during the anthem in protest of the same injustices. The argument of protesting the anthem has been one of the NFL’s most hot topics since that night in September, splitting sports fans and attracting political coverage from various media sources. Kaepernick, who hasn’t played a down of football since the close of the 2016 season, has been one of the most vocal activists in the fight against racial injustices in America.
On September 10, 2020, just over four years since Kapernick’s movement began, the Kansas City Chiefs kicked off the NFL season at home against the Houston Texans. This exhibition was the first football game since COVID-19 hit the US in March; even through the excitement of finally starting the football season, Americans were reminded just how blatant racial injustice really is in their country. Prior to the game, the Houston Texans chose not to take the field for the national anthem; rather, they came out of the locker room after the anthem ended and met the Chiefs at midfield. The two teams stood at midfield, linked arms, and showed a moment of silence in solidarity with those fighting for racial equality. In a nearly empty stadium, the gesture was met by “boo’s” from the fans in Kansas City. It is still up for debate whether the Kansas City fans were booing the Texans for choosing to skip the anthem or if they were booing the moment of silence in general; nonetheless, a seemingly harmless and unified gesture was met with outrage from football fans around the country.
In order to fully understand how that disgraceful response came about, we need to look at the sociopolitical climate of the country in the past decade. Even before the 2010’s, Black Americans have been fighting for their undeniable rights and equalities since the creation of the United States; it is not uncommon in America for people to protest the treatment of people of color, and it never has been. I am not denying that racial injustice has been an issue for much longer than the past decade, but I am looking to focus on the incident described in the previous paragraph. Therefore, I will begin the analysis in 2012, when George Zimmerman was let off for the murder of Trayvon Martin. This was perhaps one of the most polarizing moments in American society of the past decade; an unarmed, Black teenager was shot by a member of the neighborhood watch in Sanford, Florida. According to Britannica, Zimmerman claimed that Martin looked like he was “…up to no good, or he’s on drugs or something.”. The incident sparked many athletes to speak up against racial profiling and injustices, including Lebron James and the Miami Heat. It also sparked a conversation among celebrities about how they can use their platform and voice to bring about change in their communities. Sadly, this was not the last incident where an unarmed, innocent person of color was killed. Most recently, police officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis knelt on the neck of George Floyd- an unarmed black man- and suffocated him to death after being told that Floyd had allegedly used a counterfeit $20 bill at a deli on May 25, 2020. Chauvin was accompanied by multiple officers who chose to sit back and say nothing, despite Floyd crying out for his life. In the middle of one of the most deadly global pandemics, Americans watched an innocent black man have his life taken on camera. The recurring theme in cases like this are
the response from the police and those in power. In an overwhelming number of these cases, the people responsible for the deaths of innocent Black men and women see little to no punishment or consequences. In the March 2020 case of Breonna Taylor, police officers who served a no-knock warrant at her Louisville home shot and killed Taylor- a 26-year old emergency medical technician. No charges were brought on the officers responsible for her death, and they continue to walk free today. There are an overwhelming number of cases like Taylor’s and Floyd’s where the guilty party receives little to no punishment. These incidents only made the voices of those outraged even louder; this brings us to September, when the Chiefs and Texans chose to stand together against racial injustice.
Although it may have been an independent incident, the boos heard in the stadium that night reminded us just how much work needed to be done to end racial unjustice in the US. In a country that was built, literally, on the backs of African slaves, we seem to forget that American society has racial structures that date back to the creation of the nation. Racial stereotypes and assumptions are so deeply embedded in American culture that many don’t even notice how serious the current issue is. So how can we fix an issue that is so deep that it’s nearly invisible? For starters, the dialogue we’ve seen over the past decade is a great first step in the right direction. Since we’re looking at an incident within the sports world, I want to focus on the contributions that high-profile athletes have made to start this dialogue. Gestures like kneeling for the anthem, wearing “Black Lives Matter” clothing before games, and speaking out to the media are all great ways to capture the attention of the people who will eventually make meaningful change: the youth. As Indian theorist Gayatri Spivak explained in her essay, Can the Subaltern Speak, groups of people who have been deemed inferior by Western society have difficulties having their voices heard. Spivak wrote about how India was deemed a “third-world” country by Western culture as a means of delegitimizing the country, allowing Great Britain to colonize them. In the case of Black Americans’ fight for equality, up until, really, the late 1960’s Black men and women didn’t have a voice because people in positions of power- namely white men- did not allow them to. Looking at athletes’ use of their platforms, we can see that more than just those affected are outraged by the blatant injustice. Even casual sports fans can see these silent protests and realize how divided we are racially. The theoretical “Western society” in this case are those in charge of the police department and the American justice system. By not responding appropriately to these incidents, people in positions of power are effectively sweeping the issue under the rug in an attempt to maintain the current racial power structures. The racial power structures I’m referring to take the form of what German philosopher Georg Hegel would describe as the “master-slave dialectic”. In his writings, Hegel describes natural human desire for recognition and how it drives us; he argues that, in order to obtain that recognition, we compare ourselves to those around us. What ensues is a struggle for recognition between two people, where one person- the “master”- gains recognition at the expense of someone else’s identity- the “slave”. Applying this to the racial struggle in America, white men gained their recognition by dehumanizing Black men and women and deeming them inferior; recognition, in this case, is political and social power. While this may have worked at the culmination of the United States and during early civil rights movements, there are many people in America now that may not be directly affected by these incidents but are just as outraged and appalled by the clear miscarriage of justice and suppression of Black voices. We’re living in a world where Black Americans have more of a voice than ever, and that is progress in my opinion; however, it can’t stop there.
I don’t claim to have the answers, and I don’t know if anyone does at this point. I would argue that the solution to racial injustice in America starts with a dialogue and needs to be followed up by the education of our youth. What happened that night in September was shocking to see, but not all that surprising. It was indicative of the social and political climate of America today. So where do we go from here? Situations like those mentioned previously can’t go unnoticed; we need to continue to call people out when we see clear forms racial injustice. I don’t believe there is an overnight fix, and I can acknowledge that it will take a lot of time before we see real change. But Americans need to come together, now more than ever, and admit that there is still a racial struggle in America.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/06/01/colin-kaepernick-kneeling-history/
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/11/us/nfl-chiefs-texans-unity-spt-trnd/index.html
https://www.britannica.com/event/shooting-of-Trayvon-Martin
https://nypost.com/2020/05/28/everything-we-know-about-the-death-of-george-floyd/
Can the Subaltern Speak, Gayatri Spivak
Master-Slave Dialectic, Georg Hegel