Colin Kaepernick has been protesting for a while now. At first, it was not immediately notices because “at that point, he simply sat on the benches during the US national anthem” (Mindock, 2017, p. 4). After a while, he later went from sitting during the national anthem to kneeling where everybody can see him clearly. Kaepernick said that he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people, and people of color” (Mindock, 2017, p. 6). There were several other players that joined him in kneeling, but it did not really gain any real traction league-wide. A lot of viewers deemed it disrespectful to the country. The reason Colin Kaepernick was kneeling was not because he wanted to disrespect America, he was protesting because he is aware that “police brutality has become an incredibly polarizing and contentious issue in American life” (Mindock, 2017, p. 7). …show more content…
He basically said that “he wished that NFL players would be fired for kneeling during the national anthem” (Mindock, 2017, p. 8). He said that “when somebody disrespects our flag” the owners should “get the son of a bitch off the field right now” (Mindock, 2017, p. 9). After that, NFL teams would either not go out onto the field, or allow their players to kneel of they chose to. Some teams would also lock arms with each other surrounding the players who chose to kneel. The reason people are angry, including Donald Trump, is because they view “the protest as a protest of the American flag instead of against public brutality and racism in the US” (Mindock, 2017, p. 12). This isn’t the first time athletes have made their political opinions public. Athletes like Muhammed Ali and Lebron James used their platform to express their views. Kaepernick was criticized for introducing politics into sports, but it has been going on for quite a