Bryant: Kaepernick critics ignore the message behind his actions
IN 1994, WHEN Colin Kaepernick was 7 years old, Congress gave the federal government the power to oversee local police departments. According to The Washington Post, when the Justice Department has exercised this power -- in cities such as LA, Detroit, New Orleans, Baltimore, Ferguson and 20 others that were assigned independent monitors -- it found patterns of excessive-force violations in 64 percent of cases. Now Milwaukee, in such turmoil it once requested government assistance, is the latest under DOJ investigation.
The fragile relationship between police and African-Americans is in deep crisis, anecdotally and statistically, and when Kaepernick expressed his awakening by refusing to stand for the national anthem, he and any peers considering similarly expressing themselves learned how society will respond to their citizenship and dissent: by using a playbook of distortion and misdirection as old and predictable as the Packer sweep.
For the past two years, after Michael Brown's killing in Ferguson gave rise to a volatile America divided by police and protest, the sports machine -- rooted in the structure of black player/white media/white ticket buyer/white owner -- was largely silent. Some prominent black players expressed support for the protesters; virtually no white male players did. With the exception of the Baltimore Orioles, teams have ignored the grief of their large black fan bases and abandoned their historical neutrality on social issues in favor of hero worship of police at the ballpark, supported by a white mainstream that is rarely the target of police aggression.
Kaepernick protested, and the reaction was predictable. White athletes and the predominantly white media, once largely silent, finally spoke but said very little about the substance of his dissent. They opted for intimidation by pile-on. Athletes and pundits were canvassed, leaving the likes of Drew Brees and Boomer Esiason -- who have no record of scholarship, interest or knowledge regarding police brutality -- to distort Kaepernick's position into a lazy, pseudo-erudite conversation about patriotism. Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson said something while saying nothing. "I understand and respect the cause ... but I love the flag," he said, only adding to a false argument designed to reinforce the foundation of the establishment.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17445600/san-francisco-49ers-qb-colin-kaepernick-message-was-ignored-actions
Transcript of Colin Kaepernick'€™s comments after preseason finale
http://www.espn.com/blog/san-francisco-49ers/post/_/id/19126/transcript-of-colin-kaepernicks-comments-after-preseason-finale
