Colin Kaepernick - Is He Right?

     On September 1, 2016 the San Francisco 49ers' quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to drop to his knee during the playing of the National Anthem. Kaepernick, in doing this, silently, but also deafeningly, made his protest against the racial prejudices in our country known by kneeling to the anthem as if to plead America to live up to it's preachments.

                                                                                       

              

          "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color...                      To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." 

                                 -Colin Kaepernick

     

     

     Now, Kapernick's decision to make this loud statement against the nation's injustices against minorities was met with, of course, approving and disapproving opinions on whether this was the right thing for him to do. Was it really his place to bring something so political into the game of football? An unsaid understanding amongst athletes is an almost separation of church and state in that politics should be kept out and little should be said as to to avoid offending people. But is there an exception? Could Colin Kaepernick really be doing the right thing? I think, he just might be.

                                                
Because of what he's doing, Colin Kaepernick has been threatened and is said to be"undermining patriotism." But, the way I look at it, Kaepernick is doing anything but that. He is expressing his rights given to him by the First Amendment which guarantees the right to speak freely, or, to sit or stand in this respect. And, in going against the separation of church and state understanding, Kaepernick is able to actually use his power and influence to bring the injustices in the country to light rather than leaving them in the dark. Malcolm Jenkins, the Philadelphia Eagles corner-back and one of the many other NFL players who have taken on this stance with Colin Kaepernick, said: "The worst thing I think you can do as a football player is to have gotten to this stage, had the presence that you've had, and leave this game as just a football player." And Kaepernick, like Jenkins said, is not "just a football player", he is so much more now that he has sparked so many into joining him and has drawn so much attention not so much to himself, but to what he is standing, or rather kneeling, for. 



Gregory, Sean. "The Perilous Fight." Time Magazine. 2016. 38-40. Print. 

     

          

Spike Lee and Malcolm X

                                 
          The 1980's were a time of cultural combativeness and residing prejudices amongst the minority groups in America. More than a decade following the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968), the racist and prejudiced thinking that men like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King fought to put an end too were still very present in society. This societal fluent prejudice and discrimination was made a recurring topic in numerous film and literature pieces. One piece being Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing. 

          In this piece of work, Lee purposely uses the societal stereotypes that many minority groups were held too. In doing this, an atmosphere of undeniable tension and inescapable cultural warfare is created in this small, predominately black, Brooklyn neighborhood. And when not only cultures clash, but power clashes as well, a young black man is murdered by the hands of the police. The question then becomes: What could the "right thing to do" possibly be? Could it be violence? Or could there be another way? 

                                          
          In Lee's piece, once Radio Raheem, the young black man, is murdered by the excessive force of the white police men, violence ensues. An angry mob of distraught black people, with the white police men having fled the scene, target Sal, the man who had been in disagreement with Raheem and who the blame and anger was by default, passed on too. A garbage can is thrown through the window of Sal's pizzeria by one of his own employee's, Mookie, a young black man who knew Raheem and witnessed his death. This one act of violence ignites the already distraught mob and later leads to the loothing and burning of the pizzeria. 

          Malcolm X once said: "...I have to preserve the right to do what is necessary to bring an end to that situation, and it doesn't mean that I advocate violence, but at the same time I am not against using violence in self-defense. I don't even call it violence when it's self-defense. I call it intelligence." This stance on violence can be applied and considered when analyzing the actions of the mob and Mookie in particular. Mookie was the spark that provoked the mob to violence when he threw the garbage can through Sal's window. But was this violence justified? Could it really have been the "right thing" to do? And, in looking at Malcolm X's quote, one could argue that yes, the violence was in fact justified. The violence was in defense of a young man who is now dead because of people's unrest and prejudice. It wasn't in "self-defense" as Malcolm X states, but how is a man who is already dead defend himself from the injustices that took his life? 

          In the end, doing the right thing is not as black and white as one might hope. It's ambiguous. It's open to a wide range of morals and beliefs that varies from one individual to the next. So the question still remains: What could the "right thing to do" possibly be?