Colin Kaepernick’s America

| published September 2, 2016 |

By Earl Perkins, Thursday Review features editor

San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick is well within his rights to sit through the United States’ national anthem prior to National Football League games, saying he refuses to stand for a country that allows racial inequality. However, the flag represents him, everyone in uniform, and all citizens of this nation—not just the happy ones.

Local, state and federal governments in America have probably made thousands of decisions I find reprehensible, but I understand the freedoms I benefit from on a daily basis have been purchased and defended by those in uniform. Based on the fact that Kaepernick’s talents seem to have fallen off a cliff—he's lost his starting job to Blaine Gabbert and may soon be cut from the San Fran roster—maybe he's seeking a new gig. He is probably moving on, possibly to be the latest spokesman for the Black Lives Matter movement.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media's Steve Wyche, confirming Pro Football Talk's original report. "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."

The football superstar has also been photographed at practices wearing socks which depict pig-like creatures dressed in blue police uniforms. On the quarterback’s Instagram account, he responded to a Sports Illustrated discussion of the socks this way:

“I wore these socks in the past because the rogue cops who are allowed to hold positions in police departments not only put the community in danger, but also put cops that have the right intentions in danger by creating an atmosphere of distrust and tension.”

Several police unions and law enforcement organizations have called the socks disrespectful and downright crass. Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, says that Kaepernick’s socks are an offensive slap in the face of hundreds of thousands of hard-working cops nationwide, and he blames the NFL for allowing such behavior to go unchecked.

“It’s just ridiculous that the same league that prohibits the Dallas Cowboys from honoring the slain officers in their community with their uniforms stands silent when Kaepernick is dishonoring police officers with what he’s wearing on the field,” Johnson told USA Today on Friday.

The 49ers signal caller is trending past more than a million on the internet, for something that's been front-page news since the Ferguson, Missouri death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014. There have been an inordinately large number of officer-involved shootings—especially instances of white cops shooting black citizens—and the discussion must continue, but a billionaire has made the BLM movement and ancillary groups his pet projects, sowing animosity and discontent. His primary agenda is to create anarchy and destabilize the United States, with an ultimate goal of benefiting financially from the crisis.

Kaepernick, who matriculated at the University of Nevada and is certainly no dummy, recently held interviews telling the world that he did extensive research on the subject, so I'm cutting him no slack for being ignorant of the facts. He's been worshiped as a God because he possessed the ability to play a game at its top level, which to many people translates into him knowing all there is to know about everything. But his actions denigrate and disrespect not only those in blue, but every citizen of this land.

Meanwhile, the NFL is drawing editorial heat from a variety of quarters for what is perceived as a metastasizing tone-deafness on many social issues, whether it was the violence against women and domestic abuse issues raised during 2013 and 2014, its muddled handling of so-called Deflategate and similar rule-breaking scandals, or what many in the public perceive as a cash-based alignment toward certain forms of subtle and not-so-subtle protest, one example being Beyonce’s 2016 Super Bowl performance, widely regarded as a political statement slamming cops and embracing the values of Black Panthers.

Sports and America make such strange bedfellows. At one time it was gladiators doing the bidding of adoring masses, but that has spiraled downward into drugs, prostitution, murder, various other deaths, and numerous maladies associated with regular if dysfunctional society. Kaepernick obviously knows the backlash has brought on numerous killings and beatings of police and white people throughout the nation merely for their skin pigment, which he chose to not mention, which says to me he is promoting these actions.

There has been hate and animosity since this nation's founding, and we're talking across all lines—race, religion, ethnicity, nation of origin, age, region. You name it, and we've had conflict between various groups, but yet we have always seemed to eventually emerge with at least a modicum of respect for others.

However, America has a bad habit of kicking the can down the road. When people and governments overspend, the answer is usually to raise taxes or print more money. The latter seems like such a painless operation, but it's much more dangerous than getting taxed to death. Your money is immediately worth less than it was a moment ago, while the buying power of all foreigners just went up.

And you can buy anything in this country no matter who you are. Talk about an open invitation to destabilize a nation. You don't go to Mexico, Belize or many other countries around the globe and tell them you're going to take over their country. The law in many nations does not allow foreigners to own a controlling interest in property within their borders. But I digress.

The can that cannot be kicked down the road any more used to be called The Black Problem. They didn't cure it following the Revolutionary War, nor after the Civil War. Things were up and down for about a century, and it looked as though World War II, the Voting Rights Act, and Lyndon Johnson's Great Society program might help America turn the corner.

However, somewhere along the way our train ran off the rails. Many law enforcement professionals formerly served in the military, where there was a strong sense of duty, coupled with right and wrong, but also a need to make snap decisions.

In a few short decades we've gone from Ozzie and Harriet Nelson representing the nuclear family, to whatever you call what we're facing today. Now many "families" consist of a drug dealer/user who fathers numerous children out of wedlock, while the women take on the role of having children. They line up for SNAP, AFDC, WIC, welfare, free child care, food banks, etc. The "parents" were unsatisfied with these goodies because they deemed the benefits unworthy, so they started having children with massive physical disabilities because that paid more—they are called million-dollar babies.

Many receive monthly prescriptions for huge amounts of drugs each month, which they ingest, sell or trade. You can only imagine what happens when you combine a fistful of pills with large amounts of alcohol. Then the police receive a call for a domestic disturbance. And it goes downhill from there.

However, being a self-centered, athletic superstar and world-class nihilist, Kaepernick shows no concern for officers whose only goal is to make it home alive following their shift. But let’s see where the press thinks his career is headed.

"Regardless of politics or not, he has a very, very big uphill battle to make this team. He lost a ton of weight this offseason, had three surgeries, couldn't work out, lost that double threat, that size-speed ratio. He's regressing as a player. I'd be shocked if he's on this roster by the end of this year. He may not be on it in the next two weeks," said Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer for ProFootballTalk, two days after Kaepernick’s "news" conference.

I feel that Kaepernick's actions denigrate others and cheapen the nation as a whole. He acts as though this were the only country with racial problems, while we rank somewhere in the middle according to many sources, including nations that hate all Americans. He claims he's sat through the national anthem several times and will continue the practice for the forseeable future. People from different religions and ethnic backgrounds have been at odds for a couple centuries, and we've often emerged stronger following our differences.

You think I'm mad at Kaepernick for refusing to show respect for America—but I'm not. He's had a cushy life and been worshiped from a young age because he excelled at sports. This allowed him to become a nihilistic, self-centered person who thinks he knows everything, and others know nothing unless they agree with his agenda.

Or maybe you think I have no solution to the problem. Not true. I wonder how he would feel about the United States if he changed citizenship. He said he is unwilling to live under present conditions and things rarely change in the blink of an eye around here, so I don't see him ever being happy on American soil. This could really work out for all involved, because if he relinquished citizenship and moved to another nation, we'd be rid of him and he'd be deified by everyone wherever he went.

I have done research and discovered numerous nations who would probably be thrilled to host him. China and Russia top the list, but he'd just be one fish in a huge pond, so I kept searching. Syria, Somalia, Turkmenistan, Libya, Cuba and Saudi Arabia would clearly welcome him with open arms, and he's quite wealthy from his NFL salary, so he would be a great asset to those nations and their citizens.

Then of course, I studied weather patterns and quality of life, so there's always Myanmar, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. I believe that Guinea is actively seeking disenfranchised Americans who wish to relocate. Please get back to me, if you need another list.

Related Thursday Review articles:

Deflategate Becomes Cell Phone Gate; Earl Perkins; Thursday Review; July 30, 2015.

Chalk Messages and Free Speech on Campus; Thursday Review editors; Thursday Review; April 10, 2016.