Standing Up by Sitting Down (and Why This Still Matters)

"I love America more than any other country in this world,

and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."

- James Baldwin

And now Colin Kaepernick.  Star professional athlete, winner in America's economic game and now self-professed freedom fighter.  How terribly inconvenient ... and instructive.

The hubbub that has followed Mr. Kaepernick's extended social commentary in support of his decision to sit in protest during the National Anthem is both virulent and sadly familiar both societally and personally.

Societally, the outcry has centered on a number of familiar themes: that his protest is being executed in an incorrect (read = most often described as "disrespectful") way, that as a highly-paid athlete he has no reason to complain, that he's dissing those in the military who have served and currently serve to protect his freedom, etc.

(Please note that I left out an NBC commentator's ignorant comment that he's not black [enough] and a Fox commentator's asinine suggestion that since he was adopted by a white family, he's had it good [and, thus, conceptually, shouldn't complain].  Don't even know where to start with such maddening ridiculousness....)

Personally, a number of my FaceBook friends have reflected this in terms like "I disagree with his method,"  "it's disrespectful," "what's he got to complain about?," "he should have set up a foundation like other athletes," and, in effect, my favorite, "his approach is so wrong that he's obscuring the focus on the issue."  Hmmm.

OK, let's get this out of the way:  My view is that the sitting in protest during the playing of the National Anthem is not the way that I would have chosen, but it's a bold, courageous move and worthy of our support of his exercise of his First Amendment right to free expression.  And it's completely beside the point to focus on how he chose to protest - and revealing that so/too many have done so - and totally necessary that we focus on what/why he's protesting.  And I do believe that the choice to focus on the how over the why is not accidental but too often a purposeful evasion consistent with a more general and troubling trend in our society.

But back to the hubbub:  A trend that is both disturbing and instructive to me is that the post-Kaepernick focus has been split along racial lines.  Disproportionately in the media, those who've chosen to focus on how the quarterback registered his dissent have been white, while most of those who've defended it are other People of Color (PoC) like him (although, thankfully, more of these supporters are turning out to be veterans of all colors who support his right to free, peaceful expression).

So, too, with my FaceBook friends: all of those who have focused on and complained about his method are white, and all of those who have supported it - including those who may not have like his method - are of Color.  Hmmm.

Let me 'make it plain': we still have a huge race problem in this country and need to address it head-on.

My white friends' objections have been as vehement as those nationally relative to Mr. Kaepernick's method and decidedly muted when I've noted their style preferences and then asked them to address the substance of the issue.  My Friends of Color (FoC) have generally expressed their ennui and exasperation at the focus on method and have instead noted with pique that the 'method dissenters' seem unwilling to move beyond this to addressing the issues that the quarterback has highlighted.

And few 'method dissenters' have listened to his entire position as shared in that almost 20-minute informal press conference during which he detailed his dissent, while many of my FoC have.  Again, not surprising, but revealing.

One of my friends suggested that he was concerned about the issues raised, but focused virtually exclusively on how this was done.  When I asked him how he would have preferred that Mr. Kaepernick express his dissent, he was noticeably muted other than suggesting, in effect, it should have been some other way.  When I kept pressing the point and asked if he were aware of any protest or protest movement in history that was conducted in a way that met with wide acceptance in our society, he was similarly muted.  When I mentioned that, a half-century ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was reviled for moving beyond to the fight for civil rights to question both the Vietnam War and the staggering economic inequality in our society, he acknowledged that he was aware of this but had nothing else to say about the underlying issues that Mr. Kaepernick highlighted.

One of my favorite exchanges about this situation occurred with one of my friends who's an avowed political conservative.  After a number of objections - the most substantive of which was that the approach taken obscured the focus on the underlying issues - she made some suggestions about what Mr. Kaepernick should have done, including the aforementioned 'set up a foundation.'  When I pointed out that hundreds of current and former professional athletes have foundations that are doing admirable work but receiving a level of recognition nowhere close to the quarterback, she was noticeably silent.  When I mentioned that part of the problem is that too many are focused on the approach and not the underlying issues, she suggested that perhaps Middle America wasn't responding because it didn't see this as an issue that affects it.

Bingo!

And that's a huge part of the problem: that so many are not concerned with the clear and historic differential in how rights are respected and opportunities are allocated in our society as a whole and therefore choose to be uninvolved because it doesn't affect them directly is part of the why these life-limiting discrepancies are still so pervasive in our society.  Selfish indifference and societal equity don't work well together.

That these responses differed along racial lines reminded me yet again that our perspectives are so far apart because our experiences are.  Almost all of my white friends can afford to focus on the method over the issues because they are not directly affected by them.  And, sadly, they seem to prefer to focus on the style over the substance because it allows them to avoid dealing with the latter.  I have only seen one of them post about or express alignment with addressing the myriad underlying issues about which Mr. Kaepernick is dissenting - and her husband is African-American and her children thus biracial, so she's not insulated from the issue.  In sum, those who don't have mixed families or close relations of Color have chosen to express outrage at being challenged to consider horrible issues too often hidden by the status quo rather than at the issues themselves; they've expressed concern about being disturbed but not about the disturbing realities of the lives of too many of their fellow citizens.

At this stage in my life, I'm not surprised or overly disappointed by this reality.  I accept - but am still disappointed by - white apathy.  What I've learned over time is that this concerning reality isn't uninformed but conscious: I've yet to find a white friend who doesn't understand the issues at some basic level, but virtually all of them indulge in the privilege of being sufficiently unconcerned as to be uninvolved.

I get the desire to indulge in the insulation that American success affords: to some extent, those of us of Color do the same to the extent that we can.  But we also have to explain to our childen what a classmate meant by saying "Nigger" in a kindergarten class, we also have to walk the tightrope of preparing our children to be singled out while encouraging them to focus on fitting in and we unfailingly have to have 'The Talk' with our teenage sons, none of which are shared experiences.

So our experiences are different and thus our appreciation for and approaches to race-affected issues are, too.  Until this gap narrows, it will be much harder to address the issues that affect us all (even as they affect those of Color disproportionately).

P.S.  No, I don't like Mr. Kaepernick's choice to wear socks to a recent practice that depict police as pigs.  That sort of, in effect, name-calling, wasn't helpful in the '60s, either.  Did the police often feel more like an occupying force than a cadre of those dedicated to protecting and serving us then?  Yes.  And now?  In too many locales, the same is still true.  But a peaceful, respectful protest - like kneeling during the anthem (as numerous other notable African-American athletes and societal leaders and other PoC have done over the years) - is better than directly disrespectful and unhelpfully provocative expression.

One of the reasons that I respect Mr. Kaepernick's choice of kneeling is just this: he's not defaming anyone but, in sitting down, is standing up for what matters to many of our fellow citizens that we too often choose not to see.  I am ever mindful that despite our (inauthentically) hagiographic fawning over the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the late pugilist and humanitarian Muhammad Ali, they were, in their time, reviled for their timidity to challenge the status quo of our society that, in their day as in ours, too often found both PoC and the poor disproportionately disenfranchised.  Yes, we appreciate the many things that continue to make America great ... and we also absolutely must continue to keep the work that we need to do to insure a more equitable access to opportunity and well-being in our country in the forefront of our minds and actions.  This isn't an either-or situation but a truly life-changing both-and opportunity and this is why sitting down/kneeling is an important way to stand up to our natural tendency to choose comfort over conscience....  

"Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism

or in the darkness of destructive selfishness."

- The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.