The NFL released a statement backing players protesting social issues, including Colin Kaepernick – Business Insider

The NFL on Tuesday released a statement that backing players who have raised awareness about social issues — including Colin Kaepernick, though they didn’t mention his full name.

“The National Football League believes in dialogue, understanding and unity. We embrace the role and responsibility of everyone involved with this game to promote meaningful, positive change in our communities,” the statement read.

“The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action.”

The statement also highlighted some of the charitable work NFL players have done to support different causes. (Read more)

LeBron: Trump is using sports to divide us – CNN

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(CNN)LeBron James thinks the President is using athletics, and athletes, to split up the country. And he’s rejecting the premise like an opponent’s ill-advised layup.

“What I’ve noticed over the past few months,” James shared with CNN’s Don Lemon during a sit-down interview on Monday. “(Is) he’s kinda used sports to kinda divide us, and that’s something that I can’t relate to.”

Referencing Colin Kaepernick, whose kneeling protests during the pre-game national anthem launched an NFL movement, and more recently, Stephen Curry, who honored his promise of skipping a visit to Donald Trump’s White House, James bemoaned a myriad of instances in which the President has twisted peaceful displays of dissent into an indictment of a decaying American value system. (Read more)

The Bell Tolls: Cowboys players apparently unable and unwilling to challenge Jerry Jones’ anthem policy – USA Today

The Gate Keeper: response: But when do the white players stand with the black players and say we are unified and that they support the movement? Damn shame when you have folk like myself out here speaking truth to power broke but these guys got money and scared to take a stand! Damn they may as well be on the damn plantation.

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Colin Kaepernick Protest

It do not matter how it is promoted it ain’t gonna matter to Ignant Racist Ass White Folk and Ignant Safe Negroes. It should not matter if race is included because as long as folk continue act like RACE does not matter there lies the problem.

I am gonna call it as I see it because I refuse not to talk about RACE as if it is not the number 1 factor. Race has been the number 1 factor all of my life. If it was not a factor in the anthem then it would not say SLAVE in it.

If Race was not the number 1 factor then we would not have to identify ourselves by race. So for me talking about RACE is not a problem and for folk who has a problem with it, they need to get the hell over it because it is real and a daily walk in our lives.

Kneeling To The Flag? A Must Read! Folk Don’t Want To Learn About The Trues!

Maurice E. Smith shared this on Facebook

There has been a great deal of debate in regards to the flag… have a read, if you will, with an open mind! I did NOT pen this, but I found it to be a great read, nonetheless…

KNEELING TO THE FLAG
Did you know this?

Aug 14, 2016- Colin Kaepernick sits for the national anthem…and no one noticed.

Aug 20th, 2016- Colin again sits, and again, no one noticed.

Aug 26th, 2016- Colin sits and this time he is met with a level of vitriol unseen against an athlete. Even the future President of the United States took shots at him while on the campaign trail.

Colin went on to explain his protest had NOTHING to with the military, but he felt it hard to stand for a flag that didn’t treat people of color fairly.

On Aug 30th, 2016 Nate Boyer, a former Army Green Beret turned NFL long snapper, penned an open letter to Colin in the Army Times. In it he expressed how Colin’s sitting affected him.

Then, a strange thing happened. Colin was able to do what most Americans to date have not…

He listened.

In his letter, Mr. Boyer writes:
“I’m not judging you for standing up for what you believe in. It’s your inalienable right. What you are doing takes a lot of courage, and I’d be lying if I said I knew what it was like to walk around in your shoes. I’ve never had to deal with prejudice because of the color of my skin, and for me to say I can relate to what you’ve gone through is as ignorant as someone who’s never been in a combat zone telling me they understand what it’s like to go to war. Even though my initial reaction to your protest was one of anger, I’m trying to listen to what you’re saying and why you’re doing it.”

Mr. Boyer goes on to write “There are already plenty people fighting fire with fire, and it’s just not helping anyone or anything. So I’m just going to keep listening, with an open mind. I look forward to the day you’re inspired to once again stand during our national anthem. I’ll be standing right there next to you.”

Empathy and understanding was shown by Mr. Boyer… and Mr. Kaepernick reciprocated.

Colin invited Nate to San Diego where the two had a 90 minute discussion, and Nate proposed Colin kneel instead of sit.

But why kneel? In a military funeral, after the flag is taken off the casket of the fallen military member, it is smartly folded 13 times and then presented to the parents, spouse or child of the fallen member by a fellow service member while KNEELING.

The two decided that kneeling for the flag would symbolize his reverence for those that paid the ultimate sacrifice while still allowing Colin to peacefully protest the injustices he saw.

Empathy, not zealotry under the guise of patriotism, is the only way meaningful discussion can be had. Mr. Kaepernick listened to all of you that say he disrespects the military and extended an olive branch to find a peace.

When will America listen to him?

Thanks, Mudge Rudiger. We can all learn from this backstory. The truth often lies in the middle. Seek to learn the opposing side’s point.

HANSEN UNPLUGGED: ANTHEM PROTESTS NOT ABOUT DISRESPECTING THE FLAG – Hansen Unplugged

Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during the national anthem in San Francisco last year. We noticed, but very few players joined him.

He can’t get a job in the NFL now, and very few have said much about that, either.

But the president says he wants that peaceful protest to stop… He says those players should be fired if they take a knee during the anthem, and calls those players a name I never thought I’d live long enough to hear a president say.

Now, everybody cares.

Donald Trump has said he supports a peaceful protest because it’s an American’s right… But not this protest, and there’s the problem: The opinion that any protest you don’t agree with is a protest that should be stopped.

Martin Luther King should have marched across a different bridge. Young, black Americans should have gone to a different college and found a different lunch counter. And college kids in the 60’s had no right to protest an immoral war.

I served in the military during the Vietnam War… and my foot hurt, too. But I served anyway.

My best friend in high school was killed in Vietnam. Carroll Meir will be 18 years old forever. And he did not die so that you can decide who is a patriot and who loves America more.

The young, black athletes are not disrespecting America or the military by taking a knee during the anthem. They are respecting the best thing about America. It’s a dog whistle to the racists among us to say otherwise. (Hansen Unplugged)