WWII
They’d even play it before movies then.
More power to them I say.
The players have been clear in their intentions and reasons for this right from the start, it is a valid protest to make and they’ve been doing it in an elegant way. I hope they kick up a huge stink about it and they keep the subject in the public eye. The NFL are the ones acting like arseholes.
Whether people are “offended” or not is irrelevant (but I really hope some people are). You can find people that are offended by pretty much anything, kneeling v standing v hand on heart v singing v singing enthusiastically enough. Heck, I’m a UK citizen and I don’t stand for my own anthem, I’m damn sure not going to stand for any other and I’m sure people would take offense at that.
The irony of this is that, as imperfect as the USA is, it was set up with a core ethos that is at odds with the concept of forced patriotism. I walked past the house of Thomas Paine this morning and have no doubt that he would be on the side of the players and dismissive of the NFL’s approach.
To me the only real respect is that freely earned and given, make it in any way compulsory and it loses any meaning. Those Americans who think otherwise and castigate the players should dig a little deeper into the mindset of founding fathers.
It became “standard” at baseball games during WWII, but it was started much earlier than that, though it was not actually the official National Anthem yet.
Growing up as an Army brat, I went to the movies quite a lot on base. Every movie had the national anthem playing before the previews. I was surprised but not offended when I went to a movie off base and there was no anthem played before the movie. As a young adult (just 18), I had moved to Seoul and on base both the South Korean and United States national anthems were played; however, off base only the South Korean anthem (of course) was played before the movie. Upon returning to Korea in my 40s, I surprised but not offended to discover that the Korean anthem was no longer played in the cinemas off base. On base, the cinema still, to this day, plays both anthems, which really surprises my wife because she doesn’t recall ever seeing her national anthem played in a cinema until she saw a movie on base with me.
If you want to stand for the thing, stand for it. If you don’t, don’t. If it hurts one’s sensibilities that someone else doesn’t do what you think they should do, then perhaps one’s not all that sensible.
Related to this nonsense is something I got on my Facebook feed. My sister’s husband forwarded a BS post from some guy who was butthurt that there was no American flag flying at a restaurant near the US Mexico border. The forwarded post accused the restaurant staff of caving into some foreigners’ request to remove the flag because it hurt their feelings and the guy who made the original post said (lied) he spoke to the restaurant manager and is now calling for a boycott of the chain. It took all of ten seconds for me to check Snopes. Likely reason for no flag on the pole: the mechanism was broken. Anyway, how many restaurants do you see flying a big ass flag on a pole? I don’t hear any calls for boycotting of places that don’t even have a pole to fly the flag on.
Again: you want to display your patriotism, go for it. Let others do or not do as they please. Last I heard, it’s a free country back there in America. Let’s make sure it stays that way.
This whole “issue” is just ridiculous.
Against my better judgement, I decided to come back here, and saw my name popping up from time to time. Let me add a few things.
At no point in this thread, have I said that there is nothing about race in regards to the kneeling issue. The kneeling issue is expressly about racial issues. That was the intent of the kneeling. Kaepernick noticed that just sitting on his butt, which is apparently a common sight in football stadiums, was getting no attention (just like it doesn’t for anybody else), so he changed tactics, and started kneeling. And, boy did he get attention. The kind of attention that, in retrospect, I think he would have tweaked his tactics a bit to avoid, and I’m basing that on the fact that he has stated he would stand if offered a contract now.
Furthermore, I am NOT offended by the kneelers, nor do I think they meant to show disrespect. I’m just an outside spectator, I don’t watch football, and am solely basing this on what I’ve read in the news. There is nothing wrong with peaceful protest. I simply think this particular implementation was ill-conceived and ineffectual. It is essentially a two part protest. If all you did was watch football, you’d just see people kneeling after being asked to stand, and would be left to draw you own conclusions, which are not immediately obvious. You ask “what about kneeling is disrespectful?” Good question. What about kneeling is about black people being shot?? I simply think that protests that don’t speak for themselves and require homework to figure out run a real risk of being misconstrued and mischaracterized. And there is no doubt in my mind that that happened.
Stranger, you set up this unfalsifiable hypothetical of what “would have happened” if a white player had used the national anthem to further his own pet political agenda, and that hypothetical setup is precisely required to set up your (imo), ridiculous comparison to Rosa Parks.
There’s one glaring problem: Your hypothetical never happened. It’s entirely made up.
At no point had a white player used the national anthem to further his own political pet project. There is no point to try to compare the treatment of Kaepernick to some imaginary action of an imaginary white player. Furthermore, unlike bussing rules, there was no institutional double standard of what white and black players were supposed to do during the national anthem. You are instructed to stand. Everybody. And this is precisely why he’s no Rosa Parks, she was being asked to do something different than everybody else.
Again, I personally have no problem with protest, and have no reason to find offense for the goings-on of a sport I don’t even watch. But if you’re going to protest, it should probably effect positive change. Rosa Park’s refusing to move is directly responsible for the improved outcome of busing integration. Colin Kaepernick’ kneeling is directly responsible for… what exactly? Here’s the stated reason of why he did it:
Now, lets set aside the fact he said he would now stand. Aside from Trump’s much-touted black unemployment rate (which of course he claims credit for), are black people better off by any measurable metric than they were in September 2016? Are black people any less oppressed? Are black people getting shot at less by cops? It’s pretty easy to point at direct negative consequences this has had for the NFL, and for Kaepernick himself, but the other stuff? Not so much.
Yep. As my own Facebook feed tells me, “I don’t want a country where we *have *to salute the flag, I want a country where we *want *to.”
Kneeling is not worse than sitting, it is only more visible
This is inconsistent. If refusing to stand for a judge is disrespect toward what the judge stands for, then refusing to stand for the anthem is disrespect toward what the anthem stands for. It is perfectly fine to think that the US is not worthy of respect for whatever reason you want to, but don’t engage in a calculated act of disrespect and then say you are being respectful.
What it’s achieved is that incidents of black people getting shot by cops get a lot more public scrutiny now than they previously did, and that’s the point at which the Overton Window starts to move in the desired direction.
You mentioned Rosa Parks… but her getting arrested didn’t desegregate the buses; it was merely the starting point. The Bus Boycott eventually desegregated the buses and that took well over a year to achieve. But in the meantime it put the wider unfair practices around all forms of segregation into the national spotlight, and made people who previously had never even thought about the issues and the inherent cruelty to a large number of Americans suddenly consider what was going on and how they felt about it. And even then it took much longer - more protests, more marches, more court cases, and more public outcry - for the other elements of segregation to be swept away.
So if your argument is that Kaepernick’s actions aren’t achieving enough fast enough, perhaps your insistence that he do less are not well-considered.
Perhaps you could read about why he started kneeling instead of sitting, and then come back and comment.
I think the connection between Kap’s kneeling and public scrutiny of shootings is tenuous at best. I did not require Kaepernick’s kneeling to to inform me of Michael Brown or any other highly publicized shooting of a black person. Part of the reason for that, is the media loves publicizing the hell out of these stories, often for weeks at a time. In fact, I think the “big winner” of the kneeling protest IS the media.
I never said he should do less. I said I believed he should alter his tactics. Which he has, to some degree.
Perhaps you should read my posts in full, because you clearly haven’t. I DIRECTLY QUOTED his reason for kneeling, in that very same post, from his own words. I am perfectly aware of the events leading up to this.
But that isn’t part of the perception…that those like Ashtura like to promote as much as possible.
Yes, I would, and so would everyone else at the wedding who did not know.
There is nothing inherent in the act, it is a custom. As I have shown, cultures all over the world understand that standing for a flag is the custom to show respect. All of this long predates the current controversy.
Here is Emily Post “Everyone, even very young children, should rise, remain standing, and salute by placing the right hand over the heart during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner—first note to last.”
Here is the 36 USC 301 “(C) all other persons present should face the flag and stand at attention with their right hand over the heart”
Here is the Boy Scout handbook “Whenever you hear the national anthem, played or sung, show your respect by standing up”
This is true in other countries as well. Canada “As a matter of respect and tradition, it is proper to stand for the playing of “O Canada”;”
England “Correct protocol in Britain for the national anthem is simply to stand up”
Is there something inherent in taking a knee that shows respect? Of course not, these things are dictated by years of custom and shared meaning. Find one example before this current controversy where someone claimed kneeling during an anthem is extra respectful
Either the players who are claiming different are really stupid or they think we are.
If you would say that the perception is false one tenth of the time you say the perception is the only thing that matters you might have more supporters.
As I have already pointed out, yes.
I’m not looking for supporters. I’m just some guy on the internet. And, obviously, perception DOES matter. I’m not backing off that claim.
You quoted why he wouldn’t be standing. It doesn’t say why he went from sitting to kneeling.