Was Colin Kaepernick actually trying to protest police brutality or just trigger conservatives

Great Debates
1

Kaepernick is an intelligent guy, he graduated college with a 4.0 GPA and scored very above average on a wonderlic cognitive test they give NFL players.

He says his protests are about protesting police brutality.

But it doesn’t seem to have worked. The concept of police brutality never even comes up. The entire conversation has been shifted to ‘black people are disrespecting the flag and the military’. The entire point of the protests has been lost on many people.

As I said, Kaepernick is an intelligent person so I’m sure he knew a black person protesting police brutality would get a lot of rage from conservatives. Lots of people hate it when black people stand up for themselves or demand to be treated with respect and dignity. Obviously they aren’t willing to admit this, so they lie to themselves and others and pretend their motives are more socially acceptable. Rage over black people standing up for themselves gets morphed into rage over ‘disrespect for the military’.

Triggering conservatives isn’t hard. They have a stronger threat response, enjoy privilege and dislike multiculturalism. Just increase multiculturalism, attack privilege, or make them feel defenseless.

Add a $300 tax on firearms and use the money to fund public defenders for illegal immigrants.

Tax evangelical christian churches and use the money to fund minority education scholarships in the inner city.

Cut funding for the military and use the money to promote voter registration drives among latinos

Cut funding for private, chartered, christian schools and use the money to support a Muslim integration fund to encourage muslims to enter mainstream society.

etc

Its not hard, but politics in the US is already extremely toxic (and people like play a part in that). Just triggering people you don’t like doesn’t achieve much.

Was Kaepernick actually trying to protest police brutality and bring attention to it, or was he just trying to trigger the kinds of people who make excuses for police brutality as long as it is directed against scary non-whites?

Was he actually trying to bring attention to police brutality in the hopes it would lead to a constructive dialogue and positive solutions to the issue, or just piss off people who hate it when black people stand up for themselves?

2

I think Kaepernick got himself a girlfriend who happened to be an activist and through that he found a way to enrich or build a brand for himself. I’ve never heard anything insightful about society or current events come out of his mouth. It might be plausible his motives being driven by status are mostly understandable without examining the political landscape.

Several years ago while in his fairly brief professional prime Kaepernick kind of was a polarizing player and quite hated, certainly around where I live. He had a couple games versus Green Bay where he ran for a ton of yardage, which it is believed should not be allowed to happen for a below average passer in the modern game, and I believe his demeanor was a turn off. He may be attuned to factors that could cause certain types of negative attention.

3

I can’t pretend to know what CK was thinking, but I can assure you of one thing: A lot of people who don’t get pissed off “when black people stand up for themselves” still get pissed off when the flag, anthem, or the military are being disrespected. It’s distressingly common around this place for certain posters to willfully conflate any kind of patriotism or conservative values with racism, and it’s something that needs to stop. It’s no better than people on the right painting the left as America-hating socialists who should just GTFO already.

Protesting the way he did was a move designed to get people’s attention, and in that at least, he was quite successful. Whether it was helpful or productive is a different debate. What he intended only he knows, but I see no reason to doubt what he said.

4

I don’t think you can blame him for “But it doesn’t seem to have worked.” There isn’t (usually) a quick fix for these kinds of problems. He tried something. Maybe it advanced the conversation, maybe it didn’t. Like CAH66, I tend to take him at his word.

PS: Since I’m a Seahawk fan, I was never a fan of him as a player.

5

I’m sure you felt the same rage when Trump insulted John McCain or when John Kerry was being made fun of.

6

Im not sure you can have an insightful debate centering around the personal thoughts of another person, but think he was misguided at best if he chose to ignore the flag to protest police brutality. The flag represents the country, and the country is not sanctioning or encouraging police brutality- the US in no way benefits from police killing innocent minorities, quite the opposite, it makes the country worse off. Some police-centric protest would have gotten his message out better- protest or rally outside a station or something.

7

But it worked in a way. When you strip off the rhetoric, many of the apologists for police brutality are ok with it when it is directed against scary minorities and scary immigrants. Obviously when the police are investigating Trump or the Bundy clan then according to those same people, the cops are evil.

I think Kaepernick is smart enough to know that a black man ‘disrespecting’ the flag and military to stand up for black people would trigger conservatives, but did he think it would lead to a productive conversation that would lead to productive solutions to police brutality or was he just trying to trigger people who hate multiculturalism and value tradition/security? Obviously the only person who can answer that is him though.

8

I think his point was the country was (or is) sanctioning police brutality by not stopping it. It’s not unreasonable for him to conclude it would take a national conversation to get things to start going in the right direction. It takes more than a rally outside the local police station to make that happen.

And, of course, he didn’t “ignore” the flag. He simply didn’t stand during the National Anthem. That’s a pretty mild statement, no matter how much you love the flag.

9

Oh definitely it was the best route for maximum attention:), just I don’t see what the US govt. can do- bad apples become cops, but its up to the individual police forces to determine who they hire, and fire. And you cant blame the govt. when those guilty of brutality get away with it in court- that’s on the juries.

When the govt engages is an unpopular war like Vietnam, I understand the flag burning, because the flag represents the govt and you are opposing a govt. sanctioned act- with police I think its a totally different thing, YMMV.

10

That it encourages it and whether it benefits from it are two totally different questions.

11

The protest, as I understand it, isn’t just about the “US Government,” but the United States in general. The flgd and the anthem are symbols of our nation, not our government.
Who encourages the police to make better hires/fires? Other people. City councils, mayors, judges.

And, the U.S.Justice Department has stepped in and gone after bad cops and police departments. The Seattle Police are under court ordered and supervised “consent decree” right now. (and the SPD is by no means the worst)

Who serves on Juries? People who watch football I bet.

Getting maximum attention for this type of problem is the only way it’s going to change.

12

The federal government has gotten involved in local police forces who used too much brutality before

Also the federal government can withhold funds if agencies do not reform their policies regarding behavior and hiring.

13

  1. The flag doesn’t have jack shit to do with the military, any more than it has to do with, say, government statisticians. Eliding kneeling during the national anthem with disrespect for the military is complete and total Fox/Trump bullshit.

  2. Kneeling wasn’t disrespectful until the right-wing media decided it was so.

14

I’m old enough to be able to assure you that this triggered conservatives also.

15

One theory among some sports fans had been that Kaepernick knew he was in danger of being released from the 49ers roster, and that by gaining political notoriety over a cause like this, he made it hard for the Niners to release him, from a PR standpoint.

16

One thing that does bother me about Kaepernick is that while he’s very vocal about acting against injustice, he has also stated that he refuses to vote. How can you possibly try and make a change, without voting?
I mean, that’s his right. But we’ve seen how close elections can be, and your vote DOES count.

I also question his shilling for a company that has a record of using child labor and sweatshops. If he’s so concerned about oppression and racism, why is taking money from a company that is guilty of such horrible practices?

17

Yes, I get that, if a police force is on record of actively encouraging brutality, or doing zero testing at all when hiring, or anything other than showing they hire in good faith and within the guidelines, they should face circumstances. But to paraphrase legendary cop Joe Friday, their will always be this sort of thing, because when you pick cops, you pick from the human race.

Its not like this is limited to one police force, it is everywhere at one time or another.

18

Hahaha, thats clever if true.

19

Then all the good cops should have no issues with eliminating the bad cops from their profession.

People run for office on “Law and Order”. Not so strangely, many of the tactics they support and laws they try to pass are evil and/or unconstitutional. In a country where black people carrying plastic guns in an open carry state are gunned down within 2 seconds of the police officer’s arrival, and armed security guys attempt to detain black police officers because they don’t believe he’s a cop, this leads to an environment where abuse is rampant and unchecked. Black people bear the brunt of this. Protesting this reality is not unpatriotic, it isn’t wrong. But hey, we’ve argued this to death over the last couple of years, haven’t we?

Please don’t believe some strange conspiracy theory that Colin Kaepernick is the left wing version of the right wing troll, only doing it to make money off the marks. That’s a kind of “well we think this way, so therefore he must too” theory.

20

My take on it is that Kaepernick was legit and was taking a knee as a way to protest police brutality. It became something else because his critics continued to escalate the situation, and the NFL colluded to ruin his career over it. Worse, when other black players took a knee with him, they were scorned as well. Protesting police brutality became ultimately a protest against America, and right wing white America interpreted his message in different ways. So yes, his protests became a lot more than just protests against police brutality, but that’s because different groups of triggered white conservatives kept trying to punish him for different perceived slights.