![]() ![]() 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’m not judging you for standing up for what you believe in. That moment meant so much more to me than even playing in the game did, and to be honest, if I had noticed my teammate sitting on the bench, it would have really hurt me. I selfishly thought about what I had sacrificed to get to where I was, and while I knew I had little to no chance of making the Seahawks’ roster as a 34-year-old rookie, I was trying. I thought about those overseas who were risking their lives at that very moment. I thought about how far I’d come and the men I’d fought alongside who didn’t make it back. ![]() In the piece, Boyer reflected on how he felt standing on the field as the anthem played during his only appearance for the Seahawks: military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. On 30 August 2016, the Army Times published an open letter to Kaepernick from former Seattle Seahawks player Nate Boyer, who served as a Green Beret in U.S. Someone that’s holding a curling iron has more education and more training than people that have a gun and are going out on the street to protect us. You have people that practice law and are lawyers and go to school for eight years, but you can become a cop in six months and don’t have to have the same amount of training as a cosmetologist. There’s things we can do to hold them more accountable. So that’s something that this country has to change. So that’s a large part of it and they’re government officials. People of color have been targeted by police. When asked whether his protest could be construed as “a blanket indictment of law enforcement in general,” Kaepernick said: I’ve seen videos, I’ve seen circumstances where men and women that have been in the military have come back and been treated unjustly by the country they have fought for, and have been murdered by the country they fought for, on our land. People are dying in vain because this country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up, as far as giving freedom and justice, liberty to everybody. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. Kaepernick: I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. How do you view it and what do you say to those people? Reporter: So many people see the flag as a symbol of the military. Two days later, Kaepernick spoke to reporters about the protest. The protest began garnering coverage when journalist Jennifer Lee Chan captured him sitting (this time in uniform) in a photograph prior to the team’s third preseason game on 26 August 2016. Kaepernick began his protest by sitting on the bench during the anthem prior to a preseason game on 14 August 2016 when he was playing for the San Francisco 49ers. In September 2017, as many criticized the “take a knee” protests by National Football League players as anti-military, readers wrote in to ask if a veteran had played a role in Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem in protest of police killings of African Americans.Īrmy Special Forces veteran Nate Boyer has said that his conversations with Kaepernick influenced the former NFL player to kneel, rather than sit, during the anthem.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |