^I agree. And what I also see, but do not see talked about, is that I believe the "two sides" of the issue are talking past each other and not acknowledging the others' issues.
Here is an example to illustrate what I mean: Drew Brees made what I consider to be a very reasonable explanation of his opinion on kneeling. Whether one agrees, disagrees, or falls somewhere in the middle, his explanation was perfectly reasonable and about as inoffensive as I could possibly imagine if one is going to take a position in the first place (obviously, keeping one's mouth shut is the least offensive option of all, but we are talking about people who may not agree trying to have a dialog). To him, the flag is a symbol of the country, and specifically, the country's guarantees of freedom to all, and the anthem at games is a remembrance of the U.S. military's involvement in securing that. So, to him, a protest during the anthem is a protest of our military members who put their lives on the line for freedom.
Players who have objected and taken extreme positions against Brees are saying, no, the protests aren't about that. They are about protesting the oppression of minorities, and more specifically, that oppression by the police and public officials "behind the flag," with the flag being the symbol of that oppression.
So they are talking about the flag representing two very different things. Hence, when taking different positions on protesting, they are not actually even talking about the same underlying issue. When I was talking about this with one of my sons the other day, the best analogy I could come up with is this: Let's say a segment of society chooses to actively protest sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy. And their means of protest is to go to various churches (not just Catholic) and burn bibles in the parking lot during worship services as a silent protest. If they were to show up at our local nondenominational bible church and do that, their act of burning bibles would offend many, even though NONE of those people would support abuse in the Catholic Church, or anything even associated with the Catholic Church. But it would be difficult to engage in a serious dialog without the protesters acknowledging that their protest was causing offense to a group of people who are well outside the target of their protest, and without the congregants acknowledging that, even if misguided in its form, the protesters have a very valid reason to protest. There just has to be that acknowledgement and reasonableness on both
On that last sentence, it reminds me of the veteran who met with Kaepernick back when he first started his protests when he was still with the 49ers. I forget his name. And he was against the protests and felt they were offensive, but simultaneously acknowledged that part of what he had fought for while a veteran was that very freedom to protest peacefully. After talking with Kaepernick, he understood that what Kaepernick was protesting was different, and although he disagreed with HOW Kaepernick was protesting, he understood and supported it, and Kaepernick likewise acknowledged the other side as well and modified his exact mode of protest to be less offensive to many. What I liked about it is that both sides listened and tried to understand. They still didn't agree, but they listened, and got to a place where each could say, "I accept your views and will move a bit off my position to at least make a serious effort to accommodate them, but I still believe my position is important too and will not discard it." But that, seemingly, was the only bit of progress made on that. And sad to say, I think far too many on both sides don't understand that and are tone deaf to it.
All that said, I'm kinda with Barto on the point of, when taking a step back and thinking about it, we don't even need the anthem at sporting events in the first place, and if you remove that, there really isn't anything to protest.
Topic: 2020 NFL Thread v. Tom Brady aging better than Mila Kunis (Read 114287 times)
