Patriotism is a bigger, more uplifting virtue. Patriotism is the belief in the best values of one’s country, and the pursuit of the best means to realize those values. If the nation strays, then it must be corrected. The patriot is the person who, spotting the need for change, says so clearly and loudly, without hate or rancor. The nationalist is the person who spurns such correction and would rather take refuge in bigotry than fight it. It is the nationalists who wrap themselves in a flag and loudly proclaim themselves as patriots. That is dangerous, as glimpsed in Trump’s amplification of racist and xenophobic sentiments. In the end, Trump is a nationalist, and Kaepernick is a patriot.
Beloved, there appears in this flap to be a confusion of symbol and substance. The worship of the flag is, too, a form of nationalist idolatry. It is not respectful love. It confuses the cloth with conviction. The power doesn’t reside in the flag; it resides in the ideals to which the flag points. The worship of the flag gets us nowhere, nor does enthusiastically embracing the troubled song that accompanies it. Listen to the third verse of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which includes the words, “No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave.” Whiteness was pitched into the nation’s collective memory through song in the same way that it was stitched into the nation’s pride through a waving banner.
Most of us know nothing of our anthem’s political pedigree or its racist implications. That’s why American hero Jackie Robinson wrote in his autobiography, I Never Had It Made, “I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world.” What can lift the Stars and Stripes higher are the real-life practices that make that flag and that song meaningful. If we cite the Bible, and yet fail to live according to its codes, the Bible becomes just another book. But when we live it, it becomes powerful. If you believe it, the words of scripture say that we become living epistles in whose life others read the presence of God.
It should be clear to you, my friends, that American sports, despite all of the black bodies that make it go, is still a profoundly white enterprise. Surely you must see that it is only the court or the playing field that is integrated. Nearly 70 percent of football players are black; the NBA is 80 percent black. But the NFL’s front offices in particular teem with white men whose outdated viewpoints and narrow understandings of race—and at times bigoted perspectives—hamper true progress. The players in football and basketball may be overwhelmingly black—and in the case of baseball, increasingly Latino—but the front offices of major American sports are a white man’s game. For example, according to the Racial and Gender Equity Report Card for the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, in 2016 just 22.2 percent of professional administrator positions on National Football League teams were held by people of color. In the NFL’s league office, only 9.4 percent of those with management positions were black in a league where nearly two-thirds of its players are black.
That may explain why, according to sports website Deadspin, anonymous NFL executives (it is interesting that they will not own up in name) say they don’t want Kaepernick near their teams because he is a traitor and has no respect for our country, and “[expletive] that guy.” Others state, “I have never seen a guy so hated by front office guys as Kaepernick.” As long as black athletes keep their mouths shut and play the game, they’re fine. Once they range beyond deference and obedience, they’re out of bounds, and huge penalty flags are thrown.
Kaepernick’s courage has also thrown a harsh light on some of the sport’s biggest black stars—like Jerry Rice, Rodney Harrison, and Hines Ward—who have retired and now offer commentary. Harrison argued that Kaepernick’s heart is in the right place, but that he’s “going about it in the wrong way.” He said that Kaepernick doesn’t seem to realize that a lot of folk sacrificed to “give him the freedoms and the liberties he has,” and that “sitting his butt down” during the anthem will only make folk mad. Harrison also attacked Kaepernick’s racial authenticity, saying he wasn’t really black, and claimed later he had no idea that Kaepernick is biracial. Was Harrison then suggesting that Kaepernick wasn’t really black because he had no ghetto credibility?
The attempt to censor Kaepernick by citing his lack of racial bona fides is a tragic game that, once one begins to play it, can never be won, because there’s always somebody blacker than thou.
Hines Ward also criticized Kaepernick for the manner of his protest. That instead of sitting down during the anthem he should give his entire check to the cause he believed in. Yet Kaepernick’s method of disruption proves his point: giving a million dollars, or even his entire salary, may have showcased Kaepernick’s generosity, but it wouldn’t by itself have drawn attention to the underlying oppression that he is protesting. It would not have landed him on the cover of Time magazine as a patron saint of sorts for black justice. Legendary 49ers receiver Jerry Rice tweeted that “All lives matter”—a definite and well-known rebuke to “Black Lives Matter”—and that Kaepernick shouldn’t “disrespect the flag.” Rice later had a change of mind and tweeted his support for Kaepernick “bringing awareness for injustice!!!!”
Rice’s evolution notwithstanding, these men do not realize how they have been seduced, how white innocence has made them accomplices in opposing blackness. They clearly don’t understand that without some brave soul in the past like iconic running back Jim Brown speaking up at the “wrong” time, they wouldn’t enjoy the perks of fame and wealth today. Without protest and social pressure the major sports leagues would not have been integrated. The criticism of Kaepernick by these former players reveals their astonishing amnesia.
Of course, the same astonishment and anger also greets those blacks who protest in the streets and are said to be disrespecting the police.
The two are yoked: criticizing police brutality is said to be hating law enforcement. Sitting during the national anthem is said to be hating America. This sophomoric approach will remain a roadblock to genuine racial engagement until it is replaced by a deeper, more humane, more sophisticated understanding of the issue of race.
The silence of white athletes must be challenged too. Prominent white athletes shouldn’t leave Kaepernick out on a limb by himself. Those who are socially aware should speak up and challenge the narrow perspectives and white privilege that protects them. They must at least be asked to do so. The unawake and deeply apolitical black athletes, and the ones who mimic the conservative values of the white mainstream, must be called out too.