During an idyllic Greek lunch overlooking the warm, teal Mediterranean Sea during Times Journeys’ recent “Legacy of Alexander the Great” tour, the conversation rolled around to Colin Kaepernick and his Anthem protest as a way to raise awareness of police violence against blacks. One of the Alexandrians in our group said that many in San Francisco view the protest as Kaepernick’s way of holding on to his job as backup quarterback of the city’s 49ers team as he isn’t very good.
But I don’t think Kaepernick is either that bad a quarterback – I believe he’ll be back as starter before December – or that Machiavellian a man. (I also think that there are easier ways to job advancement than turning yourself into the object of hatred that Kaepernick has become in some people’s eyes.)
Mostly, however, I take people at face value. If someone says he’s doing something for a particular reason, I believe him until proven otherwise.
I also believe people are put on this earth to fulfill certain roles. They do what they do, at least initially, without even knowing why they’re doing it. I don’t think Kaepernick set out to be a Gandhi, Ali, King or Chavez. But a moment arises when such people see an injustice and something inside them turns – for the better.
Hey, for the cynics out there, if it is a career move, it’s worked, because Kaepernick has made Time magazine’s Oct. 3 cover.
It’s easy to ridicule Kaepernick’s play just as it was easy to ridicule Tim Tebow for his play. But Tebow took the Denver Broncos all the way to the divisional playoffs while Kaepernick, another running quarterback, went even farther, taking his team to the Super Bowl. Whatever else happens in life, no one can take those experiences away from them. They both held the ultimate job for American males, starting QB, however briefly. And they’re both admired by many women. For those reasons, both are, I bet, objects of a great deal of male envy.
But what really rankles many football fans is that Tebow – whose new book, “Shaken,” bows Oct. 25 – and Kaepernick have used the game to draw attention to larger issues. And God forbid anything should take attention away from America’s national religion, football.
Tebow has taken a knee for a Higher Power; Kaepernick, for an end to racial violence. Bending a knee is a sign of respect. In football, it also signals an end – in Kaepernick’s case, to violence.
Yes, more white people are killed by police officers than blacks. Yes, more black people kill black people. That makes sense, doesn’t it, since there are more white people than black people in America and we still tend to live in segregated neighborhoods. But that’s not Kaepernick’s point. His point is the proclivity for cops to shoot blacks first and ask questions later. Since his protest, 15 blacks have been killed by police – including high profile shootings in Tulsa, Okla. and Charlotte, N.C., the former involving a female officer, perhaps an exception to the theory that female cops tend to defuse situations with words. So Midwest, South, female, male, the results are the same: Someone black is dead.
And Kaepernick’s protest looks, sadly, more relevant than ever.