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1/ Over the past few days, I have seen grumblings from white men online that they plan to boycott the NFL over black players protesting.
2/ I am a white male, a lifelong NFL fan, and a military veteran, and I have a few things to say.
3/ I served this country specifically in defense of the rights enumerated in our Constitution.
4/ I served so that Americans like Kaepernick could take a knee during the National Anthem in protest of white supremacy + police brutality.
5/ I served because patriotism takes many forms, and the highest forms of patriotism are...
6/ ...exercising the right to criticize America so that we might improve and giving one's life so that others might exercise that right.
7/ Neither of these forms of patriotism are higher than the other, and they are inextricable.
8/ We cannot separate the courage required to speak truth to the bruises in our souls with the courage it takes to die for that speech.
9/ We cannot separate the moral voice Lincoln called our "better angels" w/ the sacrifice he anointed the "last full measure of devotion".
10/ I am told a boycott of the NFL is due to Kaepernick + other black players "bringing politics" into a space meant to be nonpolitical.
11/ And I am here to tell you, as a lifelong football fan, that the NFL is the most political institution in the country.
12/ Moreso than Congress. Moreso than the White House. Moreso than any memorialized block of marble in all the land.
13/ The NFL is nothing if not political. It is the greatest prism through which we define the American identity.
14/ And that is precisely because we have made the NFL the most common and explicit touchstone of the American experience.
15/ The NFL is the highest-earning, most-watched sport in the country, and it is also the most decorated in patriotic pageantry.
16/ And these two things, good or bad, working in tandem give greater access to the American value system than anything else in our society.
17/ Those watching an NFL game are confronted w/ the truth that there are women + men in uniform who serve, and often die, for our freedoms.
18/ There's the National Anthem, the color guard, the jet flyovers, the solemn tributes to the troops, the commercials...
19/ ...and a million other little snippets of insistence that we are able to watch grown men play with a ball on a field...
20/ ...because of those women and men in uniform who sacrifice for our freedoms that are clearly spelled out in the Constitution.
21/ And the most important of those freedoms is speaking truth to power.
22/ If that is not political, if that is not the essence of defining how power is given and granted, then nothing is political.
23/ Professional football revolves around a core pageantry of celebrating freedom and the power required to maintain that freedom.
24/ So many White Americans are unsettled by Kaepernick's protest due to the realization that patriotism is not something we exclusively own
25/ We, as White Americans, are so accustomed to seeing patriotism made in our own image, bereft of all struggles of people of color...
26/ ...that it is jarring to see a Black American exercise their free speech to protest injustices we can scarcely comprehend.
27/ It's as though White Americans wash, wax, and rev up a nice car for the sake of celebrating having the car but never need to drive it...
28/ ...and are shocked when Black Americans use that car to drive down a muddy road, the very purpose for which that car was created.
29/ We are shocked to find problems a wash + wax cannot address, problems we'd sooner never acknowledge, lest we be required to solve them.
30/ I did not serve my country so that grown adults could engage in lofty, empty theatrics for values they supposedly hold dear...
31/ ...only to stage an outcry when someone dares to ask if we really care about those values.
32/ I did not serve my country so that other White Americans could use that service to silence Black Americans.
33/ And--this is important--I did not serve my country so that only military veterans could lay claim to the mantle of patriotism.
34/ You can disagree with Kaepernick's reasons for protesting (although I believe you'd be wrong)...
35/ ...but you cannot exploit my service--or that of any military veteran--to shame Kaepernick and other black citizens into silence.
36/ And let me be absolutely clear: if this is your reason to boycott the NFL...
37/ ...not domestic violence, not rape, not traumatic brain injuries, not unfair labor practices...
38/ ...but seeing a black player respectfully kneel in protest of racism...
39/ ...I would have to question not only your understanding of our Constitutional freedoms...
40/ ...but the very core of your humanity, that part shaped by empathy and compassion.
41/ If that core in your soul is missing, there are far bigger problems to address than what's on Sunday afternoon television.
42/ I wish you way more than a flag and an anthem in finding it. /thread
