How one man kneeling caused many to stand up

On August 26th 2016 Levi’s Stadium was packed with badgers and Niners fans ready for the pre-season game. The Star-Spangled Banner began it’s introduction and thousands of Americans with their respective red or white shirts stood to sing about their flag. Cameras snapped and heads turned as one man stayed sat on the bench. A week later, joined by teammate Eric Reid and former player Nate Boyer, the same man kneeled during the anthem.

Colin Kaepernick is now a free agent and, having protested further by kneeling at 16 regular-season games, has become a cultural icon for the Black Lives Matter campaign and a lightning rod for hope and hatred. His protests have started a movement with many sportsmen refusing to stand for the national anthem in order to show their disagreement with a country they view as oppressing towards people of colour.

This has divided the country with some viewing the actions as courageous and necessary and others believing that the disrespect is irredeemable. Donald Trump has condemned the dissenting players and his number two Mike Pence left a Colts vs. 49ers game in his home state as a statement of discord from the movement. As well as officials, thousands of American citizens and football fans have spoken about the demurral, wishing they would just ‘get on with the game’. However, a large number of sportsmen have shown their support for Kaepernick such as the team the 49ers lost to in the 2013 Superbowl: the Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Cavaliers star player Lebron James, and his Golden State rival Stephen Curry.

Kaepernick himself has become a ‘prisoner of the movement’. Absent from the iconic Sports Illustrated cover on the unity of sportsmen after Trump’s speech, and having not spoken to the media for months, people are calling to him to regain his footing in the movement he started. As New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft said: ‘the biggest enemy in sport is division from within’; Kaepernick needs to return to unite his side of the argument in the hope of eventual unity in combating the problem.

However, he has been active on Instagram posting emotive content such as a video of a black man called Alton Sterling being wrestled to the ground and shot by two white policeman, with the caption: ‘This is what lynchings look like in 2016’, an appreciation post to Eminem on his recent rap undermining Trump, and several Black History Month tributes. Kaepernick also set up a campaign called ‘Know Your Rights’ for the youth to educate them on ‘how to properly interact with law enforcement in various scenarios’. In 2015 1,152 people were killed by the police, 30% of these deaths being unarmed blacks. What Kaepernick is trying to build awareness for is the fact that for 97% of these deaths no charges were enforced against the police as he said: “There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder”.

There are not decisive sides in this movement as so many do not have an opinion, but the coalition between sports rivals shows the gravity of the situation by displaying that this matters more than the games they are playing. When Colin Kaepernick omitted to stand at that 49ers versus Packers game he was making a statement – he wasn’t keeping up with the football score anymore, he was playing quarterback for his own movement.

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