Kneeling protests were always about the flag

Recently, NFL star J.J. Watt added to the chorus of players defending the NFL kneeling protests, stating that “if you still think it’s about disrespecting the flag … you clearly haven’t been listening.”

The claim that these protests aren’t about the flag has been the most common defense of kneeling from sports figures and the media. It’s also false.

Aside from the obvious, using the flag as the vehicle of protest makes the protest be about the flag, we should pay attention specifically to what the originator of the protest said. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said back in 2016. Kaepernick reiterated his message in 2018 after accepting an award from Amnesty International, saying, “How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates, ‘freedom and justice for all,’ that is so unjust to so many of the people living there?”

One might still argue even then that the protests aren’t really about the flag but about police brutality and racism. But this line also falls short. In 2017, there was a massive increase in players kneeling not because of a recent event involving police but because President Trump had called on the NFL to punish players who knelt. The Associated Press estimated that over 200 players took part in the Week Three protests — not in protest of police brutality but in unity with the lesser number of players who had already been kneeling.

So yes, the protest was always about the flag — at least partly. The players have every right to go ahead and continue with their protest, as they always have. But they might also do well to find a form of protest of police brutality that carries with it a more unifying connotation. It shouldn’t be this complicated to rally the public to a cause that is far less controversial than the form of protest itself.