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At Yahoo Sports, Jay Busbee laments the politicization of the country illustrated by kneeling at football games. But Busbee only misses the point about why Colin Kaepernick’s protests were so inflammatory and why they do not compare in any way to a high school coach kneeling in prayer.
Busbee has a noble concern, worrying that polarization is tearing the country apart and hoping that the similarities between Kaepernick kneeling in protest and former high school coach Joseph Kennedy kneeling in prayer can help people “look beyond just the triggers that make us see red.”
“Many of the same conservative outlets hailing Kennedy for espousing his beliefs spent years savaging Kaepernick for espousing his,” Busbee writes. “Many of the same progressive commentators who vocally supported Kaepernick’s right to protest are outraged that Kennedy would bring his beliefs into the workplace.” He adds that “the simplest answer would be for those enraged by either kneeler to stop taking offense at what are … minor provocations at best.”
Again, it’s a noble sentiment, but the differences between Kaepernick and Kennedy go far beyond anything Busbee describes. First of all, no one complained about Kennedy’s praying before he was fired. He wasn’t doing it to get attention, and, in fact, he got very little until an opposing coach let things slip by praising Kennedy for it. The only people complaining now are the people who want religion erased from the public square, prattling on about “separation of church and state” (and yes, Busbee throws the phrase in here) with no idea what it or the First Amendment means.
Kennedy was bothering no one and antagonizing no one. Again, he was not trying to call attention to himself, which was, of course, Kaepernick’s stated goal. He set out to antagonize people while loudly and publicly announcing what he was doing, becoming an activist and, in the process, a media hero.
Kaepernick wanted to make the national anthem all about himself and his cause. What precisely was his cause? Kaepernick contended that police officers are all racists because the institution of policing is racist. He declared he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He insisted that police were indiscriminately gunning down unarmed black men, which is a dumb assertion not backed by any data.
Aside from smearing all police officers as racists and America as a hopelessly racist country, Kaepernick went on to praise terrorists, mourn for terrorists killed by U.S. forces, and praise Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. While Kennedy was specifically fired for praying, Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers, refused to take a pay cut to play for the Denver Broncos, and made himself such a circus that no NFL team would even tolerate his mediocre abilities as a backup-caliber quarterback at the time he began protesting.
Yes, Kaepernick and Kennedy both knelt at football games, but that is where the similarity ends. Kaepernick fueled polarization and profited from it. Kennedy was targeted by his school district based on a liberal misconception about the First Amendment.
There are plenty of issues on which conservative and liberal inconsistencies are on full display on both sides, but this is not one of them.
