Donald Trump said of Colin Kaepernick in an interview yesterday, “I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try – it won’t happen.” This suddenly struck me as an absolutely bizarre statement for Trump to make. After all, he’s running his entire campaign on the premise that America currently sucks, and everything is broken, and Obama has personally, and purposely, plunged the entire country into an endless sinkhole of misery and sadness. Hence the slogan ‘Make America Great AGAIN’.

At issue, of course, was 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner until (as he put it) we see ‘significant change’ in race relations in the United States.

And yet, when presented with a case of someone staging a protest to say ‘hey, America ISN’T that great – and I’m going to sit out the anthem until America is made great again‘, Trump fell back on the old Bush-era conservative trope of ‘America is the greatest country ever and if you think something about it isn’t perfect, could be changed, or is in need of examination, don’t you dare voice that concern. That would make you un-patriotic and terrible.’

This kind of cognitive dissonance doesn’t exactly surprise me. It’s something of which we are all guilty, at one time or another, and it takes a certain level of introspection be aware of such conflicts within ourselves. I don’t expect Donald Trump to ever exhibit that level of self-awareness. But the rest of us can, perhaps, try to make that journey.

Criticizing your country makes you unpatriotic. Have you ever sat your child down and expressed displeasure with their actions or their choices? I assume so. Does this make you anti-child? A poor parent who doesn’t support their child? Or does it make you a concerned parent who wants to see their child do better and wants to help them achieve it? Never acknowledging a child’s misbehaviour can lead only to a child who believes they have never misbehaved. Same thing with a country or a government. They must be held to account, or the same cycle will continue.

[There are several valid reasons to disagree with Kaepernick’s choice of sitting out the anthem. Personally, I’m not sure I quite get it. I understand the stance, the issues and the conviction that led him to this decision. I’m just not sure it is going to accomplish any of what he hopes it will, because the discussion has become one about the QB himself, and not the issues he is trying to address.]

This protest is anti-cop. I also think the San Francisco police department has a valid complaint with, as they put it, Kaepernick’s ‘lack of sensitivity toward police officers’. The statements he made (once the media actually noticed he’d been sitting for three games) were eloquent and well thought out, but not particularly as nuanced or as balanced as I’m sure the police would like. But there was a problem with the statement they put out, and it was twofold – suggesting Kaepernick join them at the police academy to get a sense of the training police go through was an excellent idea. This is one way the divide can be bridged! But to put that in at the end of a long letter that has, up until then, full-on attacked the man, certainly makes it seem disingenuous. And secondly, their insistence that the Niners organization disavow Kaepernick’s comments is a terrible look. He doesn’t speak for the Niners. Or for the NFL. Only for himself.

And to suggest that Kaepernick is anti-cop is a pretty big leap. Has anyone asked him? His statements ask for police to be held to a higher standard and to be held accountable when they do their jobs poorly. In no way does he suggest that all, or even most, police officers are bad. Or that they are racist. He’s merely pointing out that sometimes people who are clearly unqualified slip through the cracks (which certainly happened with, say, the Tamir Rice shooting) and that those police who do a bad job are not held accountable the way a member of the general public is. (As certainly happened in the Tamir Rice case.)

I’m sure his comparison between police officers and cosmetologists rubbed a lot of cops the wrong way. Understandably so. But I’m sure most cops don’t need to constantly be reminded how tough their job is. Poor choice of analogy? Sure. Anti-cop? No.

Anthem=flag=country=military. No it doesn’t. If it did, why would the US have added ‘God Bless America’ to sporting events in an attempt to boost patriotism following 9/11 and through the wars that came as a result – wasn’t that then the song that was supposed to remind us of the sacrifice of soldiers?

Flags don’t fly to remind people that we have soldiers. Anthems aren’t played to remind us all of the sacrifice of military vets. If that’s what you think when you see a flag or hear an anthem, great! I think those things should be topmost in our minds so long as our troops are fighting overseas and risking their lives. I think about this every day. But I don’t conflate our anthem with our flag with our soldiers. The Canadian flag means one thing. Two oceans on either side, a nation in the middle. The American flag means one thing. 13 original colonies, 50 states. Any other interpretation of the meaning of the flag rest solely on the shoulders of the person observing it. Same goes for the anthem. Boycotting the anthem is NOT the same as boycotting the flag. And NOT disrespecting the military. You have every right to lump the three together in your mind as many of us do. But you can’t assume or insist that everyone else do the same.

An excerpt from the (REAL) third verse of the Star Spangled Banner:
“No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
The Star Spangled Banner was written in 1812. In the middle of the war of 1812. When slavery was still the law of the land, and the British pushed back the American’s invasion of what is now Canada with the help of American slaves they freed to help them with the cause. This verse is specifically celebrating the murder of those slaves who had taken their freedom and used it to fight against their former captors.

An excerpt from Jackie Robinson’s autobiography: “There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands. Perhaps, it was, but then again, perhaps, the anthem could be called the theme song for a drama called The Noble Experiment. Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first world series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor. As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”

Comparing Kaepernick’s experience with that of a slave or that of Jackie Robinson is apples and oranges, I know. I’m just pointing out that celebrating an object (a flag) or a traditional song (an anthem) for the sake of putting on the appearance of patriotism means that you haven’t really thought about the meaning of either. Instead, you have assigned them a meaning, then draped yourself in them and declared yourself a patriot. Kaepernick says he has the utmost respect for the military. I believe him. I believe he recognizes that the anthem and the military, while they reference each other, are not interchangeable.

He used the word ‘oppression’. I’ve seen this a lot – ‘go to North Korea! That’s REAL oppression!’ Or something along those lines. Kaepernick never said HE was ‘oppressed’. He was speaking for his community as a whole. And yes. It is nothing close to the dire circumstances faced by those in North Korea, or China, or Russia or Cuba or wherever. So what I’ve decided to do is wage a campaign to close down all the food banks in Ottawa. They exist to help people who otherwise might have access to only one meal a day. While in Somalia, there are people who have access to NO meals a day. That’s REAL hunger. Your hunger is meaningless next to theirs, so shut up about it.

He is really rich. He’s certainly made a lot of money. How much money must one make, though, before they are no longer allowed to make social commentary, or voice an opinion? A million? Ten million? A billion? Donald Trump better shut the hell up about America then and not talk about making it great again – after all, he’s filthy rich so he must have zero cause to complain about anything.

He’s risking nothing. I don’t think this is true at all. Kaepernick is no longer the superstar QB who crushed my Packers in the playoffs on the way to a Super Bowl appearance. He is part of a QB pool fighting for a starting job – or a backup job. In fact, he is fighting just to stay on the team at all. He is doing this because five years from now he may no longer have a name at all. And who would care if Rick Mirer or Scott Mitchell wrote an op-ed about race relations today? Anyone? How much news would that make? Instead, Kaepernick has taken a stand because he still has the stature to make it matter. And it could cost him his job – he’s on the bubble, and this political stance could become a headache for Niners brass. Cutting him would solve a lot of problems for them and would not be seen as an unexpected thing. (The Niners would still be on the hook for a chunk of salary, but safe from having to pay more following an injury, and they would save their roster bonus.) He’s not risking as much as a Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Tommie Smith and John Carlos – but he’s certainly not risking nothing.

Why I like this. Colin Kaepernick just took a stand. Something athletes have been reluctant to do, historically. A stand on the same issue that has turned many others into activists. Michael Jordan made the first political statement in his life on this subject. LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade at the ESPYs. WNBA players. Whether I think that stand is going to be effective or not is beside the point. Kaepernick knew how unpopular this was going to be in certain circles, and did it anyway. He knew how dangerous this was going to be to his tenuous career prospects, and did it anyway. He’s not Muhammad Ali. He’s not Tommie Smith. He’s a public figure who used that profile to take a stand on an issue that matters, and a guy who hopes to help in some small way to further the discussion. You don’t have to agree with him on everything (I don’t). And you don’t have to follow his example (I probably wouldn’t). But you should at least have respect for someone who acts with the courage of his convictions. I do.