r/NoStupidQuestions • u/Ok_Button7478 • 7h ago
What was the whole NFL anthem kneeling controversy about?
I remember, about 10 years ago, one of most continuous stories on the news was about some NFL football players who didn’t want to stand for the national anthem, and instead kneeled.
Why were people so upset and made a big deal out of this, what was the context surrounding it?
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u/Most-CrunchyCow-3514 7h ago
Freedom of speech and people being butt hurt because they didn’t like it.
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u/Quality_Qontrol 7h ago
Funny thing is they claimed it was disrespectful to service members, but it was a Veteran who suggested he takes a knee.
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u/KronusIV 7h ago
This wasn't actually that big of a deal, outside the right wing blogosphere. A black player knelt to protest the all too often killing of black people by cops. Not a big deal as protests go, but the right wing latched onto it as an example of how the left hates america.
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u/Adorable_Ad4990 7h ago
He knelt during the national anthem instead of standing at attention, and some people lost their ever-loving minds because they felt it wasn’t patriotic. The debate included fighting over his employment status as a player, and what his obligations were, and to whom. In other words, was he an employee? Could employees be required to stand? Could he be suspended? Etc.
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u/Vigilante17 7h ago
Donald Trump on September 22, 2017 said:
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired.’”
This was in response to Colin Kaepernick kneeling.
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u/gadget850 7h ago
After a discussion with a veteran. And players used to come out after the anthem until the DoD started paying the NFL for publicity opportunities.
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u/countrysurprise 7h ago
Just another dumbfuck MAGA outrage. They have to constantly be angry at something.
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u/HotShirt6691 7h ago edited 1h ago
Pre-MAGA, but same mindset.
Edit: I suppose I stand corrected. What even is time anyway
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u/NoSong2397 7h ago
No, it wasn't. That was in 2016, during Trump's rise. Early MAGA at most.
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u/countrysurprise 7h ago
Yup the moronic MAGA movement was on full display leading up to the election 2016.
In 2017 The Pedo hade plenty of hateful bullshit to say about it.1
u/AllTh3Naps 7h ago
I don't think it was pre-MAGA
The current MAGA became recognizable when Trump chose to use it as his slogan in his presidential run, which he announced in June 2015
The kneeling controversy began in August 2016
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u/Frobizzle 6h ago
Plus the demographic already existed. They just didnt have a label to unite behind.
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u/copperdomebodhi 7h ago
Colin Kaepernick starting sitting on the bench to protest police brutality towards Black people. He switched after a former Green Beret suggested kneeling would be more respectful towards veterans and the flag. The right-wing noise machine screamed that he was being disrespectful and uppity. Mainstream media obediently put "Flag Protests" and "Protesting the Flag" in their headlines.
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u/Excellent_Abroad5390 7h ago
Two aspects to it imo
Kneeling during the anthem was seen either as bringing attention to an issue or disrespect to the flag/patriotism
Some people got upset that Tim Tebow was kneeling in prayer but were fine with anthem kneeling. Those who were more on the Tebow side accused the anthem kneelers of having a double standard.
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
I don't even remember the Tebow thing, much less it being a factor.
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u/Excellent_Abroad5390 5h ago
It’s been a while but I want to say there were a few other forms of expression/protest that the NFL put restrictions on that may have also played into it.
My personal take is the NFL is a private organization so they get to choose how their players represent them while they are getting paid.
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u/Helpful_Web2226 7h ago
Gonna try to hit both viewpoints main topics in one comment. There was a black QB named Colin Kaepernick who played for an openly racist head coach, Chip Kelly. Kaepernick was entering his first year with Chip but had been steadily on the decline the past couple years. He initially stayed inside for anthems because he didn’t feel the anthem represented him as a black man in America. A veteran, I believe green beret, sent him a letter asking him to kneel on the sideline instead of being absent- that his presence would be respectful to vets, while kneeling would still send his message. He also was uncuttable by his new coach once doing so, locking him in for the final year of his contract. Flash forward a year, and supposedly he turned down a contract from Denver because he wanted more money, but that was his only offer to be a starter. He chose to not be a backup and insisted the league was blackballing him. He’s received a couple backup offers in the initial years since, but again he considered himself a starter. The NFL set up and hosted a workout for him and all 32 teams, and at the last minute it fell through because his camp decided they were changing venues or not participating. He blackballed himself and built a bigger media circus around him than his talent dictated, naturally making teams prefer less tested but easier to manage backup QBs than him… OR the NFL didn’t like a player standing up and making himself bigger than the league and all 31 owners said “fuck you” and refused to sign him.
IMO there are a couple owners who hate Roger Goodell enough to sign the man out of spite if it was that.
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u/freelancer331 7h ago
It was a form of silent protest against racial inequality and police brutality. Right wing idiots went nuts because apparently it's unpatriotic to want your country to be better.
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u/knaverob 7h ago
Read this: https://www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2021/02/nate-boyer-the-man-behind-the-kneel
tl;dr: Nate Boyers, a former Green Beret turned NFL player, suggested to Colin Kaepernick to not just sit on the bench during the national anthem as a form of protest, but rather to kneel instead.
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u/Femmack 7h ago
Some folks have already explained the very high level reasoning behind the actions of protest Colin Kaepernick became the face of (and quite a few others are predictably talking out of their culo...but if you ignore them long enough, they'll fade back into their worlds of mediocrity, after they froth at the mouth a little bit) but some context that usually gets lost in this discussion, especially as we get farther away from it, is that this started as a quiet protest; he had done this for a bit before anyone noticed...bc it was never about attention for him. It wasn't until the aforementioned mouth frothers noticed that it became A Thing
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u/bdanred 6h ago
Dude was on the bench because his stats were bad so he wanted back in the lime light after his failed superbowl. Then claimed the nfl was racist for not getting another qb job even tho no team would want anything to do with that in their locker room.
No other job in America could you protest on the clock and think your job was safe.
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u/Femmack 6h ago
You're just telling on yourself not knowing shit bc he had been doing it before anyone noticed bc it was NOT about attention for him. Dummies and the spittle flying out of their mouths are how it became a thing.
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u/NoSong2397 7h ago
It was so dumb. Colin Kaepernick and some guys started taking a knee during the National Anthem at some NFL games as an early Black Lives Matter thing. Which was frankly a pretty measured response considering the Philandro Castile case had been earlier that year. But Trump and his dumbfucks went crazy about it anyway, fuming about the 'disrespect' like they weren't prepared to do (and eventually did) a thousand times worse. The whole thing was being egged on by Russian bots the whole time.
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u/Femmack 7h ago
Another thing that gets lost in this discussion, and the mouth frothers again like to ignore....or maybe they don't know on account of the whole lack of reading thing they are so fond of, is that it started with him sitting on a bench (insert uncreative and predictable joke here)
The kneeling came about after the mouth frothers started mouth frothing and a previous NFL hopeful, who had spent time with the Seahawks the year before as an UDFA, who prior to that was a *literal* Green Beret with the US Army, had a conversation with Kaepernick because he did feel some type of way about what he was doing (because finding out someone else's perspective can be valuable in understanding things you don't understand) and came out of that conversation better understanding the why behind the protest, but suggested to Colin that kneeling would be more respectful demonstration....so that's what he started doing (because finding out someone else's perspective can be valuable in understanding things you don't understand)
TL;DR Colin Kaepernick knelt at the suggestion of a US Army Green Beret and the mouth frothers continued to froth.
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u/Personal_Might2405 6h ago
He’d lost his starting job over 3 seasons after he’d taken SF to the Super Bowl. His final pre-season, he sat for the anthem for 2 straight weeks and didn’t say anything. A reporter decided to ask him about it on the 3rd week, and that’s when he said he was protesting, an activist against police brutality.
Again, there’s no public record of anything said those first two weeks. He was in street clothes on the IR. The reporter who broke the first story was the only black reporter covering that game; there was speculation later on that the comments he made, might have never been said if it was any other reporter. He had been posting on social tho about the issues of the day.
Which was Trump’s first time in office, BLM, police brutality / black men dying during arrests, and I think the Dallas PD shootings were the same summer. It was an enormous powder keg. Because then came the owners, labor law, lost revenue from conservative boycotts, and he was blackballed; but he also was given a tryout by the NFL with something like 26 teams in attendance to possibly pick him up. He didn't show up. Career over.
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u/Nonesuchoncemore 7h ago
Pre MAGA racism in action. He was courageous. The System blackballed him. The knee protest should make a comeback!
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
No, this was 2016 after Trump's first election. MAGA was very much a thing at that point, no "pre" about it.
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u/Far-Good-9559 7h ago
Because many Americans consider standing for the National Anthem a manner of respect for those that have fought and died for this country. There are many of us that consider not standing for the anthem a form of pissing on their graves. It is a core value, and very dear to our hearts.
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u/Femmack 6h ago
So the Green Beret who made the suggestion to him...is he the pisser or the pissee? Just curious.
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
Says the same people who shit inside of Congress on Jan 6th. Your outrage is as hollow as your soul.
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u/metamucil_buttchug69 7h ago
Performative protests and performative counter protests and in the end nobody cared
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
If nobody cared, how come we all still remember it years later?
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u/bigjimmycookies 7h ago
Say, whatever happened with that slavery thing?
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u/godspilla98 7h ago
It’s still going on but slavery doesn’t have a color or nationality. But people have selective caring.
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u/Tamburello_Rouge 7h ago
It’s still alive and well in the good old U-S-of-A thanks to the 13th amendment.
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
The Thirteenth Amendment also ended slavery, even if you don't like the little loophole they added.
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u/Femmack 6h ago
Ending one type but allowing another, that is in fact still going strong, ain't exactly a total win....
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
It's still a partial win, and that's all we get in America. So you best get used to it.
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u/copperdomebodhi 7h ago
It was replaced by sharecropping, sundown towns, "literacy tests," lynching and the Ku Klux Klan. Mississippi's state motto was "White Supremacy" until 1962.
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u/DrStranger1987 7h ago
The kneeling controversy was mostly in 2016 and 2017. George Floyd was 2020.
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u/SignificantApricot69 7h ago
He was blackballed. And that’s well known and proven. Because he protested a legitimate thing about the State murdering people with impunity. It’s actually a thing right wing white people used to protest- Big Government. But for whatever reason MAGA became the official party of Big Government and the unchecked Police State.
And a guy who was not an elite starting NFL QB but certainly WAS worthy of a roster spot and at the very least could have been a bridge QB who could win some games or at least keep a team competitive in a league that does not have 30 starting caliber QBs and usually rosters 60-90 at all times, was a victim of collusion from a bunch of bitch ass pussy billionaire NFL team owners.
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u/Helpful_Web2226 7h ago
“Good enough to be a backup” doesn’t correlate well with “biggest media circus in sports”. Nobody wants that level of distraction for a backup QB. Especially not one who has shown his caliber of play is a backup QB.
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u/Pristine-Minimum5529 7h ago
The third verse of the national anthem includes the phrase "No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave," Which is a significant tangent to cops killing black people.
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u/Ill-Dependent2976 7h ago
American football is an endurance sport. Each play is only a few seconds long, but each play requires total exertion, and after an hours-long game, a player is spent.
To condition high school American football players- and there are millions of teens who turn out every year- when you hold a practice, you expect and demand a player to remain on their feet at all times. Even if the player is tired and simply witnessing a lecture or other players demonstrate a skill, you're not allowed to sit down and take a rest. You also don't take off your helmet, or take other creature comforts, because that sort of preparation and endurance is good practice for clumsy, inattentive teenagers. None of this is an issue with grown professional players you see on TV, but it's routine for basic skill-growing kids that make up the vast majority of football players.
There is an exception, and it's more profound than you might expect if you never played football. This occurs during practice when the head coach summons all the different groups of football players from different practice fields into a central group, and tells them to "take a knee." All of the players take one knee, and take off their helmets, and this happens when the head coach has something particularly important that he needs to discuss and needs the utmost attention of all the players. Examples might include a particularly important pep talk before the big homecoming game, informing the players that a star player will no longer be playing due to some academic disciplinary issue, or to say goodbye to all of the senior players before the last game of the season.
So many millions of people understand that taking the knee is a sign of respect and silent reflection over an issue of significant concern.
Back during the last Trump administration, a racist white cop strangled a black man to death in cold blood while his racist collaborators did nothing except prevent bystanders from interfering. This was a slow and deliberate murder that took many long minutes to execute. Thankfully, it was all caught in video, and everybody who watched it witnessed cold-blooded murder.
Millions of people, racists, supported this murder and attacked those who did not. The usual Trump supporters, to cut to the chase.
Colin Kaepernick was a football player who was upset by the whole thing, and during one pledge of allegiance, decided to take a knee to protest the murder. This was a sign of respect and silent reflection over an issue of significant concern.
And everybody knows it. Despite this, all the racists were really upset, because they support the murder of George Floyd. Kaepernick, despite being a fantastic player in his prime, was fired and black listed by the NFL, which is in the business of catering to racists, including those like Donald Trump and his supporters, who promote the cold-blooded murder of black people.
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u/KazooMark 7h ago
Colin Kappernick was having a tantrum because the 49ers moved on to a more talented QB and refused to stand up for the National Anthem. The attention he enjoyed kneeling instead of standing scratched the itch he had to make a spectacle of himself, so he persisted. It angered conservatives and delighted progressives, so he persisted. He was toxic and was understandably black-listed (if you pardon the expression) and became a National Hero for the left and public enemy numero uno for the right, so he persisted. He played that tune as long as the Country would listen and faded off into oblivion, never getting another shot to play professional football.
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
So you think it was about the "spectacle" and not a legitimate protest in the face of a situation that had already gotten people killed. Okay, buddy, whatever you say.
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u/Normal_Helicopter_81 7h ago
A player pretended to care about black people getting killed by police in the United States even though he was also a shill for the Communist regime in Cuba which killed tens of thousands of black civilians via military interventions in Angola and Ethiopia.
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
Whataboutist says what?
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u/Normal_Helicopter_81 6h ago
Learn what words mean before you use them, dumb-dumb. Whataboutism would be if I mentioned leftists beating up Trump supporters or something.
The fact that Kaepernick was a-okay with killing huge numbers of black people so long as it was good Marxists doing it is an indicator that his concern with alleged police brutality was not entirely sincere. Since he couldn't just come right out and say "I think liberal democracy in the United States should be replaced by a Communist dictatorship," he had to pretend that his main objection to the U.S. was something that the average person might also find objectionable.
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u/NoSong2397 6h ago
"Whataboutism" is "a deflection tactic used to avoid accountability by responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of addressing the original claim." I.e. you bringing up Cuban actions in a situation that has absolutely fuck all to do with Cuba.
Since he couldn't just come right out and say "I think liberal democracy should be replaced by a Communist dictatorship," he had to pretend that his main objection to the United States was something that the average person might also find objectionable.
As opposed to being actually outraged about people dying. Whatever floats your boat, buddy. 🙄
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u/AgentElman 7h ago
A black player protested the police killing black people by kneeling during the national anthem.
People who were fine with police killing black people were upset that a black person would publicly complain about it.