What do you do when the national anthem plays? Do you immediately stand and put your hand over your heart? Do you take your hat off? Do you stay sitting down?
The issue of what someone should do during the national anthem has become a hot topic within the last few weeks. With the Olympics taking place and then football starting up right after the Olympics ended, we have had many opportunities to hear the national anthem.
Gabby Douglas was criticized for not putting her hand over her heart during her gold medal awarding ceremony at the Olympics. Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, sat down during the national anthem as a show of protest.
Kaepernick has since declared that he will not stand during the national anthem until the country is “representing people the way that it’s supposed to.” He is protesting against police brutality against minorities and he has criticized both Clinton and Trump.
His stance has his teammates divided on what is right and what is wrong. It has also opened the question of why do we stand for the national anthem?
Kaepernick has received national attention and now has the opportunity to speak his views in a way that he probably wouldn’t have before. It is clear that his motives are not political as he basically called Clinton a criminal and Trump openly racist.
Of course, Donald Trump cannot let someone insult him, even with the truth, and let them get away with it. He stated that Kaepernick should start thinking about maybe going to another country. Let’s remind Trump that he wants to make America great again. So maybe he should just find another country as well if he doesn’t like what’s going on within it.
Kaepernick’s stance has brought even more attention to an issue that has been debated and talked about for several years now. The issue of racial tensions and police brutality does not seem like it will be fading away anytime soon.
I’m not the white person who goes around declaring that people are racist towards me. I don’t really understand why I should have it so easy just because my skin is pale, pale white, but I do. I will not deny that it is something that needs to change. This is the Land of the Free and it is time that we all started acting like it. Minorities should be treated as equally and fairly as I am. Police officers should never have the policy of shoot first, ask questions later.
However, I will say that I have met many police officers in recent years who treat everyone with respect and dignity and I believe that it is an unfairness to them to qualify all police officers as racist and unafraid to use deadly force. I thank those men who everyday put their life on the line for all of us.
What will Kaepernick truly gain by refusing to stand for the national anthem? He is willing to lose a few fans, to be criticized by his peers, but no one can deny that he hasn’t kept the conversation on race relations in America going.
There is no law that dictates that he must stand up. I think that there are many of us in America who don’t feel particularly patriotic lately. Maybe he is one of the few who has actually dared to vocalize it.
We do live in a free country, where at least we will not be killed for our beliefs or our thoughts, but some could argue that to truly be a free country, to truly be all that the national anthem represents, we must have that awkward uncomfortable conversation about race in our country today.
I don’t want to take away from the racial issue that our country is facing. It is serious and it is a problem. No law abiding citizen should be afraid of the police and no police officer should fear a law abiding African American.
I respect Kaepernick’s right to peacefully protest a wrongdoing in our country.
Veterans have come in support of Kaepernick on Twitter using the hashtag #VeteransForKaepernick. As one veteran said on his account, “My grandfather served so Rosa Parks could sit down. I served so @Kaepernick7, [Colin Kaepernick], could sit down.”
I don’t think any words could describe it so perfectly. We don’t have to agree with what he said and what he did, but I believe he has the right to sit down during a national anthem in show of protest. I love our country and feel blessed to live in it, but it is not a perfect country and it still has some serious problems. I think it’s okay if we admit that.
Laina Yost
Managing Editor