I don’t like to get on my soapbox, but sometimes things just bother me so much that I have to say something about it.  In this case, I heard a news announcer yesterday make the statement that Colin Kaepernick couldn’t get a job in the NFL after he protested racial injustice, and of course they showed the obligatory picture of Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem.  But to me this is such an untrue statement and I can’t understand why Kaepernick, the news media, or others who support what he did, don’t get why this was so wrong.  It wasn’t what he was protesting that cost him his job, it was how he was protesting.

First, he has every right to protest racial injustice.  It’s wrong and needs to be eradicated, especially in the organizations that are supposed to defend and protect all of us, not just the white or the privileged.  Second, he broke the law.  Granted, the law is one that if caught being broken would only result in a minor warning or ticket, like driving faster than the posted speed limit on a federal highway.  Third, he didn’t consider the people he would offend by protesting in the manner in which he did.  Dishonoring the American flag is like dishonoring the tens of thousands of Americans of every color who have fought, became physically disabled or have even given their lives in defending it for the past two hundred and fifty years.  Most men and women of our armed forces and their families take offense when someone denigrates our country its flag or its people, no matter where in the world it happens.  So when it happens on prime time TV in our own country, it’s very offensive – especially to people like me. The point I’m trying to make is that he could have protested racial injustice in so many other ways and still got national attention (and he likely would have kept his job in the NFL).  He didn’t have to do it by teaching young people who had turned on their TV to simply watch a football game to then learn that one of the people they look up thinks that it’s okay to dishonor America.  For heaven’s sake, its not America that caused racial injustice.  Its been around long before America ever became a country.  It’s caused by bad government policies, crooked people in power, an inadequate education system, or so many other things that could and do happen on a day-to-day basis practically everywhere, not just in America.  These things are separate and need to be disconnected from the constitution and democratic principles that have made this country great.  Being allowed to protest in the first place is a privilege granted by our constitution, a privilege that hasn’t always and in some cases still doesn’t exist in other countries around the world.  Like the old saying, if you don’t like this country – leave.  Instead, thousands of people are constantly trying like crazy to come into this country and out of theirs.  If you can find a better country to go to I’d like to know where it is.  By all measures, this country is a great country.  And above anything else, the American flag represents this country.  By federal law, you are supposed to honor it.  Not because you are honoring the crooked politician who made his or her way into government or the police officer who has forgotten his oath, but because the flag represents the sacrifice of so many good people that have over the years made America the most envied country in the world today.   Protesters like Kaepernick have every right to complain about unacceptable conditions that need fixed (which is one of the reasons this country is so great), but they need to do it in a peaceful way at the appropriate place and time; and to remember the flag and national anthem which represent our country is what allows (and has defended with its blood) their right to do so.  So go after the injustices that always seem to crop up, but give our flag and our national anthem the respect they deserve.