Why #TakeAKnee is Important
I’ll just say this straight out: there is NOTHING unpatriotic about exercising one’s First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression by sitting, kneeling, or even turning one’s back on the flag during the playing of the National Anthem when one is making a point about the disparity between our idolatry of the symbols of our nations (the flag and the anthem, in particular) and our continuing unwillingness to grow into the ideals of our nation (liberty and justice for all who are created equal). This is not Jane Fonda going to the capital of the country with which we are at war. This is not Dennis Rodman popping up in Pyongyang as a publicity stunt or whatever that was to give a two-bit dictator more standing on the international stage. This is men whose lives have been defined far more by the color of their skin than by their abilities on and off the field of play calling our collective attention to just one of the many ways that we have fallen short of the glory