A Knee into the Gut of America

This past weekend we saw the Colin Kaepernick controversy of taking a knee during the national anthem explode to a social issue across multiple sports.

Some questions sociology can help us understand:

Why are they protesting?

This really eloquent op-ed was written in the NY Times by Eric Reid, one of the original players who took a knee (pictured on the right, Reid is the player on the left).

The protest originated with Kaepernick who was protesting police brutality and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement.  The BLM movement is not anti-police.  It is a movement to say, "Hey our lives should matter as much as anyone else's."  The reason that they do not feel equal is because the high number of people of color killed without anyone being held accountable.

Here is a website that compiles a comprehensive list of police-related violence.  See https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ for the homepage and this link has a list of unarmed victims who were killed.

Here are a few telling stats that should help give you a better understanding of the issue:

And this link to the Society Pages shows the rates of police killings as well.

Additionally, the Washington Post has a study of all police shootings.

Here is my post after the Ferguson riot. The post details shootings of black men (Trigger Warning - it shows violent encounters between police and civilians.)

Below is a video of sociologist Rashawn Ray explaining that the issue being protested is about all Americans, especially black Americans being treated equally and justly under the law.  

@SociologistRay linking athletes' protests to broader social injustices in communities. @aasewell @BenHCarrington @ProfHughey @DrPhilGoff pic.twitter.com/DIvEywAB3X

— W. Carson Byrd (@Prof_WCByrd) September 24, 2017

Whites may find it easier to ignore the protests or be annoyed by them.

The first reason that everyone might not understand the protests is because of the misconstrued message that gets jumbled by the words the media uses.  There are numerous examples of the media calling it a "national anthem protest."  However, while the protest is happening during the national anthem, it is NOT a protest of the national anthem.  This may be a nice connection to the Sapir Whorf hypothesis and the importance of words as well as the construction of cultural meaning by the media.  Fox News' Shep Smith explains it here.

Secondly, if you are white or you have never faced discrimination and if you do not have family or friends who are people of color then you may not understand the discrimination faced by minorities.  The thing is that the black community understands the issues in ways that the majority does not. If you are not black or don't have black friends, you may not see the impact of all of the racism day in and day out: the racist language and dog whistles used by the president and the impact by police killing people of color at a much higher rate than whites. If you are white, you can walk away from this issue because it doesn't affect you. So taking the knee is a way of saying "hey - if you are paying attention, we are hurting here. We are afraid. We feel unequal." This is an example of ingroups and outgroups that sociologists talk about.

Here is a link to the Ford Foundation which has a quiz that can help you see how insulated you are; that is, if you are insulated from discrimination, you don't have to worry about it. Sociologists call this privilege.

Think with a sociological imagination. If you are a person of color, you are influenced by the racism in America. Then think with sociological mindfulness - what can you do to fight racism? What are the little ways that you might allow it to perpetuate?

Protests have often been unpopular until the mainstream/majority understands the issues. Should blacks still sit in the back of buses? Should they use a separate drinking fountain? Those seem like ridiculous questions but at the time of the protests, polls showed a majority of Americans opposed those changes. Counter-culture is often unpopular. It upsets the current norms and status quo of society. It makes people notice norms and values that are inconvenient. But that's how society changes. See the charts below showing how unpopular protests of the sixties were? Imagine if those protests never happened and those norms never changed!

How is the President involved?

The President weighed in on the protests at both a rally last week and over twitter.

Read the President's comments and think about them from a symbolic interactionist, conflict and functional perspective. What is the meaning behind the comments? Who has the power and what is the President calling on those with power to do? What is the function of sports in general or the NFL in particular? How is this This post from CNN explains the coded language. Whose culture is he talking about? What heritage? Is this counter culture? And don't forget the importance of language and shared meaning. This is an example or Saphir-whorf hypothesis and that words matter.

SHS alum and sociology professor Nicole VanCleve explains it further here.

And the President has a long, long history of racist beliefs. See this history.

In the President's own words:

But what about the flag? Are these protests disrespectful to the flag?

There are countless examples of disrespecting the flag everyday in America, but they are not raised as an issue unless people of color are asking to be treated equally. In other words, there are numerous folkways that get violated everyday. The norms of flag respect only become mores when a minority race is infused.

Additionally, dozens of veterans have explained that they support the right to take a knee - indeed that's why they served our country! This is a particularly poignant explanation of it.

ESPN video - Here is a great video short by Kwame Alexander called "Take a Knee". It is an inspirational slam poem set to video about all of the issues mentioned above.