FIST FUCKED IN FOG CITY - Colin Kaepernick And The Art Of Civil Disobedience
"There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience..."
You have to feel for Colin Kaepernick. Or, to put it another way, you don’t. He is a multi-millionaire, relatively successful (at least initially, but we’ll get to that) NFL player living the dream of countless droves of men from time immemorial. He gets paid to play football. He queue jumps all the hottest restaurants and bars in town. He likely has his pick of all manner of California Girls and, even on a bad day, is probably finished work somewhere around lunch. He lives the life of a charmed and moderately handsome bastard. So, why should we feel for him?
Because America hates Colin Kaepernick.
This is nothing new, of course. America hates all manner of people. Just try running through Atlanta dressed as William Tecumseh Sherman and see how far you get. My screeches were heard for miles and heeded by no-one. Atlanta is that kind of town. Colin Kaepernick’s crime? Refusing to stand for the National Anthem at the start of 49er’s preseason games, including on Military Appreciation night.
Shit, in Atlanta, they’d fist fuck you in a dark room with old copies of Time magazine for that.
Kaepernick’s reason? He is protesting the treatment of black citizens in a depressingly racially divided America, particularly by police.
"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color” the QB has explained. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."
To most Americans, of course, nothing is bigger than football. Except the anthem and the flag. Don’t fuck with those, son. We’ve got an old copy of Time and a bottle of lube just waiting for you.
Well, quite.
When did America become the bad guy? You know, the cartoon villain it has always claimed to oppose. When did America become Nazi Germany, North Korea or Communist Russia? What, indeed, would Uncle Josef have to say about this? Wasn’t this country built on freedom of speech? Isn’t Colin Kaepernick exercising that freedom?
Or do we only mean speech is free if we like what you’re actually saying?
For these so called United States to so viciously savage an athlete for a display of non-violent protest is one of the most heinous reactions to a political issue I’ve seen since those poor bastards were brutally whipped about the face for telling Donald Trump what we all really think of him. The President has sprung to his defense. The police are boycotting the games. People are questioning his patriotism and his blackness.
Hold on, here. One at a time, eh?
For the police to boycott 49er’s games is probably a cheap way of backing out of having to watch the continued, excruciatingly prolonged self-flagellation of an only recently outstanding football team. Hell, I don’t even want to watch the 49er’s games, and they’re my team. From the Super Bowl in 2012 to a dismal 5-11 record just three seasons later. Nobody has raced into mediocrity that quickly since Dennis Leary.
When it comes to Kaepernick’s patriotism, well, I always thought being a patriot meant criticisng the country you loved when you thought it was getting something majorly wrong, rather than blindly turn your head and pretend everything is alright. I love my country, that’s why I hold it to high standards and criticize it for falling short sometimes. That’s what a patriot is. So that deals with that.
As for questioning his blackness, that is the most disgusting slur of all. We’ll forgive, for a minute, his inexplicable afro hairdo, envy of hipsters and Blaxploitation fans everywhere. A huge afro does not a Stokely Carmichael or a Huey P Newton make. If anything, rather than affirming his blackness, it just makes him look like Big Bird. But Colin Kaepernick is black. And even if he wasn’t, so what? His protest and reasons for doing it would be just as valid if he were the whitest man in a long line of white men from Boston or Montana.
Colin Kaepernick is black.
Get over.
What he isn’t, though, at least right now, is a very good or even relevant football player. Many have cynically claimed that he has conjured up this protest as a means to force himself back into a limelight that had swung heavily away from him of late. That he is acting on his own behalf, protecting his image, his brand. I don’t think that was the case, but so what if it was? His words still smack with the bitter sting of truth. Just because everyone is looking at him when he says it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Right, OJ?
Sales of Kaepernick’s number 7 jersey have shot through the roof since this happened, becoming the most popular NFL jersey out there today, even if he is gonna be wearing it most of the time, ironically, sitting down on a bench. Other athletes have followed suit and protested in a similar nature but you have to hugely admire Kap for having the swollen cajones to go first. That takes guts, my friend. To start a conversation in the national consciousness that, in some towns will still, in this year of our Lord 2016, get you hung from the nearest tree.
I applaud his braveness.
Remember, the same people who praise Muhammad Ali for his Civil Rights protests, deifying him as if he were a saint, are the same ones that want to rip Colin Kaepernick limb from muscled limb.
The same ones.
Let that sink in for a second.
And be prepared to fight your corner against all comers. Because standing up for yourself has never been more important.
Even if that means sitting down.