I have to assume that the players who were caught up in this NFL drama just don't know our country's history, or they wouldn't use disrespecting the flag as their mode of protest. The flag is a symbol that demands we display respect.
I absolutely defend players' right to protest - on their own time - and applaud all of the players who are truly making a difference by donating their time and resources to inner city communities who need their help and need responsible role models to show kids in dire circumstances that there is a way out - and it comes through hard work and dedication.
But I do not agree with the method many players have chosen as their mode of protest. They are at work. What if, to protest inequities in the Justice System, a group of lawyers decided to sit instead of stand when the Bailiff says "All Rise!" They'd be in contempt of court. And disrespecting a judge is not as awful as disrespecting what our flag and national anthem stand for! "On the job" is not the place to stage a public protest.(However, if there are indecencies occurring as part of the job, then those need to be handled appropriately - but not as a public forum.)
We are not a perfect nation - we have lots of flaws - but the flag and National Anthem are the representations of the hope of what we want to be, and thousands have died to give us the freedom of free speech...but that freedom has to be exercised in a way that generates the possibility of a positive outcome.
And just a little postscript for those who want to get on the bandwagon of how abysmal the inequities are in our country....you should go to a third-world country and see people living at the dump, eating whatever scraps they can find! It is very possible that many who are Americans have been spared that fate by their ancestors coming here - whether or not that was by choice....
And just one more pertinent aside - I was at Evergreen as a Senior taking a class titled "The Harlem Renaissance" when I learned that it was not white people who captured black tribal members and sold them. It was black people. Yes, they sold them to traders, who were white, but the captivity began with their rivals of their own color. So - get over it. We are all here now. Together. Black, white, brown, and every combination imaginable. We can work together to be strong, or we can be our own worst enemy and implode. It's up to everyone of us to make that choice!
There have been multitudes of horrible atrocities that have happened throughout the span of history of man's indecency to man. In the relatively brief history of our own country many Chinese were brought to work in forced labor under terrible living and working conditions.... Upstanding hard-working (with many being fully-American) Japanese were crowded into camps and their land was stolen from them because of the attack of Japan on the United States.... There were multiple inequities done to the Native Americans who lived here before we arrived.... Many of the Scotch and Irish who came here as laborers were treated abysmally. And, yes, we have the horrible stain of black slavery tainting our history.... That was then, this is now. We all have to take personal responsibility for navigating the future and quit blaming the system and the past. Those who think it is intolerable here could opt to leave America and go to where they think things will be better...but that place doesn't exist. If you even have running water, you are better off than the majority of the world.
All lives matter - and all people need to get to work to help make a difference! And that is my perspective....
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