Colour me surprised

[Sue U]

LJ, your criticism of Kaepernick here seems to boil down to "Free speech is fine as long as you do it the way I think you should do it." Which entirely misses the point of free speech.

Kaepernick's target may be ill-considered and his method a distraction from his message, but he did not stop traffic or create a disturbance in a hospital zone or damage property or cause anyone so much as the slightest inconvenience, let alone engage in any illegal or even immoral act. His was about the most mild form of protest conceivable, and the condemnation he has received is wildly out of proportion to any "offense" that others imagine they have suffered by his act.

Kaepernick is young and apparently not well-educated or particularly well-informed, but he is capable of recognizing a pervading social injustice and his feelings about the issues are not wrong. His choice in how to express those feelings certainly drew attention -- which after all is the point of any protest. There may be more sophisticated and effective ways to convey his political message, but fundamentally there is nothing wrong with what he did.

[Lord Jim]

LJ, your criticism of Kaepernick here seems to boil down to "Free speech is fine as long as you do it the way I think you should do it." Which entirely misses the point of free speech.

No, apparently you're entirely missing my point...

It would be summarized as:

"Your free speech is fine, ("fine" being defined as you have a right to do it.) and so is my free speech to criticize and condemn you for how you chose to exercise your free speech"...

[rubato]

Guin posted this above but neglected to point out that it was written by Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I'm drawing a line under it because he has become one of the most thoughtful, articulate and intelligent commentators in the public sphere on a number of topics.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... aw7&wpmm=1

Abdul-Jabbar: Insulting Colin Kaepernick says more about our patriotism than hiss

What makes an act truly patriotic and not just lip-service is when it involves personal risk or sacrifice. Both Kendricks and Kaepernick chose to express their patriotism publicly because they felt that inspiring others was more important than the personal cost. Yes, Kendricks is a national champion pole-vaulter, but every athlete knows that breaking focus and concentration during a high-pressure competition can be devastating to the athlete’s performance. The Olympics was filled with favorites who faltered because of loss of focus. Halting his run in order to honor the national anthem could have cost Kendricks his medal. He was willing to take that chance.

Likewise, Kaepernick’s choice not to stand during the national anthem could create a public backlash that might cost him millions in future endorsements and affect his value as a player on his team, reducing salary earnings or even jeopardizing his job. If team ticket sales seriously dipped as a result, he would pay for his stance.

One sign of the maturation of American society is the willingness of those in the public eye, especially athletes, to openly take a political stand, even if it could harm their careers. The modern era of athletes speaking out began in 1967 with Muhammad Ali refusing to be drafted to fight other people of color. That year, I joined with football great Jim Brown, basketball legend Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali and other prominent athletes for what was dubbed “The Cleveland Summit.” Together we tried to find ways to help Ali fight for his right of political expression. I don’t know how much we were able to accomplish on a practical level, but seeing black athletes in support of Ali inspired others to speak out. The following year at the 1968 Olympics, African Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists during the medal ceremony as a protest to the treatment of people of color in the United States. In 2014, NBA players LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Jarrett Jack, Alan Anderson, Deron Williams and Kevin Garnett and NFL players from the Rams and Browns wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during warm-ups for a game to protest police killings of unarmed blacks.

What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick’s choice to remain seated during the national anthem, but that nearly 50 years after Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities. Failure to fix this problem is what’s really un-American here.

I excerpted a few passages for emphasis. Kareem is an exceptional writer of great honesty and unusual clarity.

yrs,
rubato

[Sue U]

Kareem is an exceptional writer of great honesty and unusual clarity.

Also too he was hilarious in Airplane.

[rubato]

Kareem is an exceptional writer of great honesty and unusual clarity.

Also too he was hilarious in Airplane.

And a great "Celebrity Jeopardy" contestant.

yrs,
rubato

[Burning Petard]

Fifty years later we still need to fix the problem? What problem?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... b3f03a281b

He did get $18 didn't he? Land of the Free, with liberty and justice for all.

snailgate

[rubato]

DeShawn Franklin was asleep in his bedroom when police officers, with their weapons drawn, barged in.

He was punched several times, including three times in the face.

He was also Tasered, dragged out of his bedroom, handcuffed and placed in a police car.

“I didn’t even know what was going on. I was just asleep,” Franklin told The Washington Post. “It was just all a big shock and disturbance.”

One thing became clear immediately: Franklin, then an 18-year-old high school senior, had done nothing wrong. But he did fit the description of a suspect being sought by officers: a slender, African American man with dreads.

The incident, which occurred in the summer of 2012 in a northern Indiana suburb, prompted a civil rights lawsuit against the police officers and city officials. Earlier this month, a jury found that the officers violated Franklin’s constitutional rights by arresting him and entering his family’s home without a warrant.

Still, Franklin and his family feel that justice has been denied.

The jury ordered each of the defendants to pay Franklin and his parents $1 for the violations of their rights. The total award was $18 in damages.

Kaepernick is right. No one should stay silent when this kind of thing happens.


yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

["Your free speech is fine, ("fine" being defined as you have a right to do it.) and so is my free speech to criticize and condemn you for how you chose to exercise your free speech"...

I think that is a legitimate position to take - if you don't believe that the form of speech is ever appropriate, then that is a reasonable basis for criticism.

But pointing to his position of privilege or criticizing his competence (as some have done here, and as has been done by many in the wider world) is a backhanded way of attempting to silence him by delegitimizing his protest without addressing the merits of his argument.

[oldr_n_wsr]

His was about the most mild form of protest conceivable, and the condemnation he has received is wildly out of proportion to any "offense" that others imagine they have suffered by his act.

It's only "wildly out of proportion" because it was done at a football game (Americas #1 sport) by a person who has made millions of dollars.
The NFL has policies for how high their socks have to be so I am surprised that they don't have a policy regarding this (I don't think they do or else it would have been brought up).
He can do what he likes.
People can say what they want about it.
My question was merely speculation on my part.
His right to protest any way he wants to was not in my thoughts.

You know what really irks me? When I listen to a game on the radio, they cut to a commercial while the national anthem is being played. That's bad enough in itself, but then they come back and say "The National Anthem was brought to you by.....".

[Long Run]

Morning Mix
A brief history of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ being played at games and getting no respect

By Fred Barbash and Travis M. Andrews August 30

As legend has it, singing the national anthem at sporting events began during the 1918 World Series, when the nation was at war. As recounted by the New York Times of Sept. 6, 1918, it was the seventh-inning stretch of the first game between the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox.

“As the crowd of 10,274 spectators — the smallest that has witnessed the diamond classic in many years — stood up to take their afternoon yawn, that has been the privilege and custom of baseball fans for many generations, the band broke forth to the strains of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’

“The yawn was checked and heads were bared as the ball players turned quickly about and faced the music. Jackie Fred Thomas of the U.S. Navy was at attention, as he stood erect, with his eyes set on the flag fluttering at the top of the lofty pole in right field. First the song was taken up by a few, then others joined, and when the final notes came, a great volume of melody rolled across the field. It was at the very end that the onlookers exploded into thunderous applause and rent the air with a cheer that marked the highest point of the day’s enthusiasm.”

The event had a public relations bonus for ballplayers in 1918, as there were people wondering why they were on the ballfield rather than the battlefield.

The idea caught on.

“Not to be outdone,” writes Marc Ferris in his cultural history of the anthem, “Red Sox owner Harry Frazee opened each game in Boston with it.”

Making this even more interesting is the fact that “The Star-Spangled Banner” — which borrowed its difficult melody from a “To Anacreon in Heaven,” a British song about boozing and womanizing — wasn’t adopted as the official national anthem of the U.S. until 1931.

As time passed, playing and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” became as routine as cracker jacks at ballgames. And for many the patriotic awe faded.

By the mid-1950s, with the nation at peace and increasingly fat and happy, crowds were less erect, less attentive and less respectful as the anthem was played.

In 1954, Ferris reports, the general manager of the Baltimore Orioles, Arthur Ellers, a World War I veteran complained that about the fact that fans went on talking, laughing and moving around as the anthem was played.

“‘To me,'” Ellers said, “‘it’s very distasteful.”

So disrespectful did he find it that he decided it wouldn’t be played anymore, relenting about a month later under pressure from the Baltimore City Council, which counts among the city’s main tourist attractions Fort McHenry, the actual broad stripes, bright stars and rockets red glare had inspired Francis Scott Key to write the words in 1814.

Of course, while many fans do stop what they’re doing when the anthem is played, remove their hats and shush their children, others still laugh and talk and move about while the anthem is being played.

“The next time you’re at sporting event,” Kyle Koster, wrote in the The Big Lead in May, “take a look around notice how many people are locked into their phones, sipping their beer or worse during the playing of the anthem. It’s impossible to know someone’s inner thoughts, but the outward actions suggest someone counting the seconds until they can yell, ‘play ball’ instead of basking in freedoms of the First Amendment.”

And up in Baltimore they can’t wait to yell “Oh” when they reach the verse, “O say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave.”
“Orioles fans are not alone in their desecration of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ of course,” wrote The Washington Post’s Mike Wise in a moment of disgust in 2012. “Many of their tainted gene pool have migrated to Verizon Center for Capitals games. Some of these louts actually yell “OH!” and “RED!” at different intervals — twice ruining the anthem. Their spawn can be found in Houston, too, where a small group called “The Red Rowdies” holler “ROCK-ETS RED GLARE!” during Rockets NBA games.”

Let’s face it. Playing the national anthem before a sports event is a grand old tradition. But for many fans, so is dissing the song.

And most people — at least those who don’t write sports columns for a living — don’t seem to care how other fans react to the tune.
Until, that is, someone famous is perceived to denigrate it. Then, to some, not honoring the song becomes an affront.

More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... o-respect/

[Big RR]

and don't forget Atlanta--"o'er the land of the free and the home of the braves"

[Joe Guy]

Few people are aware that the Star Spangled Banner was co-written by Chief Noc-A-Homa.

[Econoline]

[rubato]

yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

That tweet is brilliant, yes!

If one can't be free to quietly or vocally protest the national anthem/flag . . . or to just be a self-involved asshole who is on the phone, drinking beer, talking with buddies or disrupting the song itself . . . then what exactly is the point of freedom of speech?

All this rabid nationalistic fervor judging people for how tall they stand - or don't - during the national anthem, pledge of allegiance, etc. - that's all just small-mindedness. The sign of a truly open democracy is when we gracefully accept that some citizens just don't give a shit about the flag or the anthem, they couldn't care less and that is their RIGHT.

And it does not equate to patriotism; patriotism is MUCH more complex that knee-jerk salutes and rote pledges.

[Lord Jim]

Oh yeah, that just makes all kinds of sense...

Because everybody knows that if a white NFL player had chosen to engage in the same form of wrong-headed protest, nobody would be critical of it...

ETA:

The sign of a truly open democracy is when we gracefully accept that some citizens just don't give a shit about the flag or the anthem, they couldn't care less and that is their RIGHT.

Actually, I think the sign of a "truly open democracy" would be that those who engage in (or are supportive of) disrespectful behavior towards the flag or anthem gracefully accept that other citizens will criticize and condemn them for it, as is their RIGHT.

[Crackpot]

How is this protest wrong headed?

[Lord Jim]

Because as I have said repeatedly, it is ignorant and disrespectful behavior. (I've already explained why I consider this to be the case.)

To me, something that is ignorant and disrespectful is wrong-headed.

[Crackpot]

But you are applying that (personal) judgement to a broad spectrum beyond your personal opinion by describing it as "this kind". That calls for specific objective reasons beyond personal feelings and begs the question "what is acceptable.

[Big RR]

Jim--is it your position that such "disrespectful behavior" for the flag or national anthem is never justified? That it will always be wrongheaded/ignorant/disrespectful? Or will it depend on what is being protested?

I stand firmly with the protest being justified and proper regardless of whether I agree or disagree with the protestor's position(s) on the particular position, but are you on the opposite side that it is always "wrongheaded (et al.)" whether you agree or disagree with the protestor's position?