sauvamente:

One is reminded of the chant that always rises during Pride marches, “Stonewall was a riot.” This celebratory, now-corporatized parade started with LGBTQ people, led by trans women, standing up to police violence. The roots of “taking a knee” are, of course, quite similar. While Kaepernick is silent, his teammate on last year’s 49ers, Eric Reid, wrote a tremendous op-ed for The New York Times about why he chose to take that knee with his quarterback. The opening paragraph cuts through all the obfuscation and cooptation we’ve seen and makes it devastatingly plain:

“In early 2016, I began paying attention to reports about the incredible number of unarmed black people being killed by the police. The posts on social media deeply disturbed me, but one in particular brought me to tears: the killing of Alton Sterling in my hometown Baton Rouge, La. This could have happened to any of my family members who still live in the area. I felt furious, hurt and hopeless. I wanted to do something, but didn’t know what or how to do it.”

This is what it’s about. It started because the killings of people like Alton Sterling and Philando Castile last summer were intolerable for anyone with a conscience. Protesting during the anthem was about highlighting that gap between what we are told the flag represents and the lived experience of too many people. Or as Kaepernick himself said a year ago, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color…. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Taking a Knee Is Not About Abstract Unity but Racial Justice