What Kaepernick actually said
So Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem at the beginning of a pre-season game.
When he was asked why he explained that it was all about racism against black people in America, right?
That's what the FP diary at TOP said. That's how the news media in general spun it.
Surely he couldn't have said anything else, right?
Colin Kaepernick: People don’t realize what’s really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren’t being held accountable for. And that’s something that needs to change. That’s something that this country stands for freedom, liberty and justice for all. And it’s not happening for all right now.
....
Does the election year have anything to do with timing?CK: It wasn’t a timing thing, it wasn’t something that was planned. But I think the two presidential candidates that we currently have also represent the issues that we have in this country right now.
Do you want to expand on that?
CK: You have Hillary who has called black teens or black kids super predators, you have Donald Trump who’s openly racist. We have a presidential candidate who has deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me because if that was any other person you’d be in prison. So, what is this country really standing for?
It is a country that has elected a black president twice…
CK: It has elected a black president but there are also a lot of things that haven’t changed...
Uh, yeh. I wonder how everyone at TOP seemed to have missed that one?
Comments
That place...
cheaper than a grocery store tabloid. Worse even. Glad you caught this. Slumming there is a sensorial violation; a danger to ones self! You might wanna get checked out.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
In my last diary over there
I responded to one of the first posters by pointing out that the TOP front page made HuffPost look like the New York Review of Books. And got almost 200 tips for that comment at the top of the thread of a diary that got over 1000 recs.
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I wish I caught that one!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Ouch!
Holy sheets. Thanks. I haven't read what he said except reactions from TOP and some other sites. Shame on me for not doing research, and kudos for you for doing it. Jeez, do the people at TOP know what he said about Hillary????
Colin will be marginalized if and when the Clinton campaign is forced to comment on his actions. It will be predictable: "Colin does in fact have every right to his actions; but there are more appropriate methods which unite people, honors veterans (national anthem comes on at this point in the response), and under a Hillary Clinton administration we will bring people together and stop Putin from undermining American football."
At which point there will be agreement by Dems that Colin can more effective just sticking to attacking Trump....
Instead of actually understanding what he said, Colin and the sit-down has become a skirmish in our never ending useless cultural wars which are meant to divert away from the very things Colin was saying.
Of course they have no idea
and like Republicans, they are immune to facts, so even if you stick this in their faces they'll never acknowledge it.
As for veterans, Colin said something cool about them too.
No they don't because the diarist left that part of his
statement out of the diary.
Some people did say something about how he doesn't like Hillary or wants Trump to win.
One person wrote that he wanted to see Hillary go to prison.
This was my response to that comment.
That isn't what he said and I don't understand why the diarist left out the rest of his statement.
He is talking about the rule of law in this country and how he feels it's not applied equally.
This are the rest of his statement and he is entitled to his opinion.
Colin Kaepernick: People don’t realize what’s really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren’t being held accountable for. And that’s something that needs to change. That’s something that this country stands for freedom, liberty and justice for all. And it’s not happening for all right now.
....
Does the election year have anything to do with timing?
CK: It wasn’t a timing thing, it wasn’t something that was planned. But I think the two presidential candidates that we currently have also represent the issues that we have in this country right now.
Do you want to expand on that?
CK: You have Hillary who has called black teens or black kids super predators, you have Donald Trump who’s openly racist. We have a presidential candidate who has deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn’t make sense to me because if that was any other person you’d be in prison. So, what is this country really standing for?
It is a country that has elected a black president twice…
CK: It has elected a black president but there are also a lot of things that haven’t changed...
People are also upset with him because they believe that he is disrespecting the men and women who gave their lives for our freedoms.
Imo, not one war has been fought to defend our freedoms for over a century if not longer.
Especially the current wars in the Middle East or the war on terrorism. Can anyone tell me how a group of terrorists could take away our freedoms?
Or anyone in the wars we fought in Korea, Vietnam or any of the ones after the wars for our independence?
The wars have been fought so that the corporations, the banks, the defense industry and anyone else who profits off wars as Smedley Butler told us as did Eisenhower and Martin Luther King.
I guess I'll see tomorrow if anyone bothered to read and comment on it.
But it ticks me off how so many diarists over there cherry pick information that they put in their diaries!
The Washington Generals should probably sue the Democrats for copyright infringement.
Thanks Snoopdawg
The additional comments from CK add tremendous strength to his position. It isn't just TOP that is cherry picking this story. I've read MSM articles that are simply ignoring the entire issue, and offering edited snippets as "News".
It is terrible that patriotism has been boiled down to complacent acceptance of the status quo and reverence of our military voyeurism...all wrapped in a flag to hide the ugliness
Colin Kaepernick's Twitter
I went to his account and sent him a tweet of support, and then started following him. His re-tweets are very indicative of the depth of feeling he has toward social issues. https://twitter.com/Kaepernick7?lang=en
He is in a position to call attention to the social and racial gulf that is in this country. Speaking one's conscience is one of the greatest gifts any person can give.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
USA! USA! USA!
I can hear it all now.
I need to find Colin's FB page and thank him. I hope he refuses to back down.
I have been...
wanting to do the same, but you aren't going to do it on Facebook. His page has been inundated with hateful comments. Every single thread, related to this or not, is being trolled with the same comments. Its a shame that he has to endure this.
Why do you think Kapernick is being punished?
How dare he speak truth to power? He will pay. Suddenly, the 49ers are supposedly talking about letting him go because he's not as great as he was last couple years. Has anyone happened to check the political donations of the people who own the 49ers? I'd be shocked if they weren't Hill people....
(No subject)
Yeah, I have stopped reading over there for the most part.
It was the mindless Vote-Hillary-Or-Else diaries that drove me away from visiting over there. People are still writing those Hillbot diaries at DU too, I guess the writers must really really really believe that's the way to convince the hold outs to vote for the lesser evil. I continue to believe that the Hillbots need to cultivate the moderate republican vote, because so far as I can tell progressives are not going to vote for her.
I am listening to a rerun of today's Bill Press radio show, and Bill is totally tone-deaf to this national anthem protest. Press thinks everyone should stand for the anthem with their hands over their hearts and work for a better future when they aren't watching a sporting event. And the POC going home from the sporting event need to make sure their tail lights are in working order, Bill didn't say anything about that but that's the nub of the problem. Bill's approaching the issue from a position of unaware privilege. Bill Press claims he has been working to improve things for the last 40 years. If it was gonna work we wouldn't see the cops all around the nation killing POC with impunity on an almost daily basis. Duh. Kaepernick said it, it's in the transcript you linked to: There is not liberty and justice for all at this time.
~annominous
This is a courageous act.
I can't say it enough. The critics are cowards. It is not possible they don't see what we see. They are not idiots, although they try and prove otherwise. His words bring about the fear that others will follow because they get it too. That is the legacy of Bernie Sanders. The cover has been pulled back. If we learned anything it is that we must all now stand up with the courage of our convictions and say enough is enough when enough is enough. If not, why not?
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
He's not
only going to be on the receiving end of all the vile comments one could imagine from the right and most of the left but he'll most likely have his career cut short from all this phony patriotic backlash.
And TOP? Am I hearing this correctly that this bastion of equal rights and justice (snark) is slamming CK for not standing for the anthem? Or is it because he spoke the truth about the anointed one? Sorry, I just can't go back to that place. It makes me feel like I did when I was 15 spending whole days shoveling hog shit at the neighbors farm in 90 degree humid heat...
I see the SF cops are demanding an apology from him
for his statement about cops on paid leave while blacks are being killed. He's making a solid stand here, something we don't see often from those with influence in sports and entertainment. He's getting headlines, causing discussions. I think the focus is going to be so broken up that the real primary message will be lost. Then we'll go on to the next thing.
the SF cop who wants an apology shows his racism
by stupidly bringing in the "what about black on black crime?" angle.
Did he? The cop out angle.
Some people just can't see the bigger picture. Or refuse to.
I am so tired of explaining to the people who write
What about black on black crime?
The problem isn't that black people are being killed, its when they are unarmed and killed by the police who aren't held accountable for it.
And pulled over for some bullshit reason or the many other reasons that the cops are killing them.
If a black person kills another black person then if they are caught, then they are arrested and given a trial.
As I'm sure people here are aware, the cops know that if they kill an unarmed black person, (and white people too) all they have to do is say that they were afraid for their lives and unless there is compelling video, they get away with it.
How the cop that killed Tamir Rice within two seconds got away with it is beyond me. Especially when he lied about telling him 3 times to drop his gun.
The district attorneys know that cops perjure themselves all the time, yet let them get away with it.
The Washington Generals should probably sue the Democrats for copyright infringement.
The problem is state-sanctioned murder.
There, sorted.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Same race crime rates are simple familiarity
Just like most domestic abuse is caused by relatives, crimes are generally committed by people in your own community. And since racial segregation is still a basic fact of American life, you get similar rates of same race homicides.
"Black-on-black" crime rates are no different from white-on-white. Yet somehow we don't hear anyone trying to kill or lock up dangerous low-income white folks. Well, except Hunter S. Thompson of course:
We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg
I call that place the hell hole
and I won't go back there anymore, haven't been there in months.
I hope Colin saved some money so he can get out and leave football if he has to, such a brutal "sport" anyway. And I'm sick to death of the NFL acting like these guys should just sit down and shut up and toe the line they're told to toe. The hell with that.
Thanks for this with his full remarks too. I don't read much about sports so doubtful I would ever see it without someone here posting it!
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
symbols or reality?
Symbols are used to great effect to elicit knee jerk responses. They are used and have been used through time by humans to manipulate other humans via a sort of tribal binding imprint: a we vs them scam. Was it "1984" that coined the term "group think"?
I don't watch sports but this guy must be a damn good thinker and a brave soul to buck the group think.
When wealth rules, democracy dies.
HE sat for 3 games
The first 2 no one noticed.
FDR 9-23-33, "If we cannot do this one way, we will do it another way. But do it we will.