Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel for the national anthem has ignited a national conversation over the issue of not only police brutality and racial injustice, but also the role of athletes in American politics. Everyone has a right to speak out; that’s the American way. You don’t have to like it. Indeed, I don’t like everything “Kap” has done or said. But my opinion regarding his opinion is rather irrelevant. What’s important is that he has a platform and he used it, and that’s courageous, especially in an era where speaking out as a professional athlete involves great financial risk. (UPDATE 2020: With the Black Lives Matter movement, it is no longer as risky for professional athletes to speak out as it was when I initially wrote this post.)
I teach about issues of sports and social justice in the Kinesiology departments at CSU East Bay and St. Mary’s College of California, and I always remind my students to remember why we love sports so much: for their collaborative as much as their competitive spirit, for the friendships they forge as much as the divisions they sometimes create. Whatever you think of Kap, he has given us an opportunity to come together as a country and fix some longstanding social problems and that’s an opportunity we cannot afford to let pass by.
