A Thousand Ways To Kneel And Kiss The Ground

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2018

⏱️ 24 minutes

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Summary

Last week, the NFL announced a new policy to penalize players who kneel during the national anthem. The announcement drew fresh attention to the century-old tightrope that outspoken black athletes — from Floyd Patterson to Rose Robinson to Colin Kaepernick – have had to walk in order to compete and live by their principles.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Colin Kaepernick started by sitting when the National Anthem played, that evolved into
0:07.2	taking a knee during the star-spangled banner. He was protesting police violence and racism,
0:13.8	and he was using his huge platform as a famous football player, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers,
0:20.0	to make his point. There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable.
0:25.2	Cops are getting paid leave for killing people. That's not right. That's not right by anyone's
0:32.7	standards. What he did made a lot of people proud, and it pissed a lot of people off.
0:42.7	Not long after that Kaepernick found himself out of a job when the football season began in 2017,
0:48.3	but other players picked up Kaepernick's baton and began kneeling during the National Anthem,
0:51.8	and since then, the protests and the controversy around them have become maybe the biggest story
0:56.8	in American sports. The story's back in the headlines because of the NFL's new policy to penalize
1:02.3	teams if their players kneel or sit during the National Anthem. If anyone is on the field and
1:08.4	is disrespectful to the anthem or the flag, there would be a fine from the league against the team.
1:14.4	That's Roger Gidele, the NFL commissioner. So that's on the field. Players can stay off the field
1:20.8	during the National Anthem if they don't want to stand. And Gidele said the decision was
1:24.8	unanimous among NFL team owners, but reports came out saying that this was more of an informal vote,
1:29.6	and at least one owner said that he abstained altogether. Here's Roger Gidele again.
1:34.2	All 32 clubs want to make sure that during the moment of the anthem and the flag that that is a
1:41.8	very important moment to all of us as a league as clubs, personally, and to our country. And that's
1:48.4	a moment that we want to make sure is done in a very respectful fashion.
1:52.2	The NFL's TV ratings drop last season. People blame the protests, fans, and pundits. But there
1:59.2	isn't evidence to support that theory. Nevertheless, President Trump tweeted about it saying
2:04.4	the American public is fed up with the disrespect the NFL is paying to our country, our flag,
	...

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