Last week US President Donald Trump took some time out of his day from golfing, whilst more or less ignoring the crisis in Puerto Rico, to tweet about how awful and ungrateful some NFL players – how dare they not stand for the national anthem ?
To clarify, he called hard working and peacefully protesting athletes “Sons of b*tches” on a social media website, but a few weeks ago referred to the Neo-Nazi’s at Charlottesville as “Very fine people” in one of his many boring and quite frankly offensive speeches. See something a tad wrong here?
What provoked this childish tantrum of Trump’s on Twitter was Colin Kaepernick, an athlete in the NFL who kneeled during the national American anthem at a game he was playing in order to protest against racism and police brutality in The USA. This is something that he had been doing well before Trump assumed office.
However, Trump after hearing about this, started ranting and raving as well as coming to the conclusion that it absolutely must be a personal attack on him and his party, when in actual fact it had been shown to him Kaepernick was kneeling even when Obama was president too, as racism was still very much a massive problem then. Because of Trump’s outburst, obvious attention has been drawn to Kaepernick’s actions and young adults and teens all over America involved in sports, have followed his example.
Some athletes in high schools across the nation have taken part in this protest, which isn’t breaking laws or at all hurting anybody, only to be told they risk suspension or even getting kicked of their sports team if they participate in this movement. Some NFL managers have had a similar stance, but some have actually stood up against the racism and hate, supporting the majority of these players that are peacefully protesting. In supporting their movement, the managers have said that the white Americans who are in favour of Trump instead should have a long hard, look at themselves and that they will fully support these players taking a knee for as long as they need to.
People all over the United States, whether it be high school students, sports fans or professional athletes are all still participating in this nation-wide protest against racism and police brutality, not against Trump specifically, and Colin is delighted with the support he is receiving and the attention that has been drawn to his cause, albeit negative in the first place. Multiple protesters have said they will continue to fight for what’s right, by taking a knee, for as long as it takes for the problems to be solved.
President Trump hasn’t commented further on the situation, although it’s unfortunately anticipated that he might take to twitter again for another one of his rants, although to help and bring further awareness to the cause, we can all also use our twitter to tweet #takeaknee – a clever spin on “take a stand”, and support the brave NFL players fighting for social justice.
