Take a knee
Colin Kaepernick took to one knee during the pregame singing of the
national anthem when he played for the San Francisco 49ers in a football game
played before the 2016 US election to protest police violence against blacks. Since
then, the controversy surrounding Kaepernick’s action has simmered before
recently exploding.
For people of faith two elements of any response
are clear and a third regrettably muddled.
First, people of faith know that forced
religion is false religion. Similarly, forced patriotism is false patriotism.
Symbolically honoring the US by standing during the national anthem is
meaningless unless done voluntarily. Furthermore, hypocrisy never advances a
cause.
Second, people of faith know that blind, unquestioning faith is
tantamount to idolatry. Similarly, blind patriotism is tantamount to making an
idol out of the object of one’s patriotism. Additionally, free speech and free
expression, key components of personal freedom enshrined into law by the US
Constitution, are meaningless if one cannot dissent in powerful, symbolic ways.
Such means include choosing to kneel rather than to stand during the national
anthem, an act akin to flag burning, which the Supreme Court has adjudged
protected speech.
The spreading protest ignited by Kaepernick’s action has, however,
muddled the issue of exactly what the symbolic action means. Is it a protest
against the unjust treatment of blacks by some police officers (the hugely disproportionate
number of blacks killed by police officers constitutes prima facie evidence for
the claim of unjust treatment)? Is it an attempt to claim what Civil Rights advocated
including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saw as the promise of equal
rights for all? Is taking a knee and standing with linked arms an effort to
stand unified with those who protest, unified in affirming their first
amendment rights, or something else?
I for one am unsure what the continuing protests mean. However, I stand
united with protests against the continuing racism in the US; I stand united in
defense of the first amendment; and I stand united with those who are proud to
be US citizens but who also know that the path to true greatness lies in
continuing progress toward justice rather than in blind patriotism. This, I believe,
is a path that people of faith can and should walk, linking their deepest held
religious beliefs with their incidental identity as a citizen of a particular
country.
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