IT WAS THE hottest of takes on Sunday evening. For the Carolina Panthers to lose at home to the Minnesota Vikings — bereft of their starting quarterback and franchise running back — it must have had something to do with the protests going on outside Bank of America Stadium.
The city of Charlotte had been on high alert for nearly a week as protesters gathered downtown to mark the shooting dead of 43-year-old Keith Lamont Scott by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer.
Those tensions escalated further on Wednesday of last week when another man – Justin Carr — died after sustaining gunshot wounds as the protests turned violent.
In the wake of the second death, North Carolina Governor, Pat McCrory, declared a state of emergency and there was even talk of moving the game from Charlotte.
However, it went ahead on Sunday and the only protest involved 100 people kneeling outside the stadium as the national anthem played.
Inside the stadium, and to surprise of some as he wore a Martin Luther King quote on his t-shirt in the warm-up, Carolina Quarterback Cam Newton did not take a knee during the Stars and Stripes.
Indeed, the only protest against the anthem came from Panthers safety Marcus Ball raising his fist.
At the press conference after the game, an encounter in which they were resoundingly beaten by a rival for the NFC title, Ron Rivera was asked repeatedly if the events in Charlotte during the week had affected the team’s build-up to the fixture.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” he said.
“When we are here, we practise and we do the things we are supposed to do. We got out and answered the questions. What happened here was very tragic and what we were hoping to do was come out and put that aside for a while. We just didn’t play very well.”
The loss leaves Carolina with as many defeats as they had all of last season but they can take some heart from the fact that both came at the hands of probable playoff teams. But there are bigger things than sport at play here.
Athletes protesting is nothing new. Indeed, black athletes in particular often find themselves having to take a stand on social justice issues.
But the reason that the likes of Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson are held in such high esteem and Colin Kaepernick is regarded as the most hated athlete in America is because we like our protests to be in the past.
It’s much easier to criticise our predecessors than take a look at ourselves and how we — the human race — have fostered a society where the simple act of taking a knee during a song provokes such hatred and anger when the extra-judicial killing of unarmed black Americans he is protesting is often greeted with a shrug of the shoulders.
Last week, former Super Bowl winning head coach — not to mention Hall of Fame tight end — Mike Ditka told a radio station in Dallas that Kaepernick should “get the hell out” of America.
Mike Ditka is an idiot.
How else could you explain the following statement:
I have no respect for Colin Kaepernick – he probably has no respect for me, that’s his choice. My choice is, I like this country, I respect our flag, and I don’t see all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are going on.”
The undercurrent of Ditka’s argument, one he may not even realise he’s making himself, is that Kaepernick and people like him, whose ancestors were slaves, who were uprooted from their own country and upon whose blood and sweat the United States of America was built, should leave.
It’s exactly that attitude, this othering of black Americans by people who know nothing of their struggles, that has led us to this situation.
Last week also produced another, far more interesting take on the Kaepernick protest from Richard Sherman, Seattle Seahawks defensive back and no friend of the San Francisco 49ers quarterback.
Earlier this month, Sherman supported Kaepernick but suggested he maybe could have chosen a different form of protest.
In August he said:
“This country is the same country that had ‘whites’ and ‘coloured’ signs on the bathroom.
“We’re still in that country, we’re still in that nation. And that needs to be acknowledged and that needs to be changed. There are people with that mentality that still exists, and that needs to change. There are people who still treat people of colour with subjectivity.
“They treat them a certain way. They categorise them. They put them in a certain category. There are certain statistics that are put out there to make sure police profile certain people in certain neighborhoods, and that needs to change.
“So there is some depth and some truth to what he’s doing.
I think he could have picked a better platform and a better way to do it, but every day they say athletes are so robotic and do everything by the book. And then when somebody takes a stand like that, he gets his head chopped off.”
Last week, after more deaths, his tone was angrier:
“I think the last couple of days a couple more guys have gotten shot and killed in the middle of the street.
“More videos have come out of guys getting killed, and I think people are still missing the point. It’s not right for people to get killed in the street.
I think you have players that are trying to take a stand and trying to be aware of social issues and try to make a stand and increase people’s awareness and put a spotlight on it and they’re being ignored.
“Whether they’re taking a knee or whether they’re locking arms, they’re trying to bring people together and unite them for a cause.”
How history will judge Kaepernick remains to be seen but Ali was widely vilified when he chose not to fight in the Vietnam war and his death earlier this year produced millions of words in tribute to the boxer.
Of course, you’re probably thinking to yourself that there’s a massive difference between being the best boxer to ever live and a back-up quarterback with one of the worst teams in the NFL.
But it shouldn’t matter. Colin Kaepernick has right on his side and, as long as unarmed black Americans continue to be killed on the streets, more and more players will take a stand by taking a knee.
Mike Ditka is an idiot. His response was entirely predictable.
Unsure where this protest is going. Aside from anything else, it’s been fun to see the likes of Ditka, Jerry Jones etc. get their knickers in a twist.
It really is quite scary how jingoistic some old people in America are. It’s a feckin national anthem lads, get over yourselves. There are things bigger than you or it.
Kapernick is fast turning into an absolute hero. There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your country and it’s military, but putting a flag and some quaint old song ahead of people’s lives has no place in today’s society.
Think the whole thing a class issue rather than a racial issue. The entire protest is a load of codswallop.
@ET PHONE HOME: Class and race go hand in hand in America
Facts please Stephen.
Not your opinion!
It’s marked as an opinion piece…
Hi Eddie,
A) It’s an opinion piece as Redzone has been for five years now.
B) It’s clearly marked as opinion piece.
C) As for facts, Keith Lamont Scott was shot dead by a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer, Mike Ditka is an idiot and Colin Kaepernick has right on his side. Not sure what more ‘facts’ you need.
D) Have a nice evening.
Oooooo, that’s a deep burn Eddie….
Are those Eddie’s options? I would go with E. Read the piece first before commenting! I ain’t no journalist writer type person but it’s always best to leave out such things as calling someone ‘an idiot’, regardless of how true it may be, it just stoops to a level it doesn’t need to go. ‘The moral high ground to which you aspire could turn into into a slippery slope.’ As for my option… I’m gonna pick D.
Another fact might be that he had a gun and disobeyed both the police officer and his relative who were shouting at him to stop multiple times. Another fact might be that 5 white men were also shot dead by police the same day. Another fact might be that not one of those shootings resulted in race riots where black people were getting attacked by vicious mobs of whites, looting stores, destroying public and private property. A reactive opinion on those facts might be that were such riots were to take place the people perpetrating them would not be mollycoddled by the media and referred to as “protesters”. There are 2 sides to every story. I respect your opinions and thank you for writing the article but my personal assessment of the facts leads me to a conclusion different to yours. Which I am sure you will respect also.
What the some of the cops have been doing is totally wrong but there are 30 shootings plus a week in Chicago black/black crime and there has never been any protests about it.
They are all on the bandwagon at this stage. CK tryna be relevant because he hasn’t been that on a football field in almost 3 years
Colin Keapernick is performing a peace civil protest designed to engage. It’s worked, it seems blacks aren’t allowed to protest peacefully or with violence without criticism. Fyi, there have been many many protests about crime in Chicago and beyond. You just don’t hear about it, why? Because their black and Noone gives a chit….. until those protests are about the white establishment.
I think one thing everyone can probably agree on is that the race issue and trouble at the moment in the US is one hell of a complex , emotive and deeply polarising subject. Rights , wrongs , double standards and hypocrisy on both sides.
YouTube Shannon Sharpe he’s brilliant at explaining. You will understand it after.