Adventures in Missing the Point, Part Whatever

Just when you thought it was safe to start a football season... it's back, going on year three, the kneeling thing. The kneelers have clearly stated that they are not protesting the flag, the anthem, the military or our country.  They are not even protesting police per se, they are protesting the rather rampant injustice against brown people that seems to hit the news every couple of weeks.  They, starting with Colin Kaepernick, have pretty clearly stated their purpose, even if they don't always know how exactly to go about reaching the goal of equality. That's a big job, and I think we all sort of need to get behind the mule on that one to really make any progress.
The reaction to these protests remains as stubbornly racist and deliberately obtuse as ever. In the beginning I was on board with understanding that some people have deep feelings about the symbols of our nation, but as time goes by, as reflexive and even reactionary anger at C.K. and now Nike for daring to use his image, is not showing the other side in a good light. I understand that some people are offended by athletes kneeling during the anthem, but those people are steadily losing credibility and possibly losing the whole debate.  It's not that they don't have a valid point, even if the point is just, "This offends me," it is their misunderstanding of the principles of our nation.
We do not live in a monarchy or a dictatorship where one is required to bend the knee in allegiance to anything in order to be a citizen.  You do not have to pledge allegiance to the flag, or show deference to senators, congressmen or the President, that's not who we are. The NFL has the prerogative not to employ players that kneel, but when the player in question is more than just a backup quarterback, they have shown very few teeth on that issue.  They have chosen to bully and maybe blackball Kaepernick, but now he is beyond their reach, and has found another way to continue his crusade with the help of Nike.
Sorry NFL and all of you who are outraged about this, but there is nothing you can do about it.  Ain't freedom grand?  You can boycott Nike if you want, knowing what I know about the company though, I bet they did the math on that one and have a pretty solid guess that they will sell more shoes to people who dig their vibe than they will not sell to the anger mafia.  Oh yeah, Nike didn't go into this like some poor innocent who had no idea that plastering Colin's face with the words, "Believe in something, even if you have to sacrifice everything," was going to start a howling fit among the red, white and blue MAGA crowd.  This is pretty much the inverse of "owning the libs," why are all y'all snowflakes so triggered?
Burning your shoes? Really? You do know you already shelled out your money to Nike for those right?
I've seen people try and re-direct this thing onto Pat Tillman (NFL player who quit his playing career to become an Army Ranger and died in action in Afghanistan).  I've seen pictures of soldier's graves with some inscription about what it really means to sacrifice everything, and yeah, I get that, there are others who sacrificed more than Kaepernick, a lot more, but that, as it has been from the beginning of this, is missing the point entirely. In fact, I find people using false equivalence to connect a football player kneeling for two minutes while a song plays in any way with a soldier dying in service to our country pretty darn offensive (but you do have a right to be that kind of wrong if it suits you).
If anything it drags the sacrifice of soldiers into an obtuse argument that deliberately misinterprets the ethos of the protest in the first place, and it misses the fact that if our nation is going to live up to the values that inspired their sacrifice, everyone should be free to kneel or stand any time they want. Even if someone did want to protest the military, or the constitution, they should be allowed.  The First Amendment gives you the right to say what you will as long as you can bear the consequences. Anger makes you do stupid things, racist anger doubles down on that. Sometimes people have to do things you don't like to make broken things better.  A lot of people didn't like MLK sitting at the whites only lunch counter, or marching through their streets, how do they look now?
Kaepernick is not MLK, but take a clue from this, if Nike is willing to deliberately anger a group of people, they probably think he might be worth it.  They are a corporation not known for taking big risks, but every once in while they do take a stand on something.  They have probably learned that being on the side of human dignity and justice is probably also a good marketing strategy.  I'm guessing they have done the market research and know that they are going to get more out of this than they are going to lose. Kaepernick is winning this argument, if he hadn't done what he did he might still be a backup quarterback that had his fifteen minutes of fame.  Because he knelt and because he talked, and because he is now letting the racist reactionaries hoist themselves by their own petard while his stoic stare confronts us in millions of ads, he is still someone we have to pay attention to, Nike is going to make us.