I’m sure nearly every sports reporter in the country with a column this week is going to talk about the same thing — President Trump’s comments about NFL protestors and the league’s response on Sunday — and I want to do the same.
Not because of the coverage it has received but because one NFL team — the Dallas Cowboys — may have figured out the perfect solution Monday night. While I am admittedly a Cowboys fan, that has nothing to do with why I think they are the one team that got it right.
Last season when Colin Kaepernick decided to become the face of an equal rights movement, I wrote I disagreed with his method to garner attention — protesting the national anthem — and wished he would have chosen a different way to do it, but I could not in good conscious condemn his actions.
He brought a microscope to his agenda and while I believe not standing before the flag while our anthem plays is disrespectful, he was well within his rights to do so as an American and brought light to an issue that is touchy yet valid.
I will never know what it is like to be an African-American in this country, but I have a lot of black friends who have shared their thoughts about inequality. At the end of the day, as NFL analyst Howie Long stated Sunday, we need to listen rather than criticize to advance as a country.
“As a white father having raised three boys, there were a million things to worry about on a daily basis. But it's impossible for me to understand the challenges that an African-American father faces at every turn while raising his children,” the former Raiders star said. “But in a league that is comprised of 70 percent African-American players, if you're a white player in an NFL locker room, that puts you in a position to try to better understand those struggles, and, subsequently as we have seen, show your support for your teammates in your own way.”
Many NFL fans have been irate over the actions of protest from players around the league. But if we actually listen to what each and every one of them has been saying, they’re not doing it out of disrespect for our country or our military. They’re doing it to try to unite our country. This is supposed to be the United States of America after all.
Which brings me to what the Cowboys did before taking on the Arizona Cardinals on Monday Night Football. Rather than having individual players protest the national anthem or have the entire team do so — like several teams did around the league Sunday — the Cowboys walked out to midfield with linked arms minutes before the anthem, took a knee as a team and proceeded back to their sideline to stand for the national anthem.
Bingo! The Cowboys figured it out. Rather than having irate fans who despise them for protesting their anthem, they took a knee in the vein of unity before the anthem, then stood to respect the flag and our anthem.
Players and teams around the league take note. There is a way, after all, to make a stand against inequality without disrespecting our flag, our anthem or our country.
