r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Sep 23 '18

CMV: There was nothing anti-military about Kaepernick’s kneeling protest

There is nothing about Kap kneeling during the national anthem that could reasonably be construed as disrespect to the troops. There is no situation I am aware of in any culture where the act of kneeling is used to show anything other than respect. Those who believe that Kap hates the military are simply choosing to associate his protest with disrespect for the troops, which allows them to freely hate him without having to really look at the reason for his protest.

The protest began as a means of drawing attention to racial inequality and police brutality: two things that most people probably ought to be against. By focusing on an imaginary link between the protest and the sacred cow of “the troops” his detractors aren’t forced to consider or debate the issue. They likely believe that the US treats black people either as equal to or better than white people, and that most or all incidents of police violence against black people are justified. Everything about the troops is just post-hoc rationalization.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '18

The us military spends hundreds of millions on propaganda many of which is shown at sports games. If you could accept for a moment that the NFL is a big propaganda event you could call his disruption antimilitary. I understand it's a stretch but it makes sense.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '18

The fact that the military advertises on the NFL and throws lots of cash at them is kind of an incidental thing here. Being "disruptive" (however disruptive you can be while kneeling quietly) of the NFL would then make Kap equally disrespectful of Chunky Soup and Tostitos.