Dear Colin Kaepernick

I hear you. And so do millions across the country. As a professional athlete, you actually have more sway than pastors. Welcome to a culture driven by the worship of sports.

“If you don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance, you’re going to get a detention!” threatened my 12th grade Government Studies teacher. She was angry that I refused to say words I felt were untrue.

I was the only one in the class who staged this brief protest. How could I recite words that I knew were a lie—“one nation under God”—we weren’t, and I wasn’t going to pretend it was true. She kept threatening me, but I refused to say it for weeks, not fearing the consequences.

I get you Colin Kaepernick. I understand that frustration with knowing something is wrong and trying to express it in some way.

We have similar backgrounds. You’re biracial. I’m biracial. Both of us had black biological “fathers” who weren’t in the picture at all. (Actually, that’s an understatement for me as my biological mother was raped yet chose life despite her horrific circumstances). Your biological mother faced different but dire circumstances, too. Each of our courageous birthmoms chose adoption for us, allowing us to be loved like crazy.

Like you, I was able to grow up in a loving Christian home. I had white parents and a multiracial family (with 12 siblings). Adopted as babies, transracial adoption made our lives and our experiences possible. Adoption undeniably unleashed purpose in each of us. I love how you predicted, way back in junior high, that you would become a 49ers quarterback…and God made it happen!

You once said in an interview with CBS that adoption “was the biggest blessing in my life”. I feel the same way. For me, growing up in a diverse home served as a reminder that color (as beautiful as it is) is not what binds us—love is.

Sadly, millions don’t ever get the opportunity that we did—to be given life and the opportunity to love and be loved. Many are killed because they were “unplanned” and supposedly “unwanted.” Adoption shatters the myth of the “unwanted” child. Our lives prove this. Abortion reinforces the lie. It is the ultimate injustice, killing unarmed human beings over 3,000 times a day. Their bodies aren’t “in the street”…just flushed down drains or shoved into bio-waste bags. And they far outnumber the 258 black individuals or 494 white individuals killed by police in one year (79 percent of whom were armed). More unarmed black lives are killed in one day by Planned Parenthood (an estimated 266) than police kill (with or without justification) in an entire year. But somehow the injustice of the slaughter of those who will never get to be adopted and loved or dream like you doesn’t move you to protest. There are people getting paid and getting away with murder. They’re called abortionists, many of whom become millionaires (like Kermit Gosnell) by killing the most defenseless among us.

You’ve been seduced into a false narrative that exploits racism for political means when your experience and your biracialism should call you to be what President Obama has never chosen to be—a unifier. Rockin’ an afro doesn’t make you blacker or righter, by the way. It doesn’t change who I am either. Truth changes who we are…for the better. The external appearance of self is meaningless if valuing truth is a superficial exercise. What is the content that flows from your heart to your mouth, or to your Twitter account (which sadly is currently a hot mess of racist accusations, racial division, and expletives)? These aren’t worth standing up for but taking a knee and reconsidering the long-lasting effect of words. Misinformation is poison. The fundamentally dishonest, Marxist #BlackLivesMatter movement is toxic. Surely, there’s a better way to illuminate actual injustice and address needless, tragic losses of life without spewing the venom of a movement rooted in regurgitated black nationalism.

Martin Luther King powerfully declared: “Let us be dissatisfied until that day when nobody will shout, ‘White Power!’ when nobody will shout, ‘Black Power!’ but everybody will talk about God's power and human power!” Frederick Douglass, famed abolitionist who witnessed America gradually achieving the promises of Liberty, also served as a powerful force of racial reconciliation. “I go further, and declare that no man’s devotion to the cause of justice, liberty, and humanity, is to be weighed, measured and determined by his color or race,” he said in one of his last speeches. “We should never forget that the ablest and most eloquent voices ever raised in behalf of the black man’s cause, were the voices of white men. Not for the race; not for color, but for man and manhood alone, they labored, fought and died.”

No one can force you to stand during the National Anthem. That has to be your choice. But you can choose to stand for truth. Be a factivist. Be a reconciler.

We all have a choice. Out of emotion, we can embrace the lie or we can choose to be proactive and seek out the truth. Education is a painful but liberating process. Douglass eloquently said: “Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free.”

Today, I will recite the Pledge of Allegiance with my children in hopes that this nation will not deny, but embrace, its Judeo-Christian roots. I will stand for a flawed National Anthem that extols a flawed, but great, nation where justice repeatedly triumphs. And I will continue to illuminate, as an American who happens to be “biracial”, that no matter the injustice, we tackle it as one human race.

“Employers have wide discretion when it comes to limiting the political expression of employees in the workplace. The First Amendment generally applies only to government censorship of speech. As such, the Constitution allows private companies to regulate speech, even to bar political discussion entirely...

...In general, regardless of a particular state’s rules regarding political expression in the workplace, an employer can discipline or discharge an employee for legitimate, business-related reasons, even if the conduct involves political expression at work. For example, if an employee’s political expression interferes with his/her work, disrupts his/her co-workers, or infringes upon a business objective, the employer can take action consistent with its written policies and practices.”

http://www.acc.com/legalresources/publications/topten/TopTenQuestionsRegardingPoliticalDialogueintheWorkplace.cfm

You can take most of what is generally understood in labor law and throw it out the window in this case, because a collective bargaining agreement trumps labor law in almost every circumstance.

In this case, the "employer" is the San Francisco 49ers football team. They can do whatever they want with him. What do you expect them to do -- bench him? They've already done that. He's a fifth-rate quarterback who lost his starting job and never should have been signed to his stupid contract in the first place.

What else can they do -- cut him? They're likely to do that anyway, but they have to pay him for this season regardless of what they do.

Ignoring him is the best course of action, because anything else they do would make a martyr out of him. He probably has an IQ of about 85, and it really shows. Anyone who shows up for an interview in a Fidel Castro T-shirt and denounces "oppression" in the United States is dumber than a sack of hammers.

... unless you know specifically that the NFLPA collective bargaining agreement somehow addresses the right to protest during the playing of the Anthem.

I don't. I assume it is silent on the matter, since I probably would have heard otherwise if it wasn't. In that case, the team would have a hard time taking any disciplinary action against him without facing an uphill battle in an NFLPA grievance process.

You don't think the 49ers would look for any excuse to suspend a player who stands to earn $11M+ for sitting on the bench? LOL.

The NFL already barred the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a symbol of support for police on their uniforms.

That had less to do with a protest and more to do with the NFL's contractual obligations. I can guarantee you that their sponsorship/licensing deal with Nike for NFL uniforms has meticulous details about what players can and cannot wear on their uniforms. I'm sure the NFL would have done the same thing if a player or team wanted to wear a "Black Losers Matter" emblem -- or even American flag that didn't fit the NFL/Nike specifications.

This story still holds true today, because Something’s Never Change;

“Tommy” is short for “Tommy Atkins” equivalent to our “G.I. Joe” The Gallery refers to the highest point in the Balcony of the theatre, the Stalls are the Best seats in the House.

Tommy I went into a public-’ouse to get a pint o’beer, The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.” The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”; But it’s ``Thank you, Mister Atkins,’’ when the band begins to play, The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, O it’s ``Thank you, Mr. Atkins,’’ when the band begins to play.
I went into a theatre as sober as could be, They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me; They sent me to the gallery or round the music-’alls, But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”; But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide, The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide, O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap; An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy how’s yer soul?” But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll, The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll, O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too, But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you; An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints: Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind,” But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind, There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind, O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires an’ all: We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational. Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!” But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country,” when the guns begin to shoot; An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please; But Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool - you bet that Tommy sees!

Written by Rudyard Kipling and posted in the 1890 London Times Newspaper.

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