This Was Never About Kaepernick

Posting this was revelatory for me. I’m genuinely surprised to see a banner that has stood against all enemies for 244 years being treated as if it’s as fragile as so many of the egos commenting today.

This was never about Kaepernick. The dual image speaks to something we’re trying to purge from our society and the struggle that comes with that reckoning. Litigating another man’s Free Speech is a poor excuse for ignoring the abhorrent scene of George Floyd’s death. Kaepernick seems to have once again overwhelmed the nattering nabobs of negativism to the point that they have lost sight of what matters: A human being died because a man imbued with authority failed in the duties he swore to uphold when he put on that badge.

George Floyd was not accused of a capital crime. George Floyd was in handcuffs, on the ground, while a man in a uniform knelt on his neck for seven minutes.

While Kaepernick’s detractors rehash a debate that was clearly settled in December of 1791 the investigation into George Floyd’s killers is underway.

Inevitably, we’re going to hear about every crime George Floyd ever committed. If the man so much as jaywalked the chattering class will declare it proof that the officers were justified in what they did. They will use it to deflect from the simple truth that the image of a white man kneeling on the neck of a black man recalls an ugly time in our collective history.

---

I don’t know what the answer is, I just know I talked to a lot of people today and every one of the callers who identified as black had a common worry: That they’re perceived as dangerous simply because of how they look.

We’ll spend more time on this and how Central Park Amy’s invocation of this exact phenomena shows the whole thing in a clearer light.

Stay Weird.