Eagles

Drew Brees Is Somehow The Enemy For Taking a Knee with His Team

By Kyle Scott

Published: Sep 29th, 2017 · 3:22 PM EDT

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Drew Brees is getting destroyed for this Tweet.

He’s getting crushed from the far left Twitter zealots because THAT’S NOT ENOUGH, PRIVILEGED WHITE MAN.

And he’s getting crushed from the right because he gave in, slightly, following his comments last week that he would always stand during the National Anthem.

Whatever your stance on this issue, think how far it’s come. A year ago, Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the anthem was a huge deal. Now, you have entire teams staying in the locker room. Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder(!) are kneeling on the field. Drew Brees(!) is leading his entire team in taking a knee before the anthem, for which they will then stand.

Are there opportunists on both sides? Damn straight. Is the message getting lost a bit in the NFL’s and mainstream media’s desire to hashtag the ever-loving shit out of “unity”? Sure is. But the net effect is that the actions of teams and players, sincerity aside, have done more to raise awareness for inequality that anyone could’ve possibly imagined.

And yet, it’s not enough.

Somehow, Brees is a bigot because he dares to stand during the anthem. Alejandro Villanueva, an Army ranger, had to apologize to his team and twist himself into the wind for taking the field for it. For every person on the left who claims the movement has been co-opted to be something else, I’d submit to them the notion that they’ve helped turn it into a farce that has somehow made standing for the National Anthem into some sort of thought crime.

First, Kaepernick explained that he was protesting the flag:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Then, supporters claimed that kneeling wasn’t about protesting America, but was about using the anthem as a platform to raise awareness for injustice. This is what Malcolm Jenkins and, subsequently, Chris Long were universally lauded for doing.

So, to that point, Brees taking a knee with his teammates before the anthem, regardless of how deeply (if at all) he cares about the issue, will get exponentially more attention than one random lineman taking a knee during it.

But now that we’ve passed mere acceptance on some players choosing to kneel during the anthem, the far left wants everyone to go a step further. Brees must not only kneel during the anthem, but he must mention injustice and inequality in his Tweet, otherwise he’s “co-opting the message.” Come on.

Just look at some of the responses I got when I pointed out how unfairly folks were responding to Brees’ Tweet:

I think some of those Tweets sound RIDICULOUS. And I say this as someone who also thinks a blanket rebuke of the demonstrations is wrong. There are real problems that people are trying to bring attention to. It hurts no one to open your mind and at least listen to what someone is saying. Just as you are free to stand, so, too, is someone else to kneel, sit, put their fist in the air, or not show up at all. But that shouldn’t give carte blanche to the left to go after anyone who doesn’t take up the cause themselves. There are a lot of good reasons to stand for the National Anthem, and there’s a lot of people, particularly law enforcement officials and military members, to whom the anthem holds greater significance. Dismissing those views is wrong, too. So while unity might not be enough, it seems like a good place to start.

This is the issue with movements like these. They seek to raise awareness for a real problem. Once that happens, the goal line shifts to disruption and “making people uncomfortable.” And once that happens, it shifts to the tarring and feathering of anyone who not only dares to have differing opinion on the method, but also doesn’t do enough themselves. The well-meaning intention of the originator quickly becomes bastardized to maximize outrage.

The NFL, as a sport, has done more to bring attention to this issue – whether it sought to or not – than anything else possibly could. Brees and the Saints taking a knee, whether before or during the anthem, will continue that trend. That’s all the NFL can do. Let’s be clear: no football player is solving social injustice. No offensive line coach is solving inequality. No quarterback is uniting the nation. And yet we’ve all – on both sides – projected our beliefs onto guys who are paid to play a game, most of whom want to do just that. But now some will treat Brees and others as the enemy because they dared to do something but not the particular something that, today, the left has deemed the acceptable form of specific protest. This is how things become a farce.