Colin Kaepernick protests anthem due to treatment of minorities

for Drew Brees and the rest of the people that continue to think like him

Charles Lewis was glad to be home.

One hundred years ago on Nov. 11, a date now commemorated as Veteran’s Day — which will be observed on Monday, Nov. 12, in 2018 — the Great War came to an end. Lewis was one of 380,000 black soldiers who had served in the United States army during the World War. A little over a month later, Lewis, after being discharged from Camp Sherman in Ohio, was back in his small town of Tyler Station, Ky.

On the night of Dec. 15, a police officer stormed into Lewis’ shack, accusing him of robbery. Lewis, wearing his uniform and claiming the rights of a soldier, resisted arrest and fled. He was soon captured and jailed in nearby Hickman, but by challenging white authority a line had been crossed. Local whites were determined to teach Lewis and other black people a lesson.

Around midnight, a mob of approximately 100 masked men stormed the jail. They pulled Lewis out of his cell, tied a rope around his neck and hung him from a nearby tree. As the sun rose the next morning, crowds gathered to view Lewis’ lynched body.

In his April 2, 1917, war declaration address before Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed, “The world must be made safe for democracy.” With this evocative phrase, Wilson framed the purpose and higher cause of American participation in the war. The United States had no selfish aims and, true to its creed, would fight only to ensure that the principles of democracy become enshrined on a global level.

Black people immediately recognized the hypocrisy of Wilson’s words. On the eve of American entry into the war, democracy was a distant reality for African Americans. Disfranchisement, segregation, debt peonage and racial violence rendered most black people citizens in name only. A. Philip Randolph, a young socialist and editor of the radical black newspaper The Messenger, spoke for many African Americans when he wrote, “We would rather make Georgia safe for the Negro.”

Nevertheless, the majority of African Americans embraced their civic and patriotic duty to support the war effort. Black people had fought heroically in every war since the American Revolution, and they would do so again. By demonstrating their loyalty to the nation as soldiers and civilians, African Americans believed they would be rewarded with greater civil rights.

White supremacy tested the patriotism of African Americans throughout the war. Racial violence worsened, the most horrific example being a massacre that took place in July 1917 in East St. Louis that left over one hundred black people dead and entire neighborhoods reduced to ashes.

Black soldiers also had a trying experience. The army remained rigidly segregated and the War Department relegated the majority of black troops to labor duties. Black combat soldiers fought with dignity, but still had to confront systemic racial discrimination and slander from their fellow white soldiers and officers.

With the armistice, African Americans fully expected that their service and sacrifice would be recognized. They had labored and shed blood for democracy abroad and now expected full democracy at home.

The death of Charles Lewis was the first ominous warning that this would not be the case.

As a New York newspaper wrote after the lynching, “And the point is made that every loyal American negro who has served with the colors may fairly ask: ‘Is this our reward for what we have done?’”


In the months following the armistice, racial tensions across the country increased. Black soldiers returned to their homes eager to resume their lives, but also possessing a deeper appreciation of their social and political rights. Many white Americans, both North and South, worried what this would mean for a tenuous racial status quo that was based on black people remaining subservient and knowing their place.

These fears translated into violence.

Throughout the summer of 1919, race riots erupted across the country, most notably in Washington, D.C., and Chicago. In Elaine, Ark., an effort by black sharecroppers to organize for better wages enraged local whites and led to a massacre that left upwards to 200 African Americans dead. The number of lynchings of black Americans skyrocketed to 76 by the end of the year, with several black veterans, some still in uniform, amongst the victims. The famed author, diplomat and civil rights leader James Weldon Johnson named these bloody months of 1919 the “Red Summer.”

this was the case after WW1, WW2, and so on

the fight wasn’t done for African Americans after they came home

Imagine the strength it took to risk your life for a country that hated u and didn’t view u as equal? Brees’ grandparents came home and were celebrated. African Americans came home and were lynched.

 

This is a stupid take.

Just because he takes offence to not standing for the anthem does not make him racist.

So nobody can change or grow anymore, this cancel culture is the worse.

And no I don't agree with what Brees said initially but I am not gonna judge him from that one thing.

 

Just say you hate minorities. Itll make you feel better.

 

Agree! BLM should find another way to protest besides dishonoring the flag and national anthem. It's so easy to just find another way to protest - no excuse really.

 

Too bad Chauvin didn't follow the no kneeling mandate

 

Give me an example how CK and other athletes can peacefully protest AND get the message across AND not impact anyone's life.

 

By simply putting up a black square on his Insta page, just like millions of teenage girls.

 

Nah. BLM can protest however they want. Maybe if you guys spent as much energy reforming police departments as you have discussing the flag and anthem, George Floyd's life would have been saved.

 

So... you admit you don't know how?

 

Why would I say that I am a minority?

 

"Those people" and their violent kneeli...ooops...other words..."disrespect" for the flag and god and country (yeah, that sounds good), whether we came by land or by ships (****!) will not be tolerated here in the consecrated soil (****, I did it again), in the uh, uh, (dammit don't ask the Native Americans or the Mexicans about this) glorious free land that God willed us from sea to shining sea.

Amen. And let us never speak of this again.

 

Jabba the Hutt of privilege flashes another shiny object,

.to divert attention away from his incompetence/indifference in dealing w the Pandemic​

 

Took them long enough.

 

while folks like kaepernick show their respect to the flag,
Jabba the Hutt of privilege / Traitor Geroge and those of their ilk use the flag as a blind fold

 

So what is actually being done?

 

Would raising the black power fist during the national anthem be acceptable?

 

70 years?

 

Might want to wait and see.