#Take a Knee Protests: Effective or Not
In case you missed the first two posts regarding this highly sensitive and pressing topic, you can see them here and here.
In yesterday's post, I spoke as to whether or not the Bible supports Christian men and women in the act of protest. One of the requirements I believe is important is whether or not there are tangible goals that are sought through the act of protesting. It's also vitally important that those protesting be able to explain the purpose of their protest and the change they are seeking to cause. Failure in either of these requirements tends to doom protests from the start, and leads them down a path of senseless destruction.
That's brings us to the issue that has brought out nearly everyone's opinion in the last week or so. I'd like to look at the #Take a Knee protests and see whether or not they fulfill the requirements above.
#1 Are there tangible goals that the professional athletes are seeking to accomplish through the act of protesting?
"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."
-Colin Kaepernick
When these protests began, Colin Kaepernick explained his reasons for protesting as being primarily focused on oppression of black people and people of color.
There are many, many factors that can be discussed and disputed in regards to whether black men and women are victims of oppression in the United States, but I think the most telling statistics come when you look at sentencing disparities by race. Encounters with law enforcement are insanely difficult to study and analyze because no two traffic stops or arrests are alike. There are always compounding circumstances that make even the most mundane of traffic stops look nothing alike. In many instances where protesting and riots have followed, the individual in question was acting unlawfully and the officer was responding to a legitimate threat that required the use of force. In other instances, law enforcement behavior was clearly excessive, and more often than not caused by overreaching laws and policies that force men and women of color, as well as law enforcement, into bad situations in which there is no winner. More and more it seems the vaunted "War on Drugs" seems to prove this right.
However, when sentencing disparity has been studied, cases that are virtually identical in terms of the unlawful act, history of the offender, and severity of the crime, there are countless examples where harsher punishments are doled out to offenders based solely on the color of their skin. Time and again, studies have shown that black men and women are consistently penalized harsher than their white counterparts in the criminal justice system. It even extends down to our youth, where black youth are five times more likely to be sent to juvenile detention centers than white youth (Sentencing Project Study on Youth). It is a gaping blemish in our American justice system.
As long as black Americans and Americans of color continue to be excessively punished by a system that is supposed to define fairness and equality, there are grounds for people to claim that there is systemic oppression in these United States.
#2 Are those protesting able to effectively communicate the purpose of their protest?
There are a great number of outspoken professional athletes that have been able to coherently and concisely explain why they personally have chosen to protest during the national anthem. However, the inherent danger of a protest such as this is that only a small handful of players are popular enough for media personnel to seek out interviews with them after a game. This naturally leads to a lot of unknown information. Do players have the knowledge and ability to explain the purpose of their protests and just not have the opportunity to do so, or do the lack the understanding of their purpose?
Many people have called out athletes for protesting just because it is trendy. I think there may be some validity to this claim just based on the nature of our society the the attention we all crave. Some of those who have spoken up in the last week or so have not done much to quell this idea- they have been found lacking in informative dialogue. Others have spoken admirably and with a great understanding of the problems that face the United States and its citizens.
Ultimately, time will tell how many players are able to effectively communicate the purpose of their protest. For now, I believe that those players are in the minority.
Colin Kaepernick himself put the whole movement in a bad position from the start, which has made it that much more difficult to communicate with those listening. As his statement above showed, Kaepernick was looking to protest for all of those oppressed, but just a few weeks later was seen wearing shirts that supported Communist dictators and explaining how they were some of his heroes. Oppression is oppression and that message seemed to elude Colin Kaepernick's understanding.
So is this #Take a Knee protest effective?
Ultimately, the purpose of protesting is to convince more and more people that there is a problem and that something needs to be done about it. When MLK marched on Washington, or Ghandi collected salt from the sea, or the Sons of Liberty threw tea into the harbor, the problem became undeniable. When a collective group of individuals stood up to oppression and shouted the truth from the top of their lungs, change became inevitable. With this collection of protests, I fear that despite the sincerity of many involved, the collective voice is lacking. Even those who chose to protest could not agree on how to best protest. The Dallas Cowboys solution was telling in that "America's Team" demonstrated to all those watching that there is a problem within the United States. If we as a country cannot see the hatred and dissent is enough of a problem on its own, we certainly are far from United. Black men, especially, face overwhelming statistics that they will become just that: a statistic. One in three black men can expect to be sent to prison in the course of their life time. Let that sink in.
Is this the most effective way to protest? I don't believe so. I think the issues surrounding these protests are causing more bitterness and bickering than they will cause change, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem or that there shouldn't be protests.
In yesterday's post, I spoke as to whether or not the Bible supports Christian men and women in the act of protest. One of the requirements I believe is important is whether or not there are tangible goals that are sought through the act of protesting. It's also vitally important that those protesting be able to explain the purpose of their protest and the change they are seeking to cause. Failure in either of these requirements tends to doom protests from the start, and leads them down a path of senseless destruction.
That's brings us to the issue that has brought out nearly everyone's opinion in the last week or so. I'd like to look at the #Take a Knee protests and see whether or not they fulfill the requirements above.
#1 Are there tangible goals that the professional athletes are seeking to accomplish through the act of protesting?
"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."
-Colin Kaepernick
When these protests began, Colin Kaepernick explained his reasons for protesting as being primarily focused on oppression of black people and people of color.
There are many, many factors that can be discussed and disputed in regards to whether black men and women are victims of oppression in the United States, but I think the most telling statistics come when you look at sentencing disparities by race. Encounters with law enforcement are insanely difficult to study and analyze because no two traffic stops or arrests are alike. There are always compounding circumstances that make even the most mundane of traffic stops look nothing alike. In many instances where protesting and riots have followed, the individual in question was acting unlawfully and the officer was responding to a legitimate threat that required the use of force. In other instances, law enforcement behavior was clearly excessive, and more often than not caused by overreaching laws and policies that force men and women of color, as well as law enforcement, into bad situations in which there is no winner. More and more it seems the vaunted "War on Drugs" seems to prove this right.
However, when sentencing disparity has been studied, cases that are virtually identical in terms of the unlawful act, history of the offender, and severity of the crime, there are countless examples where harsher punishments are doled out to offenders based solely on the color of their skin. Time and again, studies have shown that black men and women are consistently penalized harsher than their white counterparts in the criminal justice system. It even extends down to our youth, where black youth are five times more likely to be sent to juvenile detention centers than white youth (Sentencing Project Study on Youth). It is a gaping blemish in our American justice system.
As long as black Americans and Americans of color continue to be excessively punished by a system that is supposed to define fairness and equality, there are grounds for people to claim that there is systemic oppression in these United States.
#2 Are those protesting able to effectively communicate the purpose of their protest?
There are a great number of outspoken professional athletes that have been able to coherently and concisely explain why they personally have chosen to protest during the national anthem. However, the inherent danger of a protest such as this is that only a small handful of players are popular enough for media personnel to seek out interviews with them after a game. This naturally leads to a lot of unknown information. Do players have the knowledge and ability to explain the purpose of their protests and just not have the opportunity to do so, or do the lack the understanding of their purpose?
Many people have called out athletes for protesting just because it is trendy. I think there may be some validity to this claim just based on the nature of our society the the attention we all crave. Some of those who have spoken up in the last week or so have not done much to quell this idea- they have been found lacking in informative dialogue. Others have spoken admirably and with a great understanding of the problems that face the United States and its citizens.
Ultimately, time will tell how many players are able to effectively communicate the purpose of their protest. For now, I believe that those players are in the minority.
Colin Kaepernick himself put the whole movement in a bad position from the start, which has made it that much more difficult to communicate with those listening. As his statement above showed, Kaepernick was looking to protest for all of those oppressed, but just a few weeks later was seen wearing shirts that supported Communist dictators and explaining how they were some of his heroes. Oppression is oppression and that message seemed to elude Colin Kaepernick's understanding.
So is this #Take a Knee protest effective?
Ultimately, the purpose of protesting is to convince more and more people that there is a problem and that something needs to be done about it. When MLK marched on Washington, or Ghandi collected salt from the sea, or the Sons of Liberty threw tea into the harbor, the problem became undeniable. When a collective group of individuals stood up to oppression and shouted the truth from the top of their lungs, change became inevitable. With this collection of protests, I fear that despite the sincerity of many involved, the collective voice is lacking. Even those who chose to protest could not agree on how to best protest. The Dallas Cowboys solution was telling in that "America's Team" demonstrated to all those watching that there is a problem within the United States. If we as a country cannot see the hatred and dissent is enough of a problem on its own, we certainly are far from United. Black men, especially, face overwhelming statistics that they will become just that: a statistic. One in three black men can expect to be sent to prison in the course of their life time. Let that sink in.
Is this the most effective way to protest? I don't believe so. I think the issues surrounding these protests are causing more bitterness and bickering than they will cause change, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem or that there shouldn't be protests.
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