The College Fix

Yesterday’s article in USA Today about the growing number of high school athletes emulating the San Francisco 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick’s choice of not standing for the National Anthem is a sobering reminder that the power of a narrative can overwhelm all.

A large number of players on the Maury High (Virginia) football team took a knee in the end zone during the Anthem before Friday’s game:

Before tonight's game, most of Maury High football team took a knee during the National Anthem. (Submitted photo) pic.twitter.com/PwEdD23EFg

— Jami Frankenberry (@JamiVP) September 10, 2016

Maury coach Chris Fraser noted that “Our school system has said, we’re of the belief, we let our guys do what they believe in.

“And so we didn’t make an issue of it, and if they believe in a cause, that’s fine. I stand behind what they believe in, but I’m going to do what I believe in.”

In Maryland, the Watkins Mill HS football squad acted similarly.

“We just wanted to make a statement,” said junior quarterback Markel Grant, “that America is not what you think it is.” He added that he and the other team captains “kneeled to call attention to many of the issues raised by Kaepernick, such as police brutality and racial inequalities.”

Watkins Mill coach Mike Brown told his players that “the choice is yours” to kneel, but to “[t]hink about what you’re doing. Understand why you’re doing it.”

Those are very good questions: Are these students thinking about what they’re doing? Do they understand why they’re doing it?

Fox News has reported that Colin Kaepernick’s outspokenness became evident after he began dating MTV personality Nessa Diab, known for her “Black Lives Matter and Muslim activism.” If accurate, this directly ties into Coach Brown’s statements above.

The Black Lives Matter movement is largely a by-product of the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown killings. Perhaps most significantly in the latter’s case (because of the involvement of law enforcement), the narrative utilized by BLM — “Hands up, don’t shoot” — was proven to be a fiction. The officer involved in the shooting, Darren Wilson, was cleared of wrongdoing, even by the Obama administration Justice Department.

Do these protesting high school athletes know this? Are they aware how our judicial system functions — that people are innocent until proven guilty — and that way too many people and organizations did not grant that presumption to Officer Wilson? Are they aware of actual statistics regarding crime and law enforcement?

And, do these players understand that the American flag represents, in part, the very right to protest the flag?

Would folks like Coach Brown and the respective schools be willing to have such discussions?

It’s bad enough that narratives upon which such protests are based are specious; making matters worse is star athletes like Shannon Sharpe invoking “white privilege” to rebut challenges to Kaepernick’s motivations, and claiming that (Kaepernick) speaks for all 34-plus million African-Americans in the country.

Thankfully, fellow star player Ray Lewis eloquently challenged Sharpe on his contentions.

There’s little argument to Sharpe’s point that there’s still a lot of work to do in America when it comes to race relations. But there’s a lot of work to do in many arenas — social, cultural, and political. There are things about our country with which I have issues.

However, as Lewis said to Sharpe, “Take the flag out of it.” Indeed. The flag represents the ideal — the aspiration, the dream — of what the country can, and should, be.

Since a country is made up of people — who are inherently fallible — it may be that we’ll never achieve the dream. But that doesn’t mean we should ever stop trying.

MORE: Saint Louis University gives students protesting tips ahead of Brown verdict

MORE: College students set to walk out of class for Michael Brown

MORE: Prof says MLK Memorial a reminder of racism, racial divide in Washington D.C.

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IMAGE: US govt/Flickr; Daredevil #233