I am fed up with the faux patriotism on display in the NFL right now. In early November, in the middle of the kneeling controversy, I went to a Monday night Packers game at the iconic Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Being a Veterans Days tribute, every fan — over 60,000 — received one of these small American flags. By the end of the game, thousands of them were on the ground in the stands, sitting in spilled beer and getting stomped on as people left the game.
The crowd was 99.9% white and wealthy enough to afford to go to a professional football game.
As someone who grew up on the 1950’s, this really bothered me. My parents would shudder in horror if anyone ever showed this kind of disrespect for the flag, no matter how small it was. My friends and I each picked up several of them, but the vast majority of people just walked all over them.
Frankly, people who are kneeling as a form of protest always look respectful to me. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights protesters did it. People kneel in prayer all the time. There is no greater sign of respect at a church service, funeral, etc., than kneeling. But because black players do it as a form of protest in front of predominantly white stadium crowds and TV audiences, it is deemed so disrespectful that NFL teams will now be fined if their players kneel, and the president-who-shall-not-be-named thinks that kneeling players should be deported.
Now, imagine if you can what the reaction would be if a black player threw one of these little flags on the ground...