Its been 4 years since Colin Kapernick first kneeled in protest of the inequality of treatment of Black and Brown humans at the hands of the police, and somehow the message still hasn’t gotten through to everyone (thanks in part to a certain Fanta tinged faced figure that occupies the White House). Today there have been calls to boycott the MLB for their stance in upholding the American right of protests. Funny how the same group of people that (incorrectly) call the people using their voices ‘Cancel Culture’ can now say they want to do the same thing to the MLB for *checks notes… allowing their employees to exercise their freedom? I thought freedom is what we loved and wanted to keep?
For the crowd that says kneeling is disrespectful to the anthem, I’m here to remind the world of the writer of said anthem, Francis Scott Key. A slave owner, lawyer and poet, Francis Scott Key penned this poem after a battle. Let me rephrase that so we all understand, during a battle where the British were bombing an American fort, Francis Scott Key (who was famously in the military despite opposing the idea of war) wrote a fucking poem. As we all know (at least I hope), the poem’s third stanza features this line – “No refuge could save the hireling and slave”. So he watched as slaves died and wrote a poem about it that we now sing before sporting events for absolutely no reason (seriously look it up we don’t have a real reason, they just thought it slapped during WWI).
I applaud MLB for taking this approach as basic as it is in the grand scheme of the real issues, it draws a line in the sand and I for one will be watching baseball again (maybe that’s not true because I just don’t have 3 hours to spare but I for sure stand on their side).
https://twitter.com/MLB/status/1285399029896097795