"Although a lot of white commentators decried the athletes' protests, demanding that the athletes "focus on the game", it is important to remember that social causes are not new to professional sports.
Professional leagues, including the NFL, have given money and time to raise breast cancer awareness, to fight hunger, and to provide toys to poor children. When we look at the response to peaceful, unobtrusive protests against the killing of unarmed Black men, we need to ask ourselves why so many white Americans saw these protests as an insult.
Kaepernick took a knee to protest a racist system that devalued Black lives. His specific targets were our social and political systems, which were harming people of color. Black athletes who joined the protest spoke repeatedly about the reasons why they were participating- and the reasons pretty much all revolves around their need for equality and safety in a world that was harming them.
That this was so easily reinterpreted as an attack on America and therefore an attack on whiteness speaks to how closely many white Americans identify with our racist, oppressive systems."
Chapter 7- Mediocre, Ijeoma Oluo
