Last NFL season Colin Kaepernick decided to protest racial injustice in the U.S by taking a knee during the national anthem before his games. This local movement quickly sparked discussions across conservative media who “ignored Kaepernick’s stated intentions and instead accused him of being unpatriotic and disrespectful of the American flag” (Illing 2018) However, this was not what brought Kaepernick to news headlines. The controversy exploded when President Donald Trump responded to the situation by saying, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners ... say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He’s fired!’ (Graham 2017). Overall the NFL protests demonstrate how the snowballing turmoil of a country can make its way into …show more content…
Although the United States holds five percent of the world’s population, it is responsible for a fourth of the world’s prisoners. More than half of these prisoners are of color. (Alexander 2012, 189) The statistics contradict the U.S.’s long-held ideal of freedom and equality. Trump was elected to quite men like Kaepernick and calm the anxieties white people had about the state and direction the country was heading. To understand the level of the circumstance, it is important to dive into the racial history of the United States. In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander states even though slave owners, Ku Kux Klan members, and unjust police men, didn’t exist in the same period, each group of men is responsible for many of the lives lost due to the fear of intimacy created by the different racial caste systems—a system that has survived the test of time and continues to affect many black men in the United States but is now more imperceptible to the American public.( (Alexander 2012). History has repeated itself, but also brought something new to consider in each moment. She makes a point and expresses that different racial caste systems appear to fade, but then new systems take their place with the needs and limitations of their generation. As the names of the racial caste systems change, so do the names of the victims and their murders. …show more content…
The NFL is not just a space that removes everyday concerns but a ‘cultural barometer for measuring the deeper.’ Racism and inequality continue to be evident despite modern society’s advances. For centuries, African Americans have been victims of a caste system that has suppressed them from equal rights and freedom (Michelle 2012) By the NFL punishing a player for practicing freedom of speech, the NFL owners play role the slave owners, Ku Kux Klan members, and unjust police men, did in their time period, to suppres the fear of intimacy created by the different racial caste