Drew Kerekes

The mistake Drew Brees made was buying into a narrative regarding Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem that didn’t originate from Kaepernick himself. What followed was tremendous backlash against the Saints’ future Hall of Fame quarterback for that mistake.

In late August 2016, the former 49ers quarterback refused to stand during a pre-game playing of the anthem as an act of protest. Following the game, he was interviewed by NFL Media when he explained his reason for not standing: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Kaepernick’s stated reason for his decision was to protest racism with a particular focus on police brutality. In a different interview, he was quoted in saying he would “continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed. … when there’s significant change — and I feel like that flag represents what it’s supposed to represent, and this country is representing people the way it’s supposed to — I’ll stand.”

Participating in the national anthem ceremony at sporting events, which typically means spectators will stand with their hats off and hands over their hearts with some even choosing to sing the lyrics, is viewed as an act of patriotism. Not participating in that ceremony was always going to result in backlash against Kaepernick, something he knew when he began kneeling. Eventually, the narrative around why Kaepernick was doing this changed. He was doing this, the narrative said, as an act of disrespect for either the flag, the anthem, the military, or all three. Again, this narrative didn’t come from Kaepernick himself — his protest had nothing to do with the military whatsoever — but from elsewhere, and it’s no doubt that narrative is what led Brees to say what he did this past week.

In an interview with Yahoo Finance, Brees was asked about Kaepernick’s protest during Kapernick’s time in the NFL, and Brees stated the following: “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.” Brees further explained how the anthem causes him to recall how both of his grandfathers fought during World War II, which is part of why he participates in the ceremony.

It’s natural for people to revere their ancestors for fighting in World War II against Nazi Germany, one of the greatest evils this planet has ever seen. My paternal grandfather fought in the second Great War, and my maternal great-grandfather was a Purple Heart recipient in that same war. But there’s a dark truth to which I’m also aware: My ancestors came home to a country that didn’t treat them like second-class citizens due to their race. My black peers have grandparents and great-grandparents who came home to a very different experience than mine did, and the painful reality of racism is something that remains in America to this day.

The deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, all of which happened in a three-month timespan, have prompted wide-scale protests in our country against racism and police brutality, the same things Kaepernick was protesting four years prior. Brees’ comments, which came in the midst of these protests happening, caused considerable backlash from not just the people protesting, but also his contemporaries in the NFL and other professional leagues. It prompted a virtual meeting between Brees and his teammates, after which Brees began expressing a very different message.

“Through my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize this is not an issue about the American flag,” Brees posted on his official Instagram account. “It has never been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black community.”

Kaepernick wasn’t protesting Old Glory, or the national anthem, or the military. Having grown up in America, Kaepernick is no doubt aware of this country’s founding principles, namely, the idea all men are created equal and are entitled to life, liberty and whatever we believe “the pursuit of happiness” to mean. While much progress has been made since our country’s founding, Kaepernick is also aware how the treatment of black people in this country far too often falls short of that ideal, something of which the deaths of Arbery, Taylor and Floyd are just the latest examples. You can’t expect “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” to be founding principles of your country and then expect people to not get mad when your country fails at delivering those promises.

Brees’ “disrespecting the flag” comments last week serve as a cautionary tale of how misunderstanding the reasons behind someone’s actions lead to people hurting others with their words. If he’d have gone with the narrative provided by Kaepernick himself, i.e. his stated reasons for kneeling during the anthem, that hurt could have been avoided. History will likely vindicate Kaepernick. If people had just listened to the man himself, Kaepernick wouldn’t need to be vindicated at all.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.