Kaepernick, Nike, and North Smithfield’s Slippery Slope: Guest MINDSETTER™ Schoos

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Guest MINDSETTER™ Geoff Schoos

Colin Kaepernick

I’m not a big football fan. Sure, I’m a homer who roots for the Pats, and I’ll watch the Super Bowl, but beyond that I’m generally agnostic on the sport. I do belong to several Fantasy Football leagues as a hobby, but as my results attest over the years, I’m more a baseball and basketball guy.

A few years ago, I plucked Colin Kaepernick off the waiver wire, and he did well for me. The next year I “drafted” him onto my team and he virtually stunk the league out. I’m certain his actual team had a similar view of his performance. After those experiences, I kept track of Kaepernick if only to ensure that I’d avoid placing him on future teams.

In August 2016, Colin Kaepernick, a largely mediocre NFL quarterback, stood tall when he first took a knee during the national anthem. His was a silent protest of what he saw as the too frequent killing of mostly young unarmed black males all too often by white police officers. And too often, those officers, after a cursory hearing, went unpunished.

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Over the past two years, this form of protest has been adopted by others in the NFL, as well as other athletes in other sports. In short order, the conflict involved individual players versus owners and the league, players’ associations supporting its members versus the leagues and owners, commentators of various political leanings opining as to the efficacy and propriety of symbolic protest before games, and our president contributing his viewpoints.

In short order these protests soon developed as a toxic political, racial, and cultural witch’s brew. As I see it, broadly speaking, there seem to be three basic assertions. First, Kaepernick’s protest disrespected the flag. Second, Kaepernick’s protest inflamed extant anti-police feeling in specific communities. And third, young black males are being profiled and targeted by local police departments.

Let’s start with the flag. Some of us may not like it, but burning an American flag has been constitutionally protected symbolic political speech since 1989. What Kaepernick and his successors are doing is far more respectful than a flag burning and is constitutionally protected. Put another way, if one thinks respecting the flag is a vital symbol of patriotic fervor, then while criticizing Kaepernick, why not also criticize Kid Rock for cutting a hole in the flag and using it as a poncho at his concerts? Or maybe we should be celebrating the use of the flag (and anthem) in protest, a rock singer’s use of a flag as outerwear, and our right to criticize both for doing so.

Moreover, there is anti-police feeling in some communities. Too often, persons of color feel as though the police behave as an army of occupation rather than a partner in public safety. This is nothing new. Numerous books and peer-reviewed studies published over the past decades have highlighted and attempted to explain the root causes of this feeling, and offered suggestions to improve relations between the police and the public. All one need do is go on Amazon or just use Google to access these publications.

Or you can just speak with folks who live in minority communities. By way of example, I have one friend who has two male children and he worries that one day they might be targets (they’re big kids) of police action. He already has given one explicit instruction how to behave in the presence of police officers. The second boy is still young, but he will need to be so instructed very soon. My friend is black. I’ve known this guy for years and as a white man, even though I can intellectually understand why he’s concerned, I still can never fully appreciate his life, those of his kids, and the hazards they often face daily.

Let me be clear, most officers are great. Many police department’s invest time and resources into training their officers to deal with the public, and in marginalized communities initiate community policing protocols. It’s not police departments that shoot young black males, it’s individual police officers. The complaints often arise once the officer commits a questionable act of violence against person of color.

Make no mistake, it’s not all communities that are predominantly affected by violent police action, it’s minority communities. And it’s not young white kids being physically injured or killed by individual police officers, it’s young black kids. And when a white kid is victimized at the hands of the police, justice is certain and quick, but if a black kid is similarly victimized, justice is too often an illusion.

Kaepernick is an unlikely standard-bearer for his community, but as history teaches, it is a person of conscience and courage who stands to say “enough.” With his notoriety, he stands and speaks for people who neither have a forum nor a voice that can be heard. For that act of constitutionally protected protest, he has been subject to heaps of abuse and lost his livelihood. Who among us, especially his critics, would risk so much to defend a principle?

And this brings me to Nike and the Town of North Smithfield. As most know, Nike hired Kaepernick to be a spokesperson for its products. A two-minute commercial was aired containing the admonition “believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything.” This guy walks what he talks.

By a vote of 3-2, the North Smithfield Town Council voted to urge its school department to stop purchasing Nike products. This vote was not the result of Nike providing inferior products, nor because its products were way too costly (although that’s a good argument!). Rather it’s because Nike hired Kaepernick, and Kaepernick is anti-police.

The Council president knows this because Kaepernick’s socks told him so. I get that the Council president is a distinguished 25-year veteran of the state police and is sensitive to any criticism of the police. I can understand how he feels. I often resent the jokes and ridicule directed at my profession.

So we’ve come full circle, starting from a peaceful symbolic protest and finishing at state action designed to chill that protected protest. There are clear First Amendment speech issues implicated in the Council’s action, implications that at least three members of the Council could care a whit about.

The Council tried to disguise its action as a “request,” but a request from the holder of the town’s purse carries a bit more weight than an idle suggestion. This is a blatant assault on a company and its spokesperson who tried to shed some light on a serious problem in his community.

To those three council persons who voted for this “request,” a question: exactly when did we decide not to constitutionally protect speech we disagree with? And if this vote stands as an example for other cities and towns, we will enter a slippery slope of “protected speech for me, but not for thee,” and we become a country that most of us will no longer recognize.

Kaepernick, Nike, and North Smithfield’s Slippery Slope: Guest MINDSETTER™ Schoos

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