With Trump reigniting the NFL kneeling controversy, many are choosing sides. Instead of jumping on the bandwagon of hate, why don’t we sit back and try to understand why people kneel for the flag and why people are offended by it?

Wylliam Smith
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It’s been just over a year since Colin Kaepernick first started his protest against racism in the U.S. by taking a knee during the national anthem. And what was once huge controversy had slowly started to quiet down. That is, until President Trump voiced his opinion of the topic two weeks ago.

Trump’s very negative take on the subject has shed a new light to the topic, making the controversy larger than it ever was. Countless athletes and fans are now voicing their opinions on if taking a knee is disrespectful or not.

It’s even come here to Iowa, as head football coach Kirk Ferentz has said he’d prefer players keeping their political and “professional” lives separate. But that story has already been told.

While I disagree with Ferentz’s decision, I thought I’d look deeper. Why does this protest upset people so much — people such as our president, who sat by quietly during the white-supremacist rallies as they flew the Confederate flag but find kneeling at the a football game so offensive.

When preparing this story, someone recently opened my eyes to a viewpoint I had never seen before. That being, what do these flags mean to people?

I know what they mean to me. The American flag stands for America, obviously, and I believe as long as America suffers from systemic racism, it is a broken country. For others, the flag, and the anthem for that matter, stands for respect for the troops lost in the wars for our country.

For me, the Confederate flag stands for a branch of America that not only accepted slavery but wanted to separate from the U.S. and become its own country. I correlate it with racism and hate. But for some, it stands for Southern pride.

Being proud of their heritage, hanging on to one’s roots, that’s what it means for them, regardless on what it symbolizes for me. Believe it or not, symbols can mean different things for different people.

Since we are referring to sports, I like to think of it in terms like this. I find baseball boring. So when the Chicago Cubs won the World Series last year, and everyone lost their minds in excitement, I sat in my dorm room and read comic books.

I didn’t feel the same emotion toward the game, just as some people don’t feel the same emotions towards the American flag. And in turn, while I respect the troops who have died for this country, I can’t respect the country for killing unarmed black men in the streets.

I believe Katie Carl said it best in her Facebook post when she stated, “It might not be your intent to send a message that offends me, but we live in a world where symbols have meaning, and that meaning is not necessarily the same to each person. So when I see that flag — based on my own life experiences and what I understand the flag to symbolize — I find your behavior deeply offensive. As my fellow American, you should recognize and respect that.”

Carl clarified that she supports the NFL players and that this is what she “believes people who are offended by the NFL protests are really saying.” She herself is not personally offended by the protest. And I agree with her, saying this can go both ways with both flags.

As fellow Americans, instead of getting hurt over both controversies, we can try to understand the opposition’s viewpoint and maybe work for a compromise.

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