Why would you be more outraged by kneeling than an attack on the U.S. Capitol?
Hypocrisy is an interesting word. Usually, it’s used when we see one person saying one thing, but doing something different. That’s what I’ve observed since the Big Blue Nation got all up in their feels about the UK Men’s Basketball Team “taking a knee” in protest to police brutality in the country. By the responses, you would have thought the team stood at mid-court and burned an American flag. I still struggle with why people are so upset at this form of protest and after what happened on Jan. 6, I’m even more shocked at the reaction.
By definition, a protest is when you “declare (something) firmly and emphatically in the face of stated or implied doubt or in response to an accusation.” What does that mean? To me, it means that a protest is meant to jar your central nervous system and wake you up to the cause. Consider this: When Colin Kaepernick first took a knee, imagine where the country would have been when it comes to police brutality if he had been taken seriously by the public. If we would have had some serious conversations about police reform, If we would have had that talk, maybe George Floyd and Breonna Taylor would still be alive.
Protests are not supposed to be convenient for either side. What would the Civil Rights Movement had looked like if the protesters knew they weren’t gonna be harmed? Would the Birmingham protests have looked different if the municipal bus transit didn’t lose any money during the boycott? Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was the most hated man in America during the Movement. It wasn’t until after he was assassinated that people truly saw his value with the protests.
This brings me to the events of Jan. 6 at our nation’s capitol. For several hours, the Capitol was overrun with protesters who were upset at the result of the Presidential Election amid accusations of cheating. As I watched this unfold, I didn’t hear the word, “thug” used to describe those who beat police officers, broke windows and doors along with defacing offices. Few on the local Republican side chose to say much about the protester’s use of the American flag as a weapon against the police. Wait! Aren’t these some of the same folks who are willing to boycott a whole university over the basketball team “disrespecting the flag and the anthem” by dropping to one knee and silently protest?
The hypocrisy is obvious. The same folks who would dare criticize our young people for standing up for a cause that might make them uncomfortable for about 90 seconds are also the same people who remained silent when grown men were defecating in the halls of the Capitol. As Americans (and as Kentuckians), we should do better. If something is wrong, it shouldn’t matter who did it. Instead of boycotting these young men, we should be proud they are taking some kind of stand against wrongdoing in this country.
George T. Thompson is an English teacher in the Clark County Public Schools.