The protests—and the very different ways Americans responded to them—raised important questions. Do players have a right to use their fame to draw attention to causes they care about? How do you define patriotism? And is this the sort of issue the president should weigh in on?
Americans have a very intense relationship with the anthem and the flag, and displays of patriotism have become a part of the ritual of American sporting events, especially football.
This probably has to do with America’s history, says Orin Starn, professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University, in North Carolina. Unlike most nations, the U.S. wasn’t created on a common platform of religion or ancestry. Instead, Americans are bound by ideas and concepts—that all people are created equal, for example. Consequently, something that represents those ideas, like an anthem, can come to seem vitally important, even sacred.
The demonstrations intensified a debate that began last season when Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, began kneeling during the playing of the national anthem. He said it was to highlight police brutality and racial injustice.
Kaepernick, who has remained out of a job since no team decided to sign him this year, isn’t the first athlete to be criticized for slighting the anthem, whether intentionally or not.
“There’s a tradition going back to the ’60s of black athletes calling attention to social injustice,” Starn says.
In 1968, for example, African-American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos were expelled from the Olympics in Mexico City for raising gloved fists in a “black power” salute while on the medal stand during the playing of the national anthem.