A Non-White Caucasian Speaks about Black Lives Matter

Anyone who imagines that kneeling during the Star Spangled Banner is Un-American is grossly mistaken. He or she, however, has just as much right to be wrong and express his wrong-headedness as every one of the NFL players do to kneel during the National Anthem. I used to not stand during it at sports arenas because it had far too much in common with scenes I remembered from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. 

I know what the flag means, what it symbolizes, what respect for it is; as I do for what was once a more organically defended politicized tradition in active democracy, something we have abandoned longer ago than too many of us are willing to admit or maybe just able to recognize. I wonder how many of those who call “UnAmerican” the NFL players who kneel during the National Anthem have read the essays of Madison, Hamilton…