What You're Not Hearing About Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick hoped to spark discussion when he kneeled during the National Anthem last NFL season. Boy did he succeed.

Of course, the discussion isn't the one he had hoped to launch, and he's being blackballed from the game for his actions.

In a game that restores rapists, wife-beaters, dog torturers and accessories to murder after a few games' suspension, it's puzzling on one hand why Kaepernick would seem to be the third rail of quarterbacks in the minds of NFL coaches and owners.

On the other hand, I could have told Kaepernick at the time that messing with the flag and the Star Spangled Banner is the express train to outrage and misunderstanding.

Many Americans are irrational and obsessive about those symbols of freedom -- even beyond the actual freedom itself.

Think about it. People who express disappointment in the U.S. are often criticized for denying that America is the greatest country, and encouraged to leave if they don't like it. This is said without a hint of irony.

Criticizing American society isn't unpatriotic; it's the very hallmark of patriotism. What's unpatriotic is denouncing people for expressing their opinion.

(Many Americans also fail to understand that we did not invent democracy -- we were 2,500 years late on that -- and we're not the only country on Earth with freedom of speech, religion and assembly. There are literally dozens of other nations enjoying these rights. And if you consider the measures of what you might call happiness, or a functioning system, measures like the murder rate, suicide rate, infant mortality, income inequality, illiteracy, academic performance, chronic disease rates, and so on, the U.S. performs quite poorly compared to most industrialized countries.)

Colin Kaepernick hoped to bring attention to the vexing spurt of unarmed black men being gunned down by police.  

Surely all citizens can find a way to agree that police have a very tough job and deserve our appreciation, and also that they shouldn't be killing unarmed people, and that when they do, they ought to be prosecuted.

At the same time, Kaepernick chose the wrong venue for his protest, guaranteed to incite misinterpretation. 

Look at the reaction of veterans groups, who conflated Kaepernick's actions with failure to appreciate their sacrifices.  

So now he is paying a hefty price. It's hard for me to blame the owner of a billion-dollar asset dependent on a ticket-buying public for declining to risk that asset by championing (or tolerating) an unpopular cause.

Considering Kapernick's diminished value, it's not surprising that he is unemployed. If only he could play as well as ... Greg Hardy.