Conservative Outrage Over The #TakeAKnee Movement Revealed Racism, Not Patriotism
Hypocrisy and phony patriotism: two principles of the new Republican party
During the height of Colin Kaepernick’s career and the #TakeAKnee movement, plenty of conservative-minded and Republican folks were outraged, expressing sentiments like, “politics has no place in football!” Later, these same people had the temerity to applaud Donald Trump for running (not one, but two) political campaign ads during the 2020 Super Bowl. The band of hypocrisy and phony patriotism has been nothing short of stunning.
Last spring I wrote a piece examining white privilege in the United States. Since being published, that piece has led to some heated debate in the comments section — notably, most often originating from white men.(At least, judging by their profile pictures, that is — which are supposed to be authentic representations of the person behind the pen, but whatevs…)
All the usual suspects stopped by to do what they do: offer neither ample arguments nor thoughtful debate, but instead, the same old useless insults that get us nowhere.
Either that, or they wanted to mansplain exactly what I “got wrong” about white privilege (or how, or when, or why I was “wrong”) on the whole. Mind you, most of these same people had a fundamental misunderstanding of the term’s meaning in the first place. Which is a non-starter. I mean, if you’re going to argue against something, at least do your homework first.
And, of course, there was no shortage of comments from those who felt compelled to clarify that it was, in fact, *me who was the “racist” — through the ad hominem attack that my simple use of the term ‘white privilege’ was inherently racist in and of itself. There were just so many comments that, you know, reflect the lowered national standard for discourse in general, and other similar disheartening stuff. Credible research, statistics, and experience don’t seem to matter…
