Kaepernick Stays, Ditka Goes

Hall of Fame football coach Mike Ditka recently suggested that San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick should "get the hell out" of the country rather than quietly protest institutional brutality against black Americans by kneeling during the national anthem. Ditka isn't just wrong, he's the opposite of right. Civil disobedience is one of the greatest of all American traditions and arguably one of our most admirable exports to the world.

Henry David Thoreau is more famous today for having written Walden, about his year of living by a pond in rural Massachusetts. But his 1849 essay that came to be known as "Civil Disobedience" has resonated through history. Thoreau was opposed to slavery (institutional brutality against black Americans). He felt morally obligated to refuse to participate in anything that supported an institution he so strongly opposed, so he refused to pay taxes unless the United States government would guarantee that none of his money would go toward propping up slavery. As we all know, the federal government is not keen on making such deals, so Thoreau was sent to prison. When his friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson came to visit (or so the story goes), he said, "Henry, what are you doing in there?" To which Thoreau replied, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?"

Peaceful non-compliance with laws or demands that we deem to be unjust is the most civil and responsible way of expressing the revolutionary spirit which was long thought to be quintessentially American. It was this spirit that animated the struggles against slavery and fascism, that informed the strategies of Martin Luther King and Gandhi, that buttressed the courage of Muhammed Ali and a little girl in Little Rock. If "America" means anything at all, it means we respect the rights of the individual to act in accordance with his or her deepest principles, as long as they bring no harm to others. Once we abandon this bedrock principle of democracy, we'll have nothing left but blood in the streets. Far from being an act of disrespect, Kaepernick's protest is an expression of the best of America: moral courage and freedom of expression.

In the same interview in which he suggested that Kaepernick should "get the hell out," Ditka said, "My choice is that I like this country, I respect our flag, and I don’t see all the atrocities going on in this country that people say are going on." By choosing not to see the atrocities, Ditka has already left the country the rest of us--particularly non-white Americans live in. Good riddance.