(06-07-2020, 01:39 AM)JagJohn Wrote:

(06-06-2020, 11:34 PM)americus 2.0 Wrote: Dude, all kneeling did was piss people off and blackball Kaepernick.

What finally got people's attention was George Floyd dying for over 8 minutes for all the world to see. It has made people see this problem in a way that nothing else comes close to. 

Kaep and the others who kneeled did nothing to start the process, the brutal murder of a man did.

I disagree. I'm not saying Kaepernick changed anything immediately by kneeling, but that act of protest started a conversation in America, albeit, as you say, by pissing many people off. But that conversation was started. The murder of George Floyd then brought the issue into a much sharper focus and, hopefully, will be remembered as a turning point in the battle for real equality in America.

I can honestly say I have heard nothing in the years between Kaep kneeling and George Floyds murder that was positive toward change or a national conversation that didn't include opinions. Opinions do nothing if not backed up by action.  

Granted, I live in small town North Carolina, I do not live or die by the news, and I am not the targeted demographic for any foundations his protesting inspired, so I wouldn't know anything other than what the clickbait headlines (of stories I didn't read because sensationalism is not the way to get my attention) were proclaiming when it was still hot in the news cycle. 

What makes anything Kaep tried to achieve different than what Floyd's death did achieve is everyone is listening now in ways they haven't before. I know I am. It's one thing to be a person not many of us can relate to, in this case an athlete who gets paid a butt ton of money to play a game and even more in product endorsements, protest in a way that made no sense to a majority of the country without context. It's quite another to watch a man die who was relatable because he was a regular person like the rest of us. And he didn't just die. He suffered and no one did a damn thing. I guarantee you Colin Kaepernick has never suffered as George Floyd did. 

People of all walks of life were horrified by what we saw. Not just the black community, not just the minority communities, not just the poor(er) communities, but from ALL communities. The emotional response has been completely different than in times past when a black man was killed by a cop. Kaep had nothing to do with it. In fact, he probably wasn't even a thought in people's minds until the media brought him up. He's not as crucial to this horrific story as people like to think.

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