.@TomiLahren on NFL anthem protests: “I would like to ask these players: What exactly are you kneeling for?” @foxandfriends pic.twitter.com/SZAiQVcE6l
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 18, 2017
Tuesday morning on Fox News, contributor Tomi Lahren continued the network’s critical coverage of NFL players’ protests against racial inequality by asking what the players were protesting about.
“I would like to ask these players: What exactly are you kneeling for and why have you chosen the flag and the anthem to do it,” Lahren asked. “I bet if we asked 100 players, we would get 100 different answers.”
In August 2016, then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick succinctly stated why he had started his protest:
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
In Lahren’s defense, 2016 was forever ago in Internet time. However, other players have steadily added to the conversation, even after President Trump started conflating the protests with disrespect to America. In September 2017, Kaepernick’s former teammate Eric Reid wrote a New York Times to describe how he joined the protests after the death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge.
Prior to the current NFL season, the Seattle Seahawks’ Michael Bennett went out of his way to say that he respected the military, but the protest was about equality. Weeks later, Bennett himself was involved in a profiling incident with Las Vegas police. There are a number of other examples, too.
Kaep has donated almost a million dollars. Chris Long just donated his entire salary. Go look at Kenny Stills, Malcolm Jenkins https://t.co/lLNfe2T9Wt
— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) October 18, 2017
It’s almost as if Lahren’s being willfully obtuse.
(Via Fox News & For The Win)