Like Rosa Parks, Kaepernick sits
Donald Trump predictably plays the outraged-patriot card regarding Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for our anthem. The only surprise in Trump’s Pavlovian response is the absence of the word “disgusting,” his favorite all-purpose adjective.
He had to settle for thinking “personally” (as opposed to “universally”) that Mr. Kaepernick’s sitting is a “terrible thing,” along with the inevitable true-blue conservative clincher Get Out If You Don’t Like It Here.
In an America filled with injustices of all varieties, sitting for the national anthem is a “terrible thing?” One can be sure that Trump was “disgusted” by the heroic restaurant and drugstore sitters in the South that began slowly to turn this ex-proslave country around.
Trump and the others outraged by Mr. Kaepernick’s principled act will never understand that patriotism may often be the last refuge of the scoundrel. Without her heroes and heroines who dared to say “No,” America would be the lesser. Like the Alabama bus-sitter Rosa Parks, Mr. Kaepernick stood up for America by sitting down.
Stanley Poss, Fresno
This story was originally published September 2, 2016 at 2:39 PM with the headline "Like Rosa Parks, Kaepernick sits."