America had barely come down from the buzz of winning a bunch of gold medals in Rio when it faced another national moment of reckoning around its racism, this time brought to us by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick’s decision to sit during the pre-game ritual playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” ignited a media firestorm. Kaepernick’s protest — which has evolved into a kneel during the song before subsequent games — is a call for America to practice the principles it symbolically and explicitly advertises for all people. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media.
Kaepernick has been met with an overwhelming sea of angry reactions deeming him “un-American,” traitorous and ungrateful. Many of those offended by his action view his protest as a direct slight to America’s military.
The current public sentiment appears contrary to the idea that participating in these customs, which are extensions of nationalism, are supposed to be voluntary. The pushback also exposes a much larger issue: the deeply unquestioning attitude many in our country have when it comes to our country’s militarization, which has seeped into our domestic lives via law enforcement and continues taking innocent lives around the globe.
Some supporters have rallied around Kaepernick, including fellow players, some of whom during the first week of the NFL regular season kneeled during the national anthem as well. John Legend noted the anthem was a “weak song,” and numerous other people expressed their own disinterest in crooning a tune about freedom authored by a slave owner.
Kaepernick has explicitly stated that his resistance is not directed at those in the military on active duty or veterans.
In his words: “I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone. That’s not happening. People are dying in vain because this country isn’t holding their end of the bargain up, as far as giving freedom and justice, liberty to everybody. That’s something that’s not happening.”
The persisting, ill-advised notion that Kaepernick and others who have joined in protest are “anti-military” displays hypersensitivity associated with any theoretical criticism of American militarization. In the meantime, American soldiers are being tokenized to silence urgent analysis of structural oppression domestically and internationally.
This is great cause for concern — on the 15th anniversary of September 11, America is overdue to confront its obsessions with imperialism, war and violence.
Interrogating the unconditional praise of armed forces in America is akin to questioning God’s existence to my black southern Baptist Grandmother —implicitly and explicitly forbidden. The consequences of merely appearing anti-military can be personally and professionally disastrous.
The misinterpretation of Kaepernick’s protest isn’t the only recent illustration of this. One month ago, Olympian Gabby Douglas was bombarded with insults and harsh criticism for failing to place her hand over her heart during the national anthem during the Olympic games medal ceremony.
She apologized for the oversight shortly afterward, which is understandable. But it is also questionable. Why should she have to apologize? The “outrage” which has greeted public figures like Kaepernick and Douglass, which is often attributed to defending veterans, is a subconscious extension of America’s idealization of the military industrial complex.
The term “military industrial complex” is not a phrase that derives from some social justice warrior on Tumblr. The concept emerged during President Dwight Eisenhower’s closing address, during which he stated, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.”
This warning issued more than 50 years ago showcases the complexities of militarization and the role of armed forces in global society. What Eisenhower forecast was the danger of profiting from the continued production of militarized materials and ideologies in the name of national security.
The manner in which this complex operates domestically was largely invisible to the civilian eye until Michael Brown was killed in August 2014 in Ferguson, Mo. This Midwestern suburb became the poster child for police militarization as tanks and teargas were aimed at American citizens protesting Brown’s killing. The sight caused spectators on the ground locally and nationwide to inquire about the source of the weaponry — the National Defense Authorization Act.
The legislation authorized the transfer of excess military equipment to law enforcement. According to Forbes, as of May 2016, that transfer has included “$2.2 billion worth of military gear, including helicopters and airplanes, armored trucks and cars, tens of thousands of M16 and M14 rifles, thousands of bayonets, mine detectors and many other types of weaponry.”
The explanation for the mass production of these materials is often attributed to ensuring national security. Regardless of the program’s intent, however, profiting from the gross production of tools of destruction is indefensible.
In the event the armament wasn’t used to suppress protests at home and made it to the international combat zones they were intended for, I pose the question: To what end will we continue to invest in that cycle?
The allure of shallow patriotism tends to distance us from the international suffering resulting from the alleged spread of democracy and the war on terror. In this never-ending cycle of the military industrial complex, those killed in American uniform are heralded unequivocally as heroes, while civilians killed in the footnotes of war are reduced to mere casualties.
The social, political, cultural, economic and, most importantly, human costs of our love affair with militarization are enormous but necessary to estimate.
If veterans and active service members are as valuable as “we” insist they are, we should focus less on the rituals of saluting and reciting and more on waging the kind of creative peace for which Kaepernick and so many others are currently protesting when they refuse to stand for the national anthem.
CHRISTINA D. BROWN serves on the Cincinnati Human Relations Commission and organizes for various social justice causes and racial equity. Contact Christina: [email protected].
