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Colin Kaepernick, a player who I personally like (being a 49ers fan), has started a country-wide trend of kneeling during the national anthem. The question people are asking: is it his right to kneel or should he be forced to stand?

Kaepernick says he refuses to stand and show pride for a country that encumbers people of color.

“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 ESPN.com.

Colin has sparked an outbreak of athletes kneeling, linking arms, and just plain sitting during the national anthem to show they are against the mistreatment of blacks and people of color from law enforcement. Athletes such as Kaepernick’s teammate Eric Reid, U.S. women’s national team star Megan Rapinoe, and many high schools and colleges around the country. In week four of NFL football, groups of players from a total of nine other NFL teams have followed behind Kaepernick and either knelt or rose a fist during the national anthem.

I believe Kaepernick’s fans were mad at him because they saw it as disrespect to the country. However, he is just trying to protest unethical problems in the United States.

Most of the people that are hating on what Kaepernick is doing do not know why he is doing it. He says he is kneeling to help raise awareness for police brutality in America. Colin is not kneeling to say he hates America and all police officers, he is simply trying to show that bad police brutality is in this era of America.

“It was something I was thinking about to try to make sure that I’m not just talking about something but I’m actively being involved and actively trying to make a change in these communities,” he says in The Rolling Stone magazine.

People think he is just a rich football player, who is just sitting during a song and not doing anything about it. But, after receiving less amounts of criticism, he went ahead and donated an astonishing 1 million dollars of what he makes this year to go toward helping communities develop race equality. From what I see, donating 1 million dollars from his own paycheck is enough to prove his righteousness.

“We have cops that are blatantly murdering people, we have cops that are blatantly racist,” he told The Rolling Stone.

The people being killed by cops for unknown reasons are predominantly black citizens. The fact that he is being criticized for protesting one of the biggest problems in our society today is just astonishing to me. With all the new laws being enforced, justice should definitely be served, but guilty people are still getting away with murder.

My overall opinion on Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality is that it is his choice to kneel to protest, and if I were playing a football game for whatever organization, I would kneel too. The amount of hate he is getting is unethical. He is doing the same as NBA players wearing black shirts in their warm ups.