As far as sports commentators go, Stephen A. Smith has been up and down on the issue of Colin Kaepernick's protest movement since its inception over a year ago.
Smith was initially on the fence about the venue Kaepernick used to stage his dissent against an oppressive criminal justice system, then he began to take up for the former 49ers quarterback as more and more support came behind his cause in the beginning weeks of the 2016 season. Smith would then swear off Kaepernick after he admitted that he would not vote in the Presidential election. As it eventually became apparent to many that NFL owners were blackballing the once promising star, his tone began to veer back towards the supportive side of the Kaepernick argument. But on Friday, September 29, Smith was back to writing off the National Anthem protest movement, with a question as to where it is headed, realistically.
"I'm not going to lie to y'all, I'm going to confess, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it. Number one, I want to get back to football, and number two and more importantly than that, I wanna know what the hell we're gonna really, really, really do about it," Smith said during First Take. "Because as far as I'm concerned the real issue at hand has been hijacked. When you talk about
"Because as far as I'm concerned the real issue at hand has been hijacked. When you talk about oppression, when you talk about prejudice, when you talk about brutality on the part of some police officers and things of that nature, can someone tell me what specifically has been done to address those issues that Colin Kaepernick was supposedly directing our ire towards?"
While most of those who either kneeled, linked arms, or embraced a teammate with a hand on the shoulder last Sunday were doing so for the first time, there are a handful of protesters from last year who continue to protest today, and perhaps a dozen or so players who may be inconsistent but have protested at some point or other since 2016. Of the original group of demonstrators, Malcolm Jenkins and Anquan Boldin have made several trips to Washington D.C. to lobby Congress for the passing of legislation that would abolish the bail bonds system that many argue winds up keeping poor people imprisoned because they have a lack of resources. They also lobbied for passage of the Clean Slate Act, which would seal the records of those who've gone a decade without a violent criminal offense. Then there is Kaepernick, who has kept to his word in distributing one million dollars to organizations working to counter injustice and inequality in marginalized communities.
Source: YouTube
