Rupert Patrick wrote:I wonder if many of them are protesting just to protest, that they don't really know what they are protesting about, but it is trendy to do so, and if they aren't doing it, they'll not be in the club somehow. I've been watching a lot of the interviews with the student protesters around the country, and many of them have no idea what they are protesting, they are following the crowd and it's the "in" thing to do.
No doubt that there's a lot of "me too" people.
Then you have high school kids taking a knee during the anthem all across the country. Even down to the youth level, there was even a team of 8-year old kids that took a knee. That's absurd, I can't stand the political use of children like that. But for the kids and teenagers, they're just emulating what they see NFL players doing -- along with following what their coaches/parents do.
Anecdotal: A high school player I know told me that three of his teammates take a knee because they think it's "cool".
Which going back to the point I was making, they aren't all protesting one thing and whatever they are allegedly protesting by taking a knee can change within a day (see: prior to today protests were allegedly about all these other things and then today the protests are about the President) ...
... A bit flimsy, and anywhere between some to a majority aren't even protesting at all and are taking a knee for the other reasons. Either way, it's individual reasoning. So no one is 'joining' a protest because there isn't one protest to join. It is not a unified protest. So it is each individuals choice what they are -real or imagined- protesting, but of course, anyone who's been on a football team and/or in a locker room knows you can get people to join in to be "one of us".
I have no doubt that there's players doing it for the attention, that there's players doing it because they're followers, and I have no doubt that there's players doing it because they honestly believe in their cause of choice.
Regardless, it's yet another one of the divisive pick-a-side debates that plague our society. I generally ignore most of that nonsense but unfortunately it's infiltrated football. Which is where the annoyance of it all comes in, for me. Especially the media/talking head coverage of it.