It seems that more people are giving their opinion on San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s controversial decision to sit during the national anthem before the 3rd preseason game for the 49ers.
NBC analyst and retired NFL star Rodney Harrison has gone on record to criticize the decision of Colin Kaepernick to sit during the national anthem. According to the NBC analyst, he thinks that it was a bad time to protest, was useless and made by a man who isn’t the right skin color to understand the issue. Rodney Harrison does not see Colin Kaepernick as a black person.
He said, “ Obviously he has the right to stand up for what he believes, but he has to understand there are consequences and might be backlash for what he said. You know a lot of people are criticizing him. I think his heart is in the right place, I just think he was going about it in the wrong way,” he said on Tuesday morning on SportsTalk 790. “If he wants to make a change, sitting his butt down [during the anthem], that’s not going to change, that’s going to get people very upset, and he has to understand that. If you think sitting during the national anthem, a lot of people served before his time, now, trying to give him the freedoms and the liberties that he has … and I tell you this; I’m a black man. And Colin Kaepernick — he’s not black. He can not understand what I face and what other young black men and black people face, or people of color face, on an every single day basis. When you walk in a grocery store, and you might have $2,000 or $3,000 in your pocket, and you go up into a Foot Locker, and they’re looking at you like you about to steal something. I don’t think he faces those types of things.” He made these remarks after being asked about his views on Colin Kaepernick.
Also according to Harrison, Kaepernick, who happens to be biracial, would have made more of a difference if he chose to write a check to an organization that is working to help make a change. The change is that he does not want black people to be oppressed. He also raised another question that he thinks the timing of it is odd because he is in the middle of battling for his job with backup Blaine Gabbert. The one point he does make that does have some validity is that the 49ers are not a good enough team to try and get better and handle distractions.
I still feel that Kaepernick will end up losing his job as the 49ers will probably cut him at some point. What will be interesting to see is if he can rebound from this scary PR move. Harrison would later go on to his Twitter account and said that he is sorry for the remarks he said.