#TakeAKnee

It all began in the NFL’s 2016 pre-season. At the playing of the National Anthem, Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, decided to kneel, rather than stand facing the flag and put his right hand upon his heart (I wrote about this then, The Kaepernick Kerfuffle). He would later explain: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” No one suggested that he had other motives than what he claimed. However, many (white?) Americans were very upset, and they charged that his action showed disrespect of our flag. But ALL protests, large and small, show disrespect for authority and its symbols, often breaking the law. Else they are not protests. They also claimed that his action was un-American – as though America, more than any country in world history, is not built upon a solid foundation of protest. The American Revolution was its first protest, a huge protest, and its participants were all guilty of treason against their government, Great Britain and the King. And these patriotic Americans wanted to punish Kaepernick.

The Human Species

“We humans are a special species, we are at the top of the evolutionary pyramid, we are what God aimed at when he set evolution in motion.” 

“Well, that is a lovely thought, but it is not really true. Every individual creature that is alive today – humans, primates, mammals, dolphins – are as highly evolved as are you and me. They are all products of 450 million years of uninterrupted evolutionary success, just like you and me. No predator ever made a meal out of any of them before they had children. None of our ancestors, no matter how distant, ever died of an accident or a disease before they had children, more ancestors” 

“But we are surely superior to them all, to all non-human creatures, aren’t we?”