There are two very different sides to this story that you need to get your head around before you make a determination as to what is right. The kid who just got cut from the Albright College Football Team was supposed to be standing for the anthem but, he knelt anyways. It appears that the team had an agreement to stand, and this player chose not to. That is not what is at issue here. This has more to do with the unseen and simplistic ways that we allow racism and white power to stand in America. This kid goes to a small school, and they thought they could get away with it.
They had an agreement
The team at Albright seems to have decided that they would kneel, and their backup quarterback Gyree Durante was cut from the team after he chose to kneel anyway. On the face of it, you can say that he agreed to stand and he should stand. However, this guy is just a college athlete. He is not fully grown, and he is not in a position where he can simply live on as a rich football player if he does not kneel. He is stuck at a small liberal arts school, and he might have thought this was the only way he could make a difference. That is far different from what Alejandro Villanueva did. He is going to be rich either way. He can suck it up and stay in the locker room.
Hidden racism
Albright College probably thought that they could hide away and get out of this without much PR backlash, but their story was on the homepage of ESPN.com. I am writing about it right now. They cannot hide away in their liberal arts bubble and cut this kid for a simple protest without being called out for it. This is a large part of how racism persists in America.
We simply let it go because it does not seem like such a big deal. Certain colleges in the south had their students fight in the Civil War. Does that not tell you something about the values of the school? Albright College could not stand a football player kneeling for the national anthem. Do you not see their values fully on display?
How long will this go on?
We have to expect educated leaders of universities to be a bit more enlightened than this, but we have seen time and again that people in positions of power often get there because they love power more than they love people. So a university President who likes being in control would be very happy to see a player lose their spot on the football team over a protest that does not impact the office of the President at all. We are living under the thumbs of rich white babies, and Albright College is just another example.
