Before the football season can even start, Colin Kaepernick kicks the preseason off by refusing to stand for the anthem.  What he does with this one action is hold the government responsible for each and every life loss at the hands of a broken system.

He chooses to exercise what is within each of our rights as Americans: athlete, teacher, student or otherwise to decline to stand for the pledge of allegiance and national anthem. Kaepernick takes a knee each game while the anthem plays as a way to stand out against police brutality toward black people and people of color. He recognizes the disproportionality in the numbers at which black people are being slaughtered, and he risks career and ultimately face to bring light to an issue that people are continuously attempting to gloss over.

Kaepernick states, “To me this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” He is proof that a group of people can only be oppressed but for so long. He is a voice to a mass of angry, disenfranchised people who refuse to let this issue get swept under the rug. He is a warning that cries out, “We will not be silenced.”

In the midst of all these tragedies as people have begun to witness what has been a continuous plague in the lives of people of color, I find it alarming that some people are more concerned with his protesting than they are with fixing the issue behind it. It is a disturbing country that we live in when a group of people can be targeted without the expectation that those people will in turn rise up.

However, it is not all negative response, in fact, Kaepernick has incited a wave, encouraged a movement and awakened a fire in people, across races, ages, and genders to kneel for what it is right. Now, there are elementary school students, middle school basketball players, and other professional football players who are kneeling in solidarity with Kaepernick for all the victims of police brutality.

While in the eyes of some, Kaepernick’s actions may be seen as ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘inappropriate’ for others, it is an act of racial pride, ethnic empowerment, and humanity. Ultimately, he is showing that he sees the struggles faced by people of color and has decided that he will be a beacon.