Day 210 - NFL Kneeling to Anthem

So over the past few weeks and/or months one of the primary stories in the news and especially in the sports news parts of the journalism in the country has been the NFL players kneeling during the national anthem before the game begins in the stadium. Of which is usually untelevised as far as I can remember unless its a major game including playoffs in the NFL or the MLB or any championship game. According to my understanding these players kneeling in the recent NFL games which consisted of the first 7-8 games was the result of the quarterback of the 49'ers named Colin Kaepernick kneeling during one of the first few games of the season during the national anthem of which players, coaches, and fans usually stand and put their hand over their chest in "respect" for the flag - the flag being a symbol of our nation and the ideas that our country is based upon. At first whenever I heard the news stories of the players kneeling and then hearing the stories of how more and more players were kneeling during the national anthem - and then the stories of how the president was reacting to this kneeling - and how people in our nation were reacting - and how other players, coaches, and fans were reacting to the kneeling - it was apparent that the stories were more focused on telling the story of how 'players kneeled - and others were opposed - and others agreed'. Never really reporting on why the players were kneeling - or demanding an interview with a player that kneeled to get some clarity on why all of these players were kneeling - or why that particular one was kneeling. Within that it became apparent the media was more focused on everything that happened on the surface of the events - from players kneeling - to the president apparently calling them names - and coaches disagreeing - and owners not liking it etc etc. Not the true message or principle within the whole act of kneeling during the anthem. So it seemed that the whole debacle became a battle of the players kneeling vs. everybody that said or thought they were 'disrespecting the flag' instead of getting to the real core message that the players were trying to send - and even going so far as skewing, misrepresenting, or falsifying the reasons for which the players were kneeling in the first place - to fit some sort of 'stereotype' existent within the demographics of the players kneeling and/or 'level of awareness a football player likely has' - like football players kneeling during the national anthem could not mean anything important at all - and that they are all just stuck up brats.

According to my understanding of the reasons why Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the national anthem was to raise awareness for the treatment of veterans whenever they got home from war - and the level the problems these veterans experience - including up to and including suicide - which according to other research I've done apparently 100,000 veterans have committed suicide since 2001 - and over 7,000 commit suicide every year, thats a pretty noble thing to do and a veteran thing to do.