Is police brutality a huge problem in America, and why is Collin Kaepernick, a former National Football League (NFL) Quarterback considered a bad person for protesting against it? I believe that police brutality is a huge problem in America, and needs to be resolved soon before we have a World War 3 within our own country. Our country is slowly being divided, and innocent African Americans are losing their lives daily. This problem in America is growing daily, minute by minute.

Colin Kaepernick is considered a bad person for sitting down during the National Anthem a year ago. If you have followed the story and did your research, you know that Colin sat down to take a stand against protest brutality. Colin sat down because he wanted to take a stand against the things that were happening to my fellow African Americans and minorities in the United States. I am interested in doing research on this because I want to see why America is a country of freedom of speech, but yet we are punishing this man for speaking out on behalf of all the minorities. It is known that we are a country of freedom of petition, yet someone protests and sits down during the National Anthem and many find it offensive. Researching this affects my values because America has a lot of messed up things going on, and not many people are willing to stand up and fight against America. To be honest, it is not right for innocent African Americans to be killed by police officers. Police officers are quick to pull the trigger on an African American person, which can be scary being a minority.

In an article, I checked out written by Adam Wells, Colin said, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” In this particular article, the author doesn’t really have a side he is choosing in this dispute, but he focused on different people opinions about the issue. Wells got what Colin was saying, the article is focused on him. Colin stated that he would have been selfish if he would have just looked the other way. Colin said, “There are bodies in the street, people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” During this time when Colin started protesting, a lot of black people were getting killed by police officers, and the officers were getting away with murder, and getting paid on leave. That makes America look bad in my opinion. I am the type of reader that would agree with Colin in this article because he tries to help the minority people that live in this country. When I say minority, I mean African Americans and Latinos.  I’m personally a big supporter for Colin Kaepernick, not because he is an African American quarterback in the NFL, but because he is standing up for my race, and is trying to help the country out. More people are taking a stand with Colin to help fight this issue.

As I said earlier being an African American male in today’s time can be very scary. It is not cool that some of these police officers are killing innocent minorities for no reason at all. Innocent lives are being taking daily because polices are taking matters in their own hand without actual facts. It is not fair to be targeted just because of the color of your skin. Police brutality is a huge problem in America in today and really has been a problem for a long time, but it is at an all-time high since 2012. President Donald Trump does not even seem to care about the police brutality. It is like it doesn’t even make him feel bad for the minorities. He has stated in previous articles I have research that “if you don’t like the way America is run, then you can always leave it.” (Garone 1) Instead of him trying to get the problem solved he is basically saying if you do not like the US policies then you can just leave the country whenever you want. President Trump thinks it is all fun and games right now. In my honest opinion of Donald Trump, I don’t think he would care about the police brutality issue until someone close to him is killed by police officers. The fact Donald Trump does not care about this issue is causing a big issue with players in the NFL. Many of these players like Colin Kaepernick that I have previously mention are refusing to stand up for the National Anthem. Colin started the trend for the players to finally take a stand on this issue back at the beginning of the 2016 season. Finally, players are starting to see the big issue that Colin was talking about. With people sitting down for the National Anthem, Trump still don’t care about the police brutality issue, and is more concerned with the NFL players making his country look bad. President Trump is way more concerned with people “disrespecting” the United States than he is with innocent lives being taking. 

An article I read by Ron Cook titled, “The Good and Bad on Colin Kaepernick stance on National Anthem.” This article talks about the good and the bad about what Colin did. The author Ron Cook respects Colin because he respects people who stand up for what they believe. He likes the fact Colin took a stand, even though it may affect his playing career he loves what he did.  He doesn’t say he agree with Colin sitting during the National Anthem, but he respects he did it. The type of readers that may like what is said in this article are the ones that respect him for sitting during the National Anthem, but doesn’t necessary think it is the right thing to do. Those are the people who would support this article. In my opinion, I think it is the people that don’t go through our everyday struggle would support this article. You don’t know what you go through as a minority unless you are one. Until you walk a mile in our shoes, you have no idea how it feels to be purposely targeted. It is almost like someone watching your every move. The ones that do not really know the impact Colin had on me and my fellow African Americans. He took a stand for us, and he didn’t have to do that. This author Ron Cook is not bias, because he doesn’t really choose sides. As mention earlier he says he “respects him for what he did, but don’t support it.”

Colin Kaepernick is considered such a bad person for what he did because none of the NFL owners have signed him because of him sitting down on the issue. In the article written by Michael Rosenberg titled “Colin Kaepernick Can Be an Activist AND a Football Player”. This article claims that Colin is a distraction to a team. It stated he is a “distraction on the job”, because he decided to do his protest while on the job. In this article, they claim Colin Kaepernick is considered a symbol, that you can’t put on your football team because he is a quarterback protesting. He is considered a “bad” look for the league and that NFL owners would be taking a risk in signing him to his team. Some general managers have said that “if he wasn’t a quarterback it wouldn’t be a big deal to sign him”. The type of readers that would agree with this article are the ones that do not like what Colin is doing, and do not support him at all. The people that think it is right that Colin has not signed with a team yet. Those are the people who would love this article. I am not a fan in what Michael Rosenberg has to say because, I personally think it is messed up how guys can beat women, and still find a way to sign to a NFL team, but yet a guy protest because it is the right thing to do, and then it is a huge problem not only in the league but the world. This is the kind of world we live in. Michael Rosenberg is very informative on what he is saying and is representing both point of views. Michael Rosenberg says why people are mad at Colin, why no NFL team has signed him, and he explains why Colin is a symbol in this article. He also respects Colin for what he did. Michael Rosenberg also says “The truth is that Kaepernick can be an activist and a football player. He has the time and ability to do both, just as there are dentists who train for marathons, accountants who serve on university boards, entrepreneurs who run for city councils, and Pro Bowl players with four girlfriends.”

The majority of the NFL football players, are finally joining Colin Kaepernick in his protest against police brutality. I mention earlier that players began protesting and sitting down. As of September, almost every player took part of the protest. President Donald Trump is pretty much saying that these players have no respect for the United States of America what so ever. He even called some of these players “Son of bitches.” The protests took another level once President Donald Trump made these ridiculous comments. These comments offended most of the NFL players. This led to many players not coming out of the lockeroom for the playing of the National Anthem. This led to President Donald Trump saying that the “NFL owners should fire players who refuse to stand for the National Anthem.” Then after that, pretty much every NFL owner decided to take the side of their players which has led to some owners kneeling with their players to show that they support their players 100 percent. At this time players tweeting “why is our president on twitter more than a girl that is still in high school.” President Trump tweeted things like “the NFL should be more like Nascar.” He clearly does not understand that there are currently no African American drivers in the Nascar company, so of course that Nascar will not have any protests that has to do with police brutality because it does not affect any of the people in that particular industry. NFL players are majority African Americans they are going to have a say in this issue no matter what. They have to be the voice for the people in America that does not have a voice.

To continue a little bit on that topic, President Donald Trump has pretty much trashed the NFL so bad that he has made the whole company look bad. A couple of the owners are currently applying rules to the team, saying that players have to stand for the National Anthem. Some of the coaches are saying if you do not stand up for the National Anthem, you have to stay in the lockeroom. Some organizations are continuing to let their players protest against police brutality. In my opinion, these players are not harming anybody by not standing for the National Anthem. By doing that they are doing a silent protest. Silent protests do no harm to anybody. I respect the players that continue to use their right to protest for police brutality, even though they are “not supposed to.” 

My cousin was innocent and was killed by a police officer a few years back. It made a lot of people in my family very upset. There is this tweet I retweeted because it shows a man crying out loud in a court room when he sees the police officer who kills his son. The man in the video is a cousin on my dad side of the family that I have only met a few times. This video takes place a couple years ago, but it shows why the athletes are kneeling. It shows why people want to make a change in the United States. If you hear the pain in my cousin voice, you immediately fill his pain. One of the things I heard my cousin say, “he wasn’t crazy when he killed my son, you weren’t crazy then, now you want to live in a mental house, you want to play crazy now, my son did nothing to you, and you kept shooting him when he was laying on the ground.” (@curlyfry09, twitter.com, quoted a retweet) My cousin had to be taking out the court room because he couldn’t take it no more. He was crying so much, and if he would have stayed in there he probably would of jump on the judge, or the person that committed the crime. This source really helps me understand what people go through when police kill innocent people. If you don’t really know why it is such a bad deal, then just watch that video an imagine if that was you with one of your family members being innocent and getting killed. 

I interviewed my cousin Dre, and he really help enlighten me on how police like to target African Americans because of the color of our skin. My cousin Dre was about to be arrested for something he didn’t do, but another police rode by and knew who he was and that he was a star high school player with a bright future, and not some black random black kid looking for trouble. He said, “he was targeted because of the particular car he drove.” (Ryan, 9/30) He was asked to get out of his car for his car to be search for no reason. My cousin was very scared when he was pulled over. He felt so embarrassed when polices were searching his car because he knew people was riding by thinking “oh the polices got another one.” I felt like Dre gave me good useful information to help me to tell you all how big police brutality really is. Dre first-hand experience really helps me be thankful and grateful. 

There is an article that I read, “Stop Kidding Yourself the Police Were Created to Control Working Class and Poor People” that talks about a county in Maryland, and how police killed a lot of African Americans, and how many considered it racism. It shows over a span of a few years about how many polices killed people.  According to Rodney Green in “Social Movements in Police Brutality”, racist police brutality has been systemic in Prince George’s County, Maryland. The victims include African Americans, the mentally challenged, and immigrant populations, creating a complex and uneven public health impact. (1) This was a very useful source that enlightened me on some things I didn’t know, and stories that I did not hear about.

In conclusion, police brutality is breaking our country apart. It is constantly making race an issue because most of the white polices killings are killing an African Americans.  This is truly breaking our country apart. Police officers should treat everyone with respect just like they want to be respected not based on the color of their skin. To me we are all human, and I don’t see color because when we are cut we all bleed the same color of blood – red! We all got to have that same mindset to bring our country back together. Our president doesn’t know what he is doing, and is never going to fix the police brutality problem. The ones that voted for him, if you all want to help him out we all got to be the change in order to “Make America Great Again.” The police killings need to come to an end, and we all need to start getting along as one country. We are our brother’s keepers.  I think police brutality is a big problem in the United States, and I also don’t think Colin Kaepernick is a bad person for what he did.
