Brainerd students got quite the civics lesson this week.
They learned that free speech isn’t free, and they learned that a respectful, silent protest that was reportedly planned over continuing racial discrimination in this wonderful free country could be shut down in a heartbeat if a white county commissioner wants his free speech respected more than theirs.
They learned that the powerful don’t care what they might think and feel. They learned that the powerful aren’t interested in careful planning to pay respects to our national anthem by standing with fist over heart, rather than by making angry protests in the streets.
In short, they learned that they’d better stifle – to borrow a word from 1970s television bully and bigot Archie Bunker.
This civics lesson began with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest against social injustice. Kaepernick drew national attention first by sitting during the playing of the national anthem before games, then by kneeling during the anthem.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told reporters. He said he had become disheartened by some of the questionable deaths of people of color at the hands of police who were not held accountable.
“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 said, adding that he would continue to protest until he feels like “[the American flag] represents what it’s supposed to represent.”
He changed his protest from sitting out the anthem to kneeling as an attempt to show more respect to former and current U.S. military members, while still protesting the anthem. He said he came to that decision after having a conversation with former NFL player and U.S. military veteran Nate Boyer.
Here at Brainerd – home of the Panthers who used to be known as the Rebels – the players and their coach reportedly planned to stand for the anthem and hold their closed fists over their hearts. Such a stance would be respectful of our flag and respectful, too, of their concern – all reasonable people’s concern – over upholding what that flag truly stands for, equality for all.
And we’re not just talking about equality in our justice system, but also equality in opportunity, education, housing, employment. In Hamilton County, only 60 percent of third-graders are reading at or above their grade level, and most of those not reading at their grade level are in inner-city schools with high poverty and the system’s least-effective teachers, a recent study found. Isn’t it clear that we need some attention brought to racial equality both in Chattanooga and in our nation?
Tragically, the civics lesson our kids learned Friday was that efforts to bring attention and discussion to equality brought a not-so-peaceful threat from one of the county’s highest elected officials.
Hamilton County Commissioner Tim Boyd wrote this in an email addressed to Hamilton County Board of Education member David Testerman and copied the email to Times Free Press columnist Jay Greeson:
“I suggest you remind the Superintendent to tell the Brainerd HS football coach he is being paid to coach football and not lead political protest. If he leads the protest he should be immediately removed as coach. I am not standing by and having our coach/teachers use our public schools and students as a platform for their personal political views. Please let me know when this coach is instructed to stand down on the protest during the national anthem. Thanks. Tim”
Greeson wrote a column about the message Friday morning for the paper’s website, pulling also from Times Free Press stories quoting Brainerd Coach Brian Gwyn. Before 10 a.m., Brainerd Principal Uras Agee told the newspaper there would be no silent protest by the football team.
Some of us who have lived in Chattanooga for decades recall the 1971 race riots. According to the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, a clip ran on the NBC Evening News on May 25, 1971, that Chattanooga was “quiet after 4 days of racial riots.” The synopsis reads: “(Chattanooga, Tennessee) National Guard enforces curfew, police kill black Leon Anderson. [Mayor Robert WALKER – says Anderson threw missile at police, ran; police shot him.] [Wiley WILLIAMS – says police gave Anderson no warning; Anderson threw nothing; police can’t find weapon.] Curfew in effect again tonight.”
Throughout that year and at least one before that, unrest had roiled Brainerd High. Local newspaper archives from April 1970 show the school was closed for days on end following “an outbreak of racial trouble in the cafeteria during lunch.” The then-principal said tensions started increasing after the presentation of Mr. and Miss Brainerd High School. No black students were nominated for the court.
Is this what we want again? Of course not. But knee-jerk reactions to peaceful protests – visual pleas, actually – to pay attention to festering problems won’t help us have healthy conversations. More likely, reactions like that of Boyd’s will simply stir more discontent.
We must be better than this.