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Title: ‘We were just praying for everyone’: Browns players explain decision to kneel during ‘National Anthem’
Source:
Fox 8 Cleveland
URL Source: http://fox8.com/2017/08/22/we-were- ... -kneel-during-national-anthem/
Published: Sep 2, 2017
Author: Staff
Post Date: 2017-09-02 08:53:04 by IbJensen
Keywords: None
Views: 12684
Comments: 49
(A group of Cleveland Browns players kneel in a circle in protest during the national anthem prior to a preseason game against the New York Giants at FirstEnergy Stadium on August 21, 2017 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) CLEVELAND, Ohio — Colin Kaepernick still is without an NFL team, but that hasn’t discouraged players for following his controversial lead and opting not to stand during the national anthem. Twelve members of the Cleveland Browns took a knee Monday night and shared a moment of prayer before their home preseason game against the New York Giants. Other teammates huddled around the group in support. It was the largest group of NFL players not to stand during the national anthem since Kaepernick started his protest a year ago, saying he didn’t want to “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” Kaepernick is biracial. “There’s a lot of social and racial injustices going on in the world right now,” said Browns safety Jabrill Peppers, one of the players who knelt. “We were just praying for everyone. Everyone thinks that when you reach a certain level, a certain status in life, certain things you’re unaffected by, but that’s not the truth. We’re all human at the end of the day, and we just have to come together at times like these. It was just us being together, a bunch of teammates praying for the world.” ‘Time for me to join my brothers’ The players who knelt were running backs Duke Johnson Jr. and Terrence Magee, safeties Peppers and Calvin Pryor, cornerback Jamar Taylor, tight end Seth DeValve, wide receivers Kenny Britt and Ricardo Louis, linebackers Christian Kirksey and Jamie Collins, and running backs Isaiah Crowell and Brandon Wilds. Crowell and Wilds were not in uniform. Standing nearby in solidarity were punter Britton Colquitt, cornerback Jason McCourty, quarterback DeShone Kizer, defensive tackle Trevon Coley and offensive tackle Shon Coleman. “Obviously, this is a sensitive subject in our country right now,” Kizer said. “Quite frankly — it is kind of sad on my part — I don’t really know the different teams and what they are doing, but I did see an opportunity with my guys to support them on an awesome venture out there when they decided that they are going to pray in a time where this country is kind of all over the place in a sense of human rights and the racial movements. I decided it was a time for me to join my brothers who decide to take a knee and support them while they were praying.” Kirksey, who led the prayer group, said the group felt like Monday night was the right time to do it. The game was broadcast on national television. “With everything you do, you have to have respect,” Kirksey said. “We did it in a way that resembled prayer. We were just praying over the country and praying over things going on. We did it as respectfully as possible, and we respect everything that happened with things in the military. We respect all of that. We just felt it was the right time for us to do this and say a prayer for this country.” First white NFL player to kneel DeValve is believed to be the first white NFL player to kneel during the anthem. After the game, DeValve, whose wife is African-American, said he didn’t realize he was the first white player to do so. “I, myself, will be raising children who don’t look like me,” DeValve said. “I want to do my part, as well, to do everything I can to raise them in a better environment (than) we have right now. I wanted to take that opportunity with my teammates to pray for our country and also to draw attention to the fact that we have work to do. That’s why I did what I did.” Last year, Kaepernick, then with the San Francisco 49ers, became a lightning rod when he refused to stand during the national anthem. The quarterback’s decision to sit — then, later, to kneel — drew fierce criticism but sparked a national movement. Other athletes, from elementary schools to professional leagues, followed his lead. Kaepernick, a free agent, remains unsigned. Poster Comment: The NFL is a farce! I don't watch their games at all. It's the most UN-diversified sport there is. I don't care to watch a gaggle of Negro millionaires wrestle around in the mud or AstroTurf. I'd rather watch a bullfight on You Tube from Madrid that's a year old. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 47.
#2. To: IbJensen (#0)
Enough with the praying and the singing of a national anthem. Can't they just play their game? Does it all have to be another tired exercise in public religion and cheap patriotism? Those players aren't Christians or patriots. They're just a bunch of fast-living overpaid athletes. And the crowds are generally on their second or third beer by the time they pray or kneel or listen to another bad version of the Star-Spangled Banner. Which, no matter how many times they sing it, never includes the second verse, the third verse, or the fourth verse. If people care so damned much about the anthem, then why don't any of these uber-patriots even know the words to all 4 verses of it, eh?
You are way off, unless you are only mentioning the "backdoor Baptists." The adult beverage prices at NFL stadiums are in the $10 range now...could be more this year and this is based on the smallest portions. https://www.statista.com/statistics/240015/price-of-a-beer-in-the-national- football-league-by-team/ So according to season ticket holders I work with, most people are plastered before entering the gates of the stadium. They tailgate and get three sheets to the wind so they don't have to buy at the stadium. Last time I went to an NFL game was over 15 years ago. There were so many happy and angry drunks entering the stadium you would think was some Greek fraternity party. Then when it wears off by the 3rd quarter and the home team is losing...watch out...now you have hungover angry fans. Never went back after that experience. However a good friend has roped me into a Cowboys game this year. Will report back how that goes. :-)
It's totally outrageous. They get the usual politico scumbags to bilk the public into building massive free stadiums for them, then they gouge them to death on ticket prices and snacks.
Then they wonder why they have drunken, gorged slobs falling in the gates AFTER the national anthem. Since they charge like $50 bucks for parking I guess they don't mind. I remember in the 70s the Irish society club my Irish uncles belonged to used to roll kegs on to the club bus for the short 20 min ride. That was just to Yankees games. No one got off the bus before the kegs were empty. Then enduring drunk Irish uncles in the cheap bleacher seats heckling the opposing teams right fielder. I learned a lot about life during those games. Lol.
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O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: 'In God is our trust.'
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
#35. To: Tooconservative (#2)
And the crowds are generally on their second or third beer by the time they pray or kneel or listen to another bad version of the Star-Spangled Banner.
#36. To: redleghunter (#35)
The adult beverage prices at NFL stadiums are in the $10 range now...could be more this year and this is based on the smallest portions.
#47. To: Tooconservative (#36)
They get the usual politico scumbags to bilk the public into building massive free stadiums for them, then they gouge them to death on ticket prices and snacks.
Replies to Comment # 47.
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