Seattle Seahawks Considering Team National Anthem Protest Like Colin Kaepernick On 9/11– Will Fans Burn Their Jerseys Too?
Seattle Seahawks players are considering following Colin Kaepernick’s lead and may hold a team national anthem protest at their first regular season game on 9/11, the Seattle Times reports
Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane has been sitting out the national anthem during the preseason games. According to the Seattle Times, he most likely won’t be protesting alone during the regular season.
It looks like his teammates are going to join him, according to linebacker Bobby Wagner.
“Anything we want to do, it’s not going to be individual. It’s going to be a team thing. That’s what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals,” Wagner said.
Wagner did not disclose what the team would do but said, “whatever we decide to do will be a big surprise.”
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The Seahawks aren’t the only athletes who have expressed support for Colin Kaepernick and his protest action at the 49ers games.
Most recently, Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry has expressed his support for the controversial biracial quarterback.
During an interview with CNBC‘s Sarah Eisen, Curry said it was great to see someone expressing their right to stand up for what they believe in.
“I love that there’s freedom of speech and he can stand for what he believes in,” Curry said to Eisen. “There’s going to be people that disagree with him, there’s going to be people that agree with him, which is what I think our country stands for, which hopefully will drive the conversation to bettering the equal rights and treatment of African-Americans and people of color.”
Kaepernick has said that his protest stems from the injustice he sees in cases where police brutality against African Americans has gone unpunished. In other words, it’s bigger than football.
The quarterback has also promised to donate the proceeds of his Kaepernick jersey sales “back into the communities,” Fortune reports.
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Since his protest began, sales of Kaepernick’s number 7 49ers jersey have skyrocketed. According to Fortune, before the protest, the jersey ranked at No. 20 among the NFL’s bestselling jerseys. Now he’s at the No. 1 spot. Each jersey costs $99. Keep in mind that when Kaepernick first decided to sit out the national anthem, some 49ers fans were so upset at his decision that they bought the jersey just to burn it.
As Fortune reports, every player in the NFL gets about two thirds of the money generated from the sales of their jersey. The other one third is divvied up between the NFL Players Association and a pool of money that’s shared among all players.
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As for the Seattle Seahawks national anthem protest, it will most likely have the support of head coach Pete Carroll. The Seattle Times reports that he has been supportive of Jeremy Lane’s protest so far.
“He’s pretty clear on what he did and what he was trying to express and I think it is very simple and so we’ll leave that up to him,” Carroll said. “But he understands the responsibility of it, I think, and shouldering it.”
If the Seattle Seahawks do protest the national anthem at their first regular season game, it will be on 9/11, a point that was not lost on some people on social media.
I just heard that the @Seahawks may kneel in protest of The Star Spangled Banner on 9/11.
Misguided. Distasteful. Horrendous. Sickening.— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellUSA) September 8, 2016
[Photos by Harry How & Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images]
