Reply #709 on: September 06, 2018, 03:04:53 AM
Cardinals safety Antoine Bethea says Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad speaks volumes(paywall)
The Cardinals’ Antoine Bethea decided to treat himself to a new car in 2010.
He and his father, Larry, drove to a dealership in Bethea’s hometown in Newport News, Virginia where he purchased an Audi R8 right off the truck. Bethea got in the car and his dad followed him in his own car to WalMart, where Bethea was going to purchase a couple of screws so he could affix the license plate to the back of the car.
But as Bethea drove into the parking lot, three unmarked cars suddenly surrounded his new Audi. One car parked in front of him, another to the side of him and a third behind him.
An undercover police officer got out of one of the cars and, according to Bethea, asked, “What do you do?”
“I’m like, ‘Why does it matter?’” said Bethea. “Why does it matter?”
The police officer told Bethea the car had been reported stolen, which mystified Bethea because he had just bought the car minutes earlier. That’s when it hit him: He was being racially profiled.
“This is the city I grew up in,” Bethea said. “Now when they approach you like that, you feel some kind of way. Now I got to check my emotions. I’m fuming inside. I’m fuming inside. Why does it matter what I do for a living? You just lied to me and said this car was reported stolen. No it’s not. It was just because guys like me were not driving that kind of car.”
Bethea said the situation was finally resolved when his father, then a deputy sheriff, pulled out his credentials to show the officers.
“It’s disheartening, man,” Bethea said.
Nike’s announcement Monday that former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick would be the face of its “Just Do It” ad campaign sparked a firestorm on social media. Some people, angered by Nike’s decision to associate itself with Kaepernick, who began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest perceived social injustices against black, burned their Nike gear in protest. Bethea, a teammate of Kaepernick’s in San Francisco from 2014-16, applauded Nike’s decision.
“I think it was huge man, what Nike did,” he said. “The reason I say that to you is we’re all human beings. We all want to be treated equally. That’s what this whole process was about. Equality. So for them to come out there and do this and have ‘Kaep’ as the face, I think it speaks volumes.”
It angers Bethea that Kaepernick’s cause has been hijacked for political motives. He said that after Kaepernick first kneeled during the anthem before a 2016 preseason game, several of the 49ers veterans asked him to stand up in front of the team and explain why he was kneeling.
“There were some people that felt a certain type of way, but after he got up and spoke intelligently and broke down the facts of why he was doing it, people might have disagreed but they understood. It was loud and clear why he was doing it.”
Those who say Kaepernick was protesting the flag or the anthem are either uninformed or being purposefully ignorant, Bethea said.
“You know sometimes how you’re arguing with somebody and all they want to do is pick out that small little topic you’re talking about but they’re not looking at the big picture?” Bethea said. “That’s the unfortunate thing.
“There’s been video out there (of injustices against African-Americans). Documentation is out there. It’s not right and people still want to make it against the flag. They still want to make it against the military. It’s not about that. It’s about the fact that as a black man, me having a young black son when he leaves the house, I have to have these types of conversations that I really shouldn’t have to have. That’s what it’s about. I have to have different conversations with my son than you (a white reporter) will have with your son.”
Bethea believes the criticism of Kaepernick has a racist element to it. Asked whether the reaction would have been different had Patriots quarterback Tom Brady taken a knee during the anthem, Bethea replied: “It would have been totally different. Totally different.”
Bethea is hopeful that the Nike campaign – which features a black-and-white picture of Kaepernick’s face with the message, “Believe in something. Even if means sacrificing everything.” – will change how some people view Kaepernick. In his mind, the former 49ers quarterback is a hero being blackballed by the NFL for standing up to injustice.
“I’ve been reading the comments, ‘What did he sacrifice?’ He sacrificed his livelihood,” Bethea said. “You can ask anyone, ‘If you spoke up for something and it meant you would lose your job, would do you it?’ Most people would be like, ‘I would not do it.’
“I’m hoping 10 years, 15 years down the line people will be talking about Kap differently.”
#Resist
#BlackLivesMatter
Arrest The Cops Who Killed Breonna Taylor
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