Kaepernick controversy will not go away anytime soon

By សតិវ អតុ

It’s strange that a corporation would embrace a controversial person, such as Colin Kaepernick for selling shoes. None of the NFL football teams will hire him to play for them. But at least he can make some money selling shoes. For a corporation to use someone as controversial as Kaepernick is extremely rare.

Not surprisingly the move has been mixed for Nike. Wall Street was less positive; Nike’s stock closed at $79.60 Tuesday, down 3.2%, slightly worse than the market as a whole.
Kaepernick started a whole trend to bring attention to the Black Lives Matter movement by kneeling rather than standing for the national anthem. The NFL was hoping this matter was over with but Yahoo News said:

“Yet the fallout from Kaepernick's protest has continually been a problem for the NFL despite his absence from the field.”

Thanks to Nike, this issue will not go away. Yet we can always count on white rednecks to get offended and promises to boycott Nike shoes, such as Big & Rich singer John Rich. Rich, like many "good ol’ boy rednecks" made it clear that he is pro-police. From Yahoo News:

“When asked by a fan why Rich can’t “disagree but still respect the same rights of others,” Rich said that the discussion ended for him when Kaepernick compared “police to PIGS.” (For what it’s worth, the word “pig” has been used as a derogatory term for police for decades.)” 

It seems there is a point where support for the police calls for a "police state." There are also those folks that see the flag, the national anthem and any symbol of the US government or system as some kind of sacred relics. Some people will get violent and belligerent towards anyone who will disrespect their sacred relics. They claim our troops sacrifice their lives for these relics, rather than the people of this country who they are supposed to be fighting for. This kneeling rather than standing has helped us to counter the idea of the sacred relics. If the flag and anthem don't represent the people they become a symbol of a state religion. That religion puts imperialism at the hear of the American culture. We need to oppose that.
Once again we see the truth about free speech in the US. Most people believe in it, as long as what is being said is not offensive to them.