By now, everyone in the United States has heard of Black Lives Matter and, at the most basic level, their mission. No community has been unaffected in some way or another by police brutality and the ongoing movement against it. Considered to be a controversial topic, it comes as no surprise that many fans were upset when Megan Rapinoe of the Seattle Reign and the USWNT joined countless other athletes in taking a knee for the national anthem during NWSL games in support of the movement. That anger was only heightened when she continued to take a knee while in uniform for the United States National Team, and a plethora of reasons was offered to argue, in short, that she was wrong. One of the most common arguments has been, “Well if she doesn’t like the country so much then why does she continue to represent it?”
Often times people confuse the ideas of loving one’s country and being unusually and harmfully compliant towards the powers that be. Rapinoe is taking advantage of the liberties afforded to her by her government which were put in place hundreds of years ago to keep the voice of the people present in legislative decisions, whether their input is inserted formally by an election or relatively informally by protest. By stepping away from her country’s team, she’d be abandoning the result of the tireless crusade that manifested in the birth of our nation, promising us the liberties that Rapinoe and others are fighting hard to ensure.
With the rise of the digital age, everyone has a platform on which they can express their varied personal opinions, but those platforms vary in size. As a professional athlete, Rapinoe has the ability to reach a wide range of audiences, from adult sportswriters with a very concrete set of beliefs, to youth soccer players who are just beginning to explore the world around them. She is only able to maker her statement due to the audience she’s been given by her career on the soccer field, but her appreciation of her job does not require awed and unprovocative silence. Instead, as a public figure, it is even more so her responsibility to bring attention to the issues that trouble her, and her United States uniform only magnifies that.
As a representative of the country, she should be portraying what it truly means to be American; as a nation that holds the concept of free speech as one of its core principles, we should not be condemning the actions of Rapinoe but instead supporting the idea of peaceful and diplomatic protest. If we become a society that idolizes shells of people who don’t stand for anything, what does that say about where we’re going intellectually? Shouldn’t we hope for perceived issues to be raised to our intention so that we may always be making America a better place to live? Rapinoe does not hate America, but it is possible to be appreciative of the opportunities you have while still desiring total equality for other citizens.
Living in a country lauded as the “land of the free and home of the brave” we must be willing to confront difficult conversations. The actions of Megan Rapinoe and other athletes are making one of those difficult conversations largely unavoidable since sports have as large of a part in Americana as the national anthem being protested, but they should not be faulted for that. Instead, let’s celebrate that our nation is represented by people who won’t settle for anything less than the best and that for that reason, better days for everyone lie ahead.