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Amen @Cynique !!! And twitter, the pulse of the country, mainstream media, as well as every day citizens have articulated the #TakeaKnee movement is about police brutality and state-sanctioned murders. They are now drowning out the rhetoric the protest was to dishonor the military. AND Walter Scott's murderer (south carolina police officer) got 20 years in prison and the Chicago police officer who shot 16 rounds into a car filled with teens, wounding two got 5 years in prison... Prior to these guilty verdicts , it seemed only black law enforcement officers were being convicted of killing citizens. Plus neither of these men will ever serve on the police force ever again. This Take a Knee protest has caused a shift in consciousness And @Troy. while Kaepernick probably wants to play (it is his vocation by the way) but filing a grievance against the owners is a strategic move to expose their backdoor dealings...While the complaint is collusion there's no way to know what else will come as a result. As I've said before I read the captions of LAW 360 media and entertainment lawsuits being filed daily - and these celebrities don't even play at our level... It's an understatement to say they are out of our league when it comes to strategy and tactics. If nothing else, the imbroglio managed to put a dent into football ratings that are down compared to last year.

Colin had a job as Quarterback for the 49ers. He had to have known that his knee-bending protest would jeopardize his being re-signed, but he made a choice. I don't think money is that much of an issue with him the way he has been throwing it around, donating it to black causes. He may even be ready to move on from football. If he wanted or needed a job, wouldn't he have sued the NFL?

@Cynique who know it is interesting that I rarely have to ask you probing questions because of how clearly you express yourself. @Del on the other hand is more enigmatic, perhaps deliberately so, which is why I have to ask him more question. He and @Pioneer1 seem to be on the same wavelength lately, as it simply did not occur to me that Del's question was rhetorical, which would make sense since the question he asked about a new Colin contract could have been found with a 2 second web search. Taking the question as a rhetorical one. I will say that he proven the NFL's billionaire owners are powerful and do not give a crap about players (Black or otherwise) and are only concerned with profits. This is not exactly a revelation. If you watch any football lately you will notice all the flag-waving, hyper-patriotic segments featuring Black players during the break... It is disgusting really. As far as my proposed boycott of Amazon. I would consider it a success if a critical mass of us simply availed ourselves of our own products and services by eliminating dependence on Amazon. This admittedly is a long shot, but sheesh our livelihoods indeed our culture depends upon it. One can't know if Colin will be hurting or not. But he did make a personal sacrifice. As @Pioneer1 said, I doubt Colin thought this alll the way through. He obviously wanted or needed his job, otherwise he would have sued the NFL. A million dollar book deal is big, but is little compared to his multi-million dollar annual football salary and endorsements.

Kaepernick recently signed a million dollar book deal with a Random house publishing company to write his story. He may have forfeited his football career but he won't be hurting.

@TroyI'll take credit for being right that Kaepernick's knee-bending accomplished what dramatic protests are designed to do: make waves and create repercussions. NFL owners, Donald Trump and other black athletes, were either agitated or inspired by Kaepernick, and a majority of white Americans showed their true colors when they disapproved of this demonstration because it forced them to stomach the idea that the American flag flies over a racist country, and is a meaningless piece of cloth when it comes to equal just for all under the law. Most NFL owners have been forced to find ways to placate their players, - nudged into putting their money where their mouths are to the tune of donating 85 million dollars to black causes, while Trump and the defiant NFL owners has been further exposed as the racist numb skulls that they are. The media has given honorable recognition to Kaepernick's for sacrificing his career to call attention to police misconduct in the black community. This a moral victory, which is pretty much all that black people can hope for in this shitty country. What would have to happen for you to consider your call to boycott Amazon a movement that produced results? Or is it simply a gesture?

And @Delano you selectively answer questions making it very hard to have a meaningful discussion, for I can't easily tell what you know or believe. Of course, as a open discussion forum there are no stringent standards or expectations for stringent standards. We are just people. There will be typos, there will be mistakes, there will be false claims, and maybe even some deceit. But this is not a peer review academic journal, but discussion forumd are better than the echo chambers found on social media, because your views will be challenged. Tell us what you believe Colin proved?

OK I'll bite @Delano you've been highly critical of "proof," "right versus wrong," and the precise use of language. What was Colin proven to be right about? You realize in the time it took you to write the question, you could have determined whether or not Colin was signed to a football contract.

Cynique No surprise that you are led wrong, because you are wrong and all of your verbal acobatics and distortions won't distract from the fact that, as usual, you don't know what you're talking about. Well like I keep saying....if I'm wrong, then PROVE it. Just provide empirical (not hearsay) evidence and proof that what I'm saying is wrong. You are just pondering and wondering outloud....not providing concrete facts about the Universe and similar concepts. You have evaded every challenge i have put to you in regard to your unfounded accusations and declarations and just keep resorting to the same old repetitive litany. If you were the only choice, i would love white men, Now see... Why do you have to make strong emotional statements like that? Talking about if there were NO OTHER Black men on the planet.....besides me....you'd just go ahead and start loving some White men....lol. See, this PROVES that you disagree with me simply for the sake of being disagreeable. I hope everyone sees the anger and the hatred and which side it's coming from. I'd NEVER say that to YOU. I'd NEVER tell you that if there were no other Black women around....well....I might as well start loving some White women, lol. I'd wait and see where things went first.....THEN if things didn't work out....well.....I'd have little choice but to consider White women.....lol. but fortunately there are other black men around who are different from you. Thank goodness! Oh yeah.... I forgot, you love and admire HALF-Black men (like Obama and Kaepernick) ALMOST as much as you love and admire White men. (You obviously haven't read the last 2 posts on Part 1 of this thread. Troy is who you need to be trying to make your points with.) You obviously haven't read the FIRST post on Part 2 of this thread because I addressed Troy.

When all is said and done, black people are frustrated and resentful because white people are in power doing what black folks, themselves, would be doing if they had the upper hand. Nobody shares power because "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". Whites seized power, overwhelmed blacks and to the victors go the spoils that include being in control, revisionist history, and entitlement, all of which blacks would've fallen heir to, and relished and enforced had they possessed the wherewithal to overwhelm whites. That's the ugly truth. And black folks will just have to learn to live with it, have to acknowledge that they are America's stepchildren, hungering for a piece of the pie but having to be satisfied with a few crumbs, while standing around endlessly droning about unity and being manipulated. (Apparently being entertained and having their interests catered to does not count as compensation.) and so it goes. And I don't know why people can't discern that the Kaepernick protest was always about the flag, a challenge to a piece of cloth to deliver on its promise of equal justice under the law to all of its citizens who are supposed to be free to exercise their first amendment rights by protesting when equal justice is denied. White people figured this out and it's eating them up to have to be in the position of implicitly denying blacks this right that black men also fought for, even as they were being lynched and denied the vote and segregated. All those whites pissing on themselves about this can only distort the message and resort to cloaking their racism in patriotism in an attempt to villanize the messengers. Yes, knee bending was ostensibly about the misconduct of white police but you can't separate this issue from racism. It's what racism is all about, and what this country and the flag are all about! i'll never consider bending the knee a failure because it shook up and angered hypocritical Americans. I'm done.

@Del, yeah someone else on YouTube argued that content was important when comparing the two videos. Dove was selling soap so that made the commercial racist. It seems "context," or one's interpretation of context, is subjective. The context to me is an environment were people are easily distracted by nonsense, losing track to what is actually important. Del, if you don't decide what is important then someone else will do it for you. We as Black people lets others set our agenda. I know I sound like a broken record with this, but it is true. This is why I side with @Pioneer1 on this issue; thought I may disagree on some points. I may disagree with Pioneer about the motivation of what is going but the outcomes is the same nonetheless. We are busy running round complaining about some stupid commercial meanwhile Black people are fighting for survival. I watched News One convene a panel to talk about the Dove commercial--Their news is directed by whatever nonsense is trending on Twitter. .All talk no call for action. Five minutes from now we will be focused on the next shiny object held in front of us. As predicted, we've forgotten all about Colin and are now debating how to respect the flag. We have no control over our agenda. It will remain that way until we own some platforms that do more than discuss what is on twitter and that the rest of us value through patronage.

Because i didn't like Farrakhan's misogynistic religion or how he lived like a king at the expense of his sheeple. in public he never did anything but rant about jews and preach ad infinitum about the Koran. When he told Steve(?) Wallace off on the TV clip you posted, I agreed with him. I prefer Kaepernick's dramatic form of protest.

@Cynique, Got it. Minister Farrakhan has exposed the evils of American far longer and much more forcefully the Colin has, or likely ever will. Using your reasoning I think you be a strong support of Farrakhan, but you are not. Why?

@Troy i still say we are not on the same wave length. Of course i brought up the post office because its work force is such a broad cross section of the black populace. Why wouldn't i inject it into the point i was making about my not being in a bubble when it came to the seamy street life that is a part of the Rap fabric. My exposure to Rap goes back to the Last Poets. i never got deep into it because my taste leans toward other forms of music. In regard to your point, It's never been any secret that rappers sprang from an environment of poverty, or that record companies saw the potential for profit by marketing their "art-imitating-life" music. Bottom line, young people of all races and classes got in sync with the cadence of its spits and the vibe of its rhymes. Why did they do this? Maybe precisely because they were young people. And they were bored with their monotonous lives. Who knows? Time may or not bring change. Do you know for sure everything you say about Kaepernick is authentic? Yes, the media contributed to things rocketing out of proportion. For this i thank them. and i thank him for creating chaos. Because order only benefits the system.

@TroyAnd you are so fixated on my being fixated on Colin that you can't process that it's not about the messenger, it's about the message because I AM DISGUSTED WITH WITH AMERICA AND THE FLAG AND ANTHEM THAT ARE A CROCK OF BS. Whoever puts that message out gets my support. Get it yet??

Again @Cynique you are so fixated on Colin that you can't see my issue is not about him personally. I explained this over and over again, most recently here. I see the activists you like Cynique are all entertainers. That is no surprise, as that is driven by the way our media works. It is one of the reasons 45 is president and why Chance the Rapper is being called on to run the City of Chicago. Sounds like Chance has his head on his shoulders and recognizes someone trained in policy, management, law, community organizing, would be better suited for political office rather than a rapper--even if the city's constituents don't understand this.

Cynique you were the one who brought up the post office. It is interesting you would characterize postal workers as "hard-drinkin, drug-takin street people" just to make a point. Of course Hip-hop is about poverty. While it is not limited to poverty that is where it comes from, making away out of no way. You probably don't remember rap before "the suits" took it over, but I suggest you check out songs the "The Message." The other crap, like Cardi B, was amped up and exploited by corporations. BIngo! Yes, of course white folks get a distorted message of what Blackness is, and are even more susceptible to it because They are less likely to be exposed to counter images. Their racist prejudice is reinforced and exaggerated. Is it any wonder they shoot us with little provocation. All of this is related... You don't have to be young to be militant. And young militants need guidance, and an understanding of history, which they can get from elders, not social media. Cynique, my comments were not against what Colin was protesting (what was it again?). My issue was that media selected him and his agenda and brought him to the fore as our leader. Even before he was shut down by the NFL and his message was co opted by 45, we could easily see that coming, because he does not have a platform or even a coherent strategy. Colin's kneeling and sitting was a just an act, but the media made it so much more. Again Colin's role in activism may evolve and develop, but this will take time. Meanwhile the media will do what it always does; move on to the next thing.

@TroyFor the umpteenth time, there is room for all types of protest in the movement! Why does Kaepernick's bringing attention to racism stick in your craw? i don't have a problem with these unheard of leaders you prefer, those who choose a different way to "get things done", so why do you begrudge Kaepernick any success he evokes? Nobody is even asking you to support him or agree with his methods because your disapproval doesn't make any difference. i am not alone in supporting what Kaepernick's method of agitation has produced. Its ripple effect has inspired people to step up their own activism projects. But, continue to waste your energy, ruminating about his boat rockin.

@TroyWell, once again, we are on different wave lengths.The post office where i was employed during the late 60s up to the mid-90s was where people from all classes worked, and this included, hard-drinkin, drug-takin street people, - sly skeezers and slick playas. To me, Rap, the subject we're discussing, is about the street life and all of its hustle and grit - a spin-off of hip hop and its "keepin it real" credo. It's not about poverty per se. It's about the way people shrewdly dealt with it, the kind of action "street" people are familiar with. Are rap videos about poverty? They appeal to people who live in the inner-cities, because they identify with the tawdry dangerous side of it. And need i remind you that white kids also listened to this music, living vicariously through it. Black college kids listen to it, too, without emulating it. Also running concurrently with Rap's popularity were Prince and Michael Jackson, Sade and Maxwell, Boyz to Men and TLC. This is what the many-faceted music world is about. Record companies making money. Recording artists gaining fame. And the beat goes on... i am not "enamoured" with Kaepernick but I am compatible with what he is protesting. You should know by now how disenchanted i am with amerika and the racism and hypocrisy which that deceptive flag and jive-ass anthem symbolize. Jesse Jackson and Farrakhan are from another era. Their day has passed. i need fresh blood to feed my militancy.

Most of the activists I support you would know know Cynique; they are not trending on social media. I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I'm saying these Brother and Sisters are not going to garner media attentions because they are serious about helping Black folk. They do substantive work and are not profitable to corporations that thrive in the dysfunctional ravings of 45. Many of them are in the vein of these Brothers, they are one of the main reasons I started AALBC.com; to make their knowledge more widely known and accessible. I know you have heard of Haki Madhubuti, his publishing company, Third World Press, is based in Chicago and just this past weekend celebrated 50 years! Haki has done some important things and was doing important things when Colins parents where children. He has published many important books. I could really go on and on Cynique... The fact of the matter is the media is making much more of this kid's (Colins) actions than is warranted. He has not built anything and he serves at the largess of his owners and has already been dismissed. By contrast, Haki has built an institution. But as we give all our attention to the Colins and ignore the Hakis of the world. These important institutions including his will disappear. This is not to say Colin is a waste. No quite the contrary, he has tons of potential, but he is not there today; only time will tell.

The picture of MLK kneeling was posted on FaceBook by his daughter, so she thought it was timely. Considering what his mission was, when King bent a knee, he was demonstrating against racial injustice among other things. He is leading a protest march in the picture, where his lieutenant, Ralph Abernathy, is also shown. You guys look for any excuse to discredit Kaepernick. i support "Chance the Rapper", a Chicago guy who is doing a lot good for the community, donating a million dollars to the city depleted school funding, and calling out both Chicago's mayor and Illinois' governor for their foot dragging. People have even been touting him for mayor but he says he's not interest in running for office because he has enough sense and humility to declare that he's a musician, not a politician. "Common", another Chicago Rapper, is doing good things too, giving back to the community. i don't know of any other individual who is publicly protesting racism. Which shows what the power of using a public venue at your disposal to call wide spread attention to black grievances. i keep telling you this is one strategy in a movement. i think BLM has good intentions but i'm not familiar with any of their leaders. What black leaders do you support, Troy and Pioneer? Stew in your juices, fellas.

No Nate, did not mention Dr. King as his inspiration for advising Colin. I seriously doubt Nate knew very much about King's efforts. Pioneer is right, kneeling is the manner in which southern baptists pray. This is the way I was taught. @Cynique, I wonder, are there any other activists (other than Colin) that you support?

Yes he gesture was indeed naused and Colin's intent was honorable. Real Sports is a smart program and appears to have given Colin's efforts a fair treatment--unlike social media. But again the tools of the oppressor will never lead to our liberation. Colin served at the whim of the NFL owners. Having been summarily dismissed his protests has been rendered mute and his original "protest" has morphed into support for the flag. That is until the next shiny object is waved before the media and attention shifts somewhere else. Meanwhile, Black sports fans will continue to watch the game, white fans will continue to fill the arenas expensive seats and buy shitty over priced food. College teams will continue to exploit "student' athletes serving as the NFL's minor league. And those athletes lucky enough to make it can risk brain damage for a 3 year in the NFL. What was Colin protesting again?

You are right @Cynique , my daughters do not present as if they are heavily influenced by Cardi B. But they had a good education, decent parents, both of whom are college graduates, and did not grow up impoverished, in a ghetto environment. I doubt any of the women in the family for which you are the matriarch would look to Cardi B, as a role model... they have you. But again, you have to get out of your bubble and consider the wider world. Have you ever been to a Black strip club, or any of the after hours spots common in many cities? If you ever spent more than 5 minutes interacting with people in the 'hood, I think you would feel differently. Again, on this issue, continue to believe what you like Cynique, but reality is plainly different. I have not even discussed the impact of the Cardi B. archetype on Black boys... Well we can debate whether the word "fiasco" is appropriate. But you'd have to admit the focus of Colin's original intent has changed--because he never had an ounce of control. This is obvious because the NFL ripped his platform away and 45 has taken the media's attention. As far as "ripping the lid" of the country's loyalty to the flag, that is a bit hyperbolic don't you think? Every war the U.S. has ever fought has demonstrated that. Have you been checking out Burn's documentary on the Vietnam War? Yeah @Pioneer1, yeah colorism is always an issue, as well has the hair, and the voluptuous physiques. If does not seem to matter very much what the men look like, so long as they resent like teenage thugs and use the N-word liberally and gratuitously on the stage--as evidenced by the collection of clips in videos above.

Those were ministers who were taking a knee in a form of PRAYER. Look how their heads were bowed and their eyes were closed. This is different that what Colin and many of the other players are doing. According to the information we now know....a White football player (Nate Boyer) who was in the military and most likely conservative was the one to influence Colin! He was the one who convinced Colin to take a knee before the flag the same way people do to show honor to it during funerals for fallen miliary personel ! First he starts off sitting for the anthem as a form a protesting, but then he ends up KNEELING before the flag with his hand over his heart.....go try and figure THAT one out, lol.

I'm sure Colin or his advisor were in someway influenced by the practice of Martin Luther King and his cronies regularly bending a knee in protest against discrimination back in the 1950s