The bigger picture
The writer to the PDN (Peninsula Voices, “Kaepernick critic,” Sept. 2) has once again missed the bigger picture.
Historically, the exercise of free speech as provided by the U.S. Constitution has gone on for decades and has one underlying theme from the perspective of people of color: It is simple respect and dignity for all.
The writer states: “ He [Kaepernick] has overlooked the fact that many black people and people of color that he refers to pull themselves out of oppression by changing their pity-pot attitudes by making responsible choices in their lives.”
She must be referring to a black trauma surgeon in Dallas who was tending to the police who were shot by some lunatic. He himself once had been stretched across a police car hood spreadeagle.
Or maybe a Harvard University professor who, when inadvertently locking himself out of his own home, was confronted and humiliated by the local police.
Or maybe a teen running an errand to get soda and candy but never making it back because he was killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer who is now walking around free.
Or maybe a school cafeteria supervisor who was pulled over for a broken taillight but never made it home, the crime on video.
Or maybe it was just a young man walking down a road in Port Angeles and being assaulted by a group of bigots.
It is about treating each other with dignity and respect that earns our national anthem its place in our culture.
America love it or leave it?
I think not.
Bart Kavruck,
Port Townsend
