Disgracing the American Flag in Sports
What Is Offensive Should Not Be Colin Kaepernick’s Protest and Others Like It, but the Use of American Iconography to Crassly Sell Advertising.
When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began sitting — and then kneeling — during the ritualistic pregame playing of the national anthem during the 2016 NFL preseason, he created an uproar. Conservatives — mainly white — and other Americans — again, mainly white — reprimanded him for supposedly disgracing the US flag and the military sacrifice of fallen and injured servicemen. When Kaepernick’s protest spread like wildfire in the NFL in 2017, following President Donald Trump’s incendiary attack on protesting NFL players, the reactionary outcry grew louder. For instance, on October 1, 2017, conservative columnist Marc Thiessen of the Washington Post lambasted the “disgraceful protest” by athletes who “disrespect the flag” and “disrespect that sacrifice” of lost American soldiers. He called on NFL owners to indeed “fire” such players, conveniently ignoring the prohibitory complications that come with a unionized workforce, a powerful union, contractual clauses and potential arbitration, not to mention the extremely exclusive nature of the NFL’s player talent pool. (In other words, even the NFL’s often-conservative owners are going to care much more about winning football games than peaceful protests during the playing of the national anthem.)
Of course, the knee-jerk argument offered by Thiessen and his brethren proved fallacious. Kaepernick, Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin, and others were not seeking to disrespect the flag, nor were they protesting the sacrifices of military veterans. A national flag and a national anthem, after all, constitute very broad symbols, ones that offer all sorts of connotations and signification, especially when removed from a military base or a military cemetery. The stars-and-stripes, and the Star-Spangled Banner, are not simply military icons or the exclusive purview of military meanings.
Rather, Kaepernick and other protesting NFL players were holding true to their conscience as American citizens, refusing to participate in a ritualistic celebration of America when they proved so disgruntled by their nation’s longstanding and continuing inequities. Particularly, Kaepernick was protesting police brutality against, and oppression of, African-Americans, gratuitous harassment and violence that often leads to needless deaths, frequently against unarmed Black men. In refusing to stand for the (overdone) playing of the national anthem, Kaepernick was simply exercising his prerogatives as an American citizen and his liberties under the First Amendment — and doing so for a highly legitimate, relevant, pressing cause. Indeed, to suggest otherwise is to willfully or cluelessly ignore the reality that the American experience of racial minorities has been very different — dangerously different — than the experience of mainstream white society. Although improvements have occurred, especially in the last fifty-five years or so, oppression and injustice pervasively persist, especially because too often, white Americans such as Thiessen respond with shrill, knee-jerk reaction to the voices of someone such as Kaepernick. While one may disagree with his form of protest, it should be met with a desire to understand its motivations and rectify the problems that have sowed such frustrations. The usual denialism and bait-and-switch misconstruing of such protests only cause the problems to continue and the gestures of discontent to become inevitable.
Moreover, Kaepernick indeed showed respect for the military and what the flag means to its members. After initially sitting on the bench during the playing of the anthem, the former Super Bowl quarterback instead chose to kneel following a meeting with Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret, veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and NFL long snapper. Boyer suggested that kneeling would be more respectful, and Kaepernick listened, amending his gesture following a conversation with a military veteran and member of the NFL fraternity. Indeed, kneeling suggests humility and meditation, a request for mercy and a plea for justice. Kaepernick’s flexibility and sensitivity in this regard totally undermines the simplistic arguments of Thiessen and his ilk.
Rather, a genuine form of disrespect for the red, white, and navy blue occurred during the recently completed Word Baseball Classic, the periodic international tournament that completed its 2023 rendition in late March. The United States — the reigning champion from 2017 — returned to the final but this time lost to Japan, the titlist from 2006 and 2009 (and the reigning Olympic champion as well). Much of the coverage focused on Japanese superstar and 2021 American League MVP Shohei Ohtani, a historically unique pitcher-hitter behemoth, striking out his Los Angeles Angels teammate, three-time American League MVP Mike Trout, to end the game and the tournament. It was a classic confrontation.
Decidedly less classic, however, was what could be seen on the uniforms of the various national teams throughout the tournament — including that of the USA. In a decided departure from the past, the World Baseball Classic — under the auspices of Major League Baseball — allowed external advertising on uniforms and helmets, even beyond the logos of athletic apparel companies (such as Nike) that have become much more prominent in recent years. Thus when viewing the Ohtani-Trout climax, one had to fight through the revolting, disfiguring, distracting sight of a DIRECTV logo on Trout’s left sleeve and a T Mobile logo stickered onto Trout’s helmet. Instead of savoring the American uniform — the colors and iconography derived from the flag — one had to resist being mesmerized by corporate advertising that had nothing to do with the sport or the nation.
Of course, we are not talking about the American flag itself, but we are talking about imagery and iconography that are supposed to invoke the flag and the country, its history with baseball and the way that the nation’s ideals can be furthered by those of the game. If those symbols — the stars and stripes, the USA acronym, the American colors suggesting a starry nighttime sky streaked with fireworks that symbolize freedom, liberty, and democratic revolution — are supposed to carry a greater meaning, then how can one not prove distressed by such commercial clutter? It is as if Colin Kaepernick took a can of spray paint and sprayed graffiti upon the American flag — something that he certainly did not do. What is worse, an American citizen peacefully kneeling as an act of conscience and First Amendment liberty, or US iconography being exploited for the sake of corporate profits, excess revenue, and sheer avarice?
Sadly, this development is not too surprising, given that this year, Major League Baseball is allowing teams to wear external corporate patches on their uniform sleeves. MLB, like the rest of American sport (imitating longstanding trends in Europe and Asia), has been moving in this direction for a few years now. In 2017, it allowed the makers of its ballcaps, New Era, to feature its logo on the left side of the caps, something that had never previously been the case. Three years later, beginning with the 2020 season, MLB gave its uniform branding rights to Nike, who promptly tattooed the right front of each uniform jersey with its “Swoosh” logo. In previous recent decades, the uniform apparel maker or licenser, a company such as Rawlings or Majestic, had just featured a small, barely noticeable logo on the right sleeve, and the New York Yankees — to their credit — had not even allowed that on their timeless uniforms. But since 2020, every team, the Yankees included, has featured the Nike “Swoosh” on the front of its jersey.
This season, following last year’s new collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association, MLB is letting its franchises disfigure their uniforms with the logos of companies that have nothing to do with athletic apparel, let alone the ballclub itself. Fortunately, many teams have resisted the temptation so far, but some, such as the defending World Series champion Houston Astros and the iconic Boston Red Sox, have disrespected their own uniforms in pursuit of some extra bucks. The Red Sox, for instance, now feature a Mass Mutual logo on the right sleeves of their uniforms, as if one of the premier franchises in the premier league in the sport — one that generates enormous amounts of revenue regardless — is a semipro club that needs direct corporate sponsorship in order to rent playing space and make payroll. Boston owner John Henry could certainly never be confused with Boston revolutionary John Hancock.
One might retort that these entities — the World Baseball Classic, Major League Baseball, the various individual franchises — are all capitalistic enterprises anyway, ones with millionaire players and billionaire owners and all manner of corporate sponsors regardless. And of course that is true, but most anyone knows that there is a difference between “selling” and “selling out.” Major American sports have long resisted the latter, but now — despite television contracts that perpetually rise and franchise valuations that constantly do the same — they are increasingly cheapening their history and their aesthetics.
Reprehensibly, that cheapening also extends to the American imagery of Team USA in the World Baseball Classic. Rather than treating the national uniform and its flag-inspired icons with dignity and respect, they have become just another platform for selling advertising. Colin Kaepernick’s protest was about anything but greed — indeed, it cost him his NFL career. The real disgrace, conversely, comes in treating the American colors and symbols, and the letters “USA,” so shabbily as to directly associate the words “DIRECTV” and “T Mobile” with them. There is a place for corporate sponsors, but it should not be on a national team’s uniform — talk about demeaning America and an act of disrespect.
