San Francisco NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is coming under fire for staying seated during the National Anthem before an exhibition game Friday night, but former NFL wide receiver Donte Stallworth said Monday he wishes more professional athletes would speak out on issues.
"What kind of bothered me when all this first started to happen, people were equating the fact that he didn't stand for the National Anthem, they were saying that that was basically him showing contempt for service members of our country, and I don't believe that was his intent," the former New England Patriots star told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" program.
Kaepernick, the bi-racial adopted son of two white parents, explained on Sunday that he remained seated because he was "not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid to leave and getting away with murder."
Stallworth didn't say if he agrees or disagrees with Kaepernick's stance, but he does know that people don't like to hear the thoughts of professional athletes, unless they're talking about sports.
"They say they do, when it is something they don't agree with it, 'hey, stick to football,' or in his case, now that he is not even supposed to be the starting quarterback for the start of the season, it is, 'how are you being oppressed? You're making all this money and you're a multimillionaire superstar athlete.'"
But Stallworth said he does enjoy the fact that Kaepernick is speaking out on a topic he believes in, and he'd like to see more athletes speaking out.
He would like to see Kaepernick expand on his comments, as "it's a controversial subject in this country, and I think that the more we can have a dialogue and honest dialogue with each other, I think better off things will be. But at the end of the day you have to be able to have the dialogue and both sides have to be willing to listen to one another."
Meanwhile, another former NFL player, Burgess Owens told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program, that he did not support Kaepernick's decision to sit out the National Anthem, and said the action reflects Americans' failure to teach young people the importance of honoring their country and its freedoms.
"This is a wake-up call," Owens said, who played for the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. "This is more than the NFL. We're at a point in our country, the freest in mankind and we fail to teach our kids, young people, anything about that history. They're ignorant about the country and totally unappreciative of the freedoms that have been gained by the people who paid the price for them."
Kaepernick, he continued, doesn't understand that the "first martyr of freedom in our country is a black man. He doesn't understand the Tuskegee airmen, and he can sit and be ignorant."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.