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Comment by jlos | Hacker News Reader

Kapernick made a political statement as his place of work. He made a calculated risk to his career for the sake of his convictions. Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and judged for not taking one. As a non-fan of football, I read the distate for Kapernick's statement as foisting another political binary on fans (mostly by the media, not so much by kapernick). Should you kneel or not kneel? Now you have to have an opinion.

I think the progression is:

1. Make a political statement against an injustice (hashtags, kneeling, etc)

2. Making a lack of support a form of complicity with injustice.

3. Narrowly define what support looks like.

Exact quote from #ShutDownStem website: >> Unless you engage directly with eliminating racism, you are perpetuating it. [0]

https://www.shutdownstem.com/

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  Kapernick made a political statement as his place of work

... and only after being benched for incompetence. (For example, he cost the 49ers hosting the NFC Championship because he blew a game by running out of bounds instead of staying in bounds to keep the clock running. That extra play cost them that game, which cost them #1 seed.) Just basic, stupid shit like that and throwing interceptions instead of eating the ball, game after game.

He ruined that 2010-14 dynasty and got his coaching staff and front office sacked. And then he goes for petty provocational crap like representing police as pigs on his socks. This is a guy who grew up in the lap of upper middle class luxury and wanted for nothing.

You can be a reprehensible human being and still have NFL success if you are top-level talent, but not if you are reprehensible and you suck.

> Choosing to take a stand strikes me as different than being pressured and judged for not taking one

Fantastic point. And I would hope those in favor of democracy can accept it. If you choose to support a political party publicly, you can reasonably expect people to engage with you about it. But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

What we are seeing now, is not the freedom to choose a particular stance or cause. We are seeing the mob react with force to a lack of opinion.

You must have an opinion. And it must be the right one.

>But nobody should be able to coerce you to support any particular party or candidate.

well, nobody is able to coerce you for not doing anything, but people can still judge you for it, and that may be perfectly reasonable.

Inaction can be as devastating as action. Withdrawing in the face of some injustice is as much of a choice as participating on either front.

It's an overused quote but really all that is necessary for evil to triumph is good people doing nothing. Of course today sometimes the causes are hyperbolic, but nothing is wrong with the principle. If someone is the victim of racism say, and people look away rather than stepping up, that's a failure.

>Inaction can be as devastating as action.

It can be but rarely is.

In the case racism, it isn't. Sitting in my house doing nothing isn't as bad as attacking blacklivesmatter protesters.

The call against inaction is an exaggeration to shame people into action for their side. It's the "if you aren't with us, you're against us" repackaged for the woke.

To take it another step further, a bias towards action can be harmful as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primum_non_nocere . I have often wondered if Google/Alphabet erred in switching from "don't be evil" to "do the right thing".

Indeed. Only a sith deals in absolutes.

However, ill-considered action can be very bad, regardless of intentions. And most calls to action by activists are ill-considered. See http://studiahumana.com/pliki/wydania/In%20Praise%20of%20Pas...

He simply refused to stand for the anthem and respectfully knelt (at first sat but then started kneeling after talking with veterans and asking what would be more respectful or something like that).

It's not that "simple" at all.

Just one example:

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-socks/

Those were worn during practice before he began kneeling:

"I wore these socks, in the past, because the rogue cops that are allowed to hold positions in police departments, not only put the community in danger, but also put the cops that have the right intentions in danger by creating an environment of tension and mistrust. I have two uncles and friends who are police officers and work to protect and serve ALL people. So before these socks, which were worn before I took my public stance, are used to distract from the real issues, I wanted to address this immediately."

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