Criticism and disrespect are 2 totally different things. People can voice opinions and critique all they want...no qualms there. It's the physical acts of kneeling/turning back to flag/talking during anthem/refusing to stand for flag or anthem - that's a blatant act of disrespect and goes way further than criticism.
Conservatives tell LeBron James to 'shut up and dribble.' Why can’t a progressive league shut up 'The Star-Spangled Banner' already?
www.nbcnews.com
"Athletes shouldn’t be forced to stand for a ceremony many players have rejected so wholeheartedly that they’re not even bothering to show up anymore.
An all-too-familiar nightly performance of nationalism would ensue — for 40 years, the National Basketball Association has required players
“to stand and line up in a dignified posture” during the national anthem — and then Irving and Durant would return to join their teammates for the starting lineups as if nothing had happened.
It is one thing for so many people at barbecues and ball games this holiday weekend to willfully ignore that “The Star-Spangled Banner” is
the product of a poem written by the slave owner Francis Scott Key spewing hate like this: "No refuge could save the hireling and slave / From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave." But athletes shouldn’t be forced to stand for a ceremony many players have rejected so wholeheartedly that they’re not even bothering to show up anymore. Their declarations of independence, unseen though the rebuke may be, deserve to be heard this July 4.
...
Now two of the NBA’s brightest stars have been skipping the anthem, and more players have
broken their league’s
rule forbidding hands in pockets or bodies turned against the flag. While several NBA franchises have occasionally added “Lift Every Voice and Sing” to their arena soundtracks, that’s only a start: If the NBA, with nearly
75 percent of players identifying as Black or African American, is really the most liberal sports league on Earth, then the NBA Finals starting this week should be the last time we hear a racist song blare before tipoff again.
Basketball players have been over the national anthem since long before Kaepernick’s silent protest. After all, the original Kap was a hooper: Twenty-five years ago, a reporter finally
noticed Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf staying behind in the locker room for a few extra minutes or tying his Nikes a little tighter pregame, or else turning away from the flag. With his silent protest discovered, Abdul-Rauf doubled down by calling the anthem “
a symbol of oppression and tyranny.” The NBA commissioner at the time, David Stern, said the league told him he could remain backstage or come out and stand, or else face suspension. Abdul-Rauf said no. He eventually made a deal to stand and pray, but he was also eventually blackballed from the league.
www.forbes.com
