During NFL preseason in 2016, Colin Kaepernick was viewed sitting during the playing of the National Anthem, which them turned to him kneeling because he couldn’t stand for a country that oppressed minorities and had cops treat Black people less than human with the many shootings that have happened over the years.
It’s been almost three years and Kaepernick’s voice can still be heard even though he hasn’t played in the league since opting out of his contract with the 49ers in 2017.
An 11-year-old Florida boy clearly saw what he did and listened, because the 6th grader has made National news after he was arrested following a situation where he wouldn’t stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. While he wasn’t arrested for that, he was in fact getting into a confrontation with school officials and a law enforcement officer and subsequently charged with disrupting a school function and resisting arrest without being violent, both misdemeanors, via Fox 26.
The Feb. 4 incident began when the boy allegedly told his substitute teacher he did not want to stand for the pledge because he viewed the American flag as racist against African-Americans.
In a handwritten statement to Polk County Public Schools, the teacher reported telling the boy, “Why if it was so bad here he did not go to another place to live.” She said he then said, “they brought me here,” according to Bay News 9.
She said she replied by saying, “Well you can always go back, because I came here from Cuba and the day I feel I’m not welcome here anymore I would find another place to live.”
She wrote, “Then I had to call the office because I did not want to continue dealing with him.”
According to the arrest affidavit, the student threatened to get the school resource officer and principal fired and to beat the teacher.
That substitute teacher will also face some punishment for not knowing students didn’t have to stand for Pledge as it was announced she will no longer be able to work at any of the district’s schools.
