are all these people taking a knee ‘against trump’ really committed to fighting white supremacy?

The day I realized street protesting wasn’t for me was the day I was arrested for it. But it wasn’t the arrest that turned me off. I met some really dope people in the holding cell and overall it was a positively transformative experience. But what had gotten me arrested was that people who were supposedly protesting police brutality wanted to be nice to the police. Not only had their inability to understand what we were protesting landed me in handcuffs, it completely defeated the purpose.

The officers were steering us along a predetermined route that inconvenienced as few people as possible. Knowing that the point of a street protest is to demand the attention of people who would otherwise refuse to hear, I began leading people in the opposite direction. But as soon as the police approached us, the people behind me, who’d stayed some distance behind all along, scattered, leaving me alone and an easy target.

This same lack of understanding that leaves the sincere protestors easy targets is exactly what is happening now that President Trump called Kaepernick (not by name) a “son of a bitch” at a political rally in Alabama on Friday for protesting the national anthem. Vaguely acknowledging that the president was wrong and racist for saying that only weeks after calling some white supremacists “very fine people,” many other players joined in protest by kneeling for the national anthem during their games this weekend.

Here’s the problem: Colin Kaepernick is not protesting a vaguely racist president, he is protesting white supremacy and police brutality, which proceeds President Trump by centuries. He had already been leading the charge and not only when it was comfortable, and these other players had already left him out alone on the front-lines to be targeted, and he has now gone months unable to find a job because of his stance.

Even worse, some of the very same people who criticized Kaepernick are joining these protests now that it’s more acceptable to do so. Ray Lewis, a former Baltimore Raven who joined his former team to kneel for the anthem on Sunday, had previously denounced Black Lives Matter, pushed for the team not to sign Kaepernick, and publicly embraced Donald Trump only months ago.

Ray Lewis is just like those protestors who scattered behind me, no real understanding or even real support of what is being fought for, and is only around when it’s easy to be. When things get rough, and fighting against white supremacy will always get rough, he not only will leave you to fend for yourself, but might even support your punishment. Kaepernick can’t use any allies like that.