At a rally in Alabama on Friday night, President Donald Trump told attendees that NFL players who kneel during the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner" should be fired by their bosses.
"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b***h off the field right now'?" Trump said to the crowd.
In response, more than 200 NFL players knelt, raised a fist, or sat during the playing of the national anthem during games on Sunday.
It wasn't only the players who came out against Trump's statement. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell issued a statement calling the president's words "divisive" and demonstrating a "lack of respect for the NFL," and teams like the Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers, and Miami Dolphinsissued statementsof their own.
Reverends Irene Monroe and Emmett Price joined Boston Public Radio to discuss the NFL protests on their weekly feature, All Revved Up. Monroeis a syndicated religion columnist, and Price is a professor of worship, church and culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Price applauded the protest and said it was an extremely visible way to bring attention to social injustices faced by African-Americans. The form of protest was made famous last year when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt during the anthem as a way to protest police mistreatment of minorities.
"I'm absolutely in agreement with Colin Kaepernick and in agreement with all the, I think, 100 players yesterday who maintained this civil protest out of the fact that we have not gotten to the point of equitable treatment," Price said.
"Trump helped to put some fuel on the flame with his incendiary remarks," he continued.
Monroe agreed. "There is no better form of patriotism than protest," she said. "That's how this nation was birthed."
Monroe said positioning the athletes' protest as an affront to members of the U.S. military was a false dichotomy — one that erases the history of African-American service in the Armed Forces.
"We talk about the military and patriotism as if it was all-white," Monroe said. "A lot of our parents and grandparents are Tuskeegee Airmen, fought in Vietnam and World War II. What [critics] fail to understand is that those servicemen came home to America and faced discrimination."
Click the audio player above to hear the entire All Revved Up segment.
