Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day,” while discussing San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the playing of the national anthem at a preseason football game and having said of the gesture, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” comedian D.L. Hughley said, “there’s no Sunday off where we get to pretend things aren’t the same.”
Hughley said, “I think it’s ironic because Kaepernick is being silent to protest the treatment of people of color in this country, and America is being silent when people of color are being mistreated. So there is nothing more American than silence. I think ultimately the question has never been about how black people feel about America, it has and always will be about how America feels about us. Just like the things that we see that are insulting. You’ll see people come out and say—they’ll say, they are opposed to what Kaepernick is doing. None of those people come out and say anything when people are being brutalized. Not one thing. And I think that ultimately football is an escape, and black people often times don’t get an escape from reality. Reality confronts us all the time, there’s no Sunday off where we get to pretend things aren’t the same. Standing for the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem is a distraction. We get to pretend we are all together and often times we live in two different Americas.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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