Kenny Stills protesting not likely to end any time soon if it’s up to him

The Miami Dolphins had two players kneel during the national anthem on Thursday night and one more raised his fist. Kenny Stills will likely continue this.

Kenny Stills has been a model player for the Miami Dolphins. Adam Gase loves everything about him and he does a lot of work in the South Florida community. He is also one of those “kneeling” at the forefront of a racial injustice movement started two seasons ago by Colin Kaepernick.

This is where things begin to get a bit touchy. The movement was and never has been about the national anthem or anything remotely related to the military although many have believed it otherwise. Including one particular man in the White House.

One question however is how long will this continue? What is the end plan? Where does it go next?

When asked about what it would take to stop the kneeling, Still said, “What would it take? It would take a lot,” via the PalmBeachPost’s Jason Lieser.

It’s what Still said immediately afterwards that I have a problem with.

"“But I think a good first step for us as a league would be acknowledging what they’re doing to Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid. You can’t say as a league that you support the players and the protest and then blackball the players that initially started the protest. – via the aforementioned Palm Beach Post article."

It started as racial injustice but let’s be frank, it started because of police brutality. Lets not sugarcoat it or call it anything else. Racial injustice is a PC way of glossing it over. And I’m cool with that. Completely. But lets call it what it was.

Now it’s about getting Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid on a football team? It’s no longer about police brutality it’s about finding a way to get these guys jobs? To get the league to say, “yeah, we don’t want them to play in the NFL”? That isn’t going to happen. Ever. It’s a lawsuit waiting to happen, oh wait there already is one.

I fully agree with Kenny Stills thinking that Kaepernick and Reid belong on an NFL team. Reid probably more so actually. Kaepernick’s approach and public comments early in this process made him a target. Not just from NFL owners but by fans as well. Even those who supported the cause. The issue is that no one is going to make any strides forward on this front. Not if the focus of the statement continues to turn towards something or in this case someone else regardless of the underlying fact that both Kaepernick and Reid are in this place because of their skin color and what they have taken a stand on.

No other players come to mind, across the landscape of the NFL, who has done more to bridge gaps between police and community than Kenny Stills. And the NFL will never acknowledge that. The Miami Dolphins have, two years in a row.

This however, it’s not a start, it’s simply finding something else to bring attention to and maybe kneeling isn’t the way to go because it will not exact change in that arena. Stills also had this to say.

"“If you want to… talk about solutions, we need to start there as a league. Then we can start drawing up solutions to some of these other problems,” said Stills."

Why is it a tiered solution? Why does there have to be a specific starting topic to move on to other things. What happens if he gets his wish? What’s next? When does it end? Does it end?

If the man in D.C. stopped tweeting about it and the media stopped covering every fist in the air and man on one knee, no one would likely care or notice. The two keep the fire lit by adding the fuel. In the beginning, it made a lot of sense and was extremely hard to argue against, but now, that is becoming a little harder when you start to think the knee is for two football players and not a nation of American’s who it was intended to serve.

Our nation’s constitution was paid for by the blood of its citizens and the freedom they fought for is why Kenny Stills has the right to take a knee during its anthem. But again, what is the end plan for all of this?