Turlock's Pitman High School graduate and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick elicited a major media response when he was seen sitting down during the national anthem at preseason game. Kaepernick has since acknowledged his reasoning for the protest as being directed toward oppression experienced by people of color from police officers and others.
The following coverage will contain some spoilers of the South Park episode (video below) including the national anthem protest issue surrounding Kaepernick.
In the most recent take on the issue, South Park Studios parodied the protest with their elementary school school characters Kyle Broflovski and Eric Cartman. In the parody, the boys represent the police officers and the girls represented the oppressed people of color.
The show begins with a large crowd at an elementary school volleyball game, and the media broadcasters are eagerly awaiting to see the actions if the girl’s volleyball team will sit down during the national anthem. As the anthem plays and a select amount of girls sit down, the crowd gives an eruptive response.
In a notable aspect, the entirety of audience actually leave the game once the national anthem and the protest is concluded, highlighting public and media’s substantially higher interest in the protest than in the game.
The continues on to highlight the fallacy of composition, the idea that what is true of the parts is true of the whole. In this regard, the idea perpetuated is that an “internet troll,” a person online inciting conflict, is harassing the girls on the school message board and causing the boys to carry the burden of dealing with the negative representation. The idea being that whoever the “internet troll” is does not represent the boys or their views as a whole.
As the show rolls forward, the San Francisco 49ers and the Carolina Panthers are set to face off, and, before the National Anthem is set to play, emphasis is placed on the San Francisco 49er number “7,” the same team number worn by Kaepernick.
Before the National Anthem begins, the announcer requests that all attendees stand, sit, or kneel for the playing of the National Anthem. The sudden change in request highlights the befuddled expression of 49er number “7,” and the protest attempt is made irrelevant due to the amount of people now sitting and kneeling for the National Anthem. Broadcaster, satirically, announce that the new direction has “fixed America.”
As of yesterday, when he last knelt during the National Anthem, Kaepernick’s protest is still ongoing.
