I just want to say, I commend Oscar de la Torre and Craig Foster, the Malibu-Santa Monica School Board reps who took a knee for Black Lives Matter. I didn’t stand for the National Anthem all through SamoHi, because of the Vietnam War. Sure the Rent-a-Cops glared at me, but killing a whole country with Agent Orange and our own soldiers was not an ideology I wanted to support. I agreed with Mohammed Ali on that one. And, especially when it transpired Robert McNamara had misled LBJ on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. They found out it was a falsehood and took us into war anyway? No, no, no.
I have a new neighbor on my street whose child goes to Malibu High School. I bought him a Colin Kaepernick jersey, which in the end turned out to be the No. 1 selling tee in the NFL. He sent me a thank you note to say he felt like a civil rights leader, “but for kids.”
By the way, Kaepernick took a knee, instead of just sitting the anthem out, to honor the military. Americans have to realize this country is the sum of us. And, as posted on the front page of today’s Forbes Magazine: “America is a tune. It must be sung together.”
Beate Nilsen