Dear Mr. Kaepernick,
You don’t know me, but I owe you a profound debt of gratitude. What you did when you knelt during the playing of the national anthem before an NFL football game last year took a level of courage and thoughtfulness and consideration for others that says a great deal about your depth of character.
It is my personal opinion that you did a great deal more than even you might know. While I presume that your action was meant to bring attention to the inequality and injustice still worked on people in the United States because of their race, it also brought to the American consciousness at a critical moment that we are Americans, not because of our race or our religion or our economic status. We are Americans because we hold as an ideal that every human being is born equal and every human being is endowed by his or her creator with inalienable rights. You taught us once again. and we badly need the teaching, that no symbol, and most certainly no individual human being, takes precedence over that ideal. You reminded us, and we needed reminding, that we have not reached that ideal, and that there is, and likely always will be, a great deal of work ahead of us to pursue that ideal.
I am fairly sure that you are not penniless, but I am equally sure that you are suffering a substantial financial loss because of your actions. I am a football fan, and I devoutly hope that you will return soon to the game to demonstrate your enormous talents. I am also a Green Bay Packer fan, so I hope you do that on a team the Packers don’t have to play. Seriously, however your life goes from here on, I will always remember this great deed you have done for the country.
Respectfully,
WE THE CENTER
We The Center 