You do you, Colin Kaepernick

I disliked Colin Kaepernick before it was cool.

Purely from a football standpoint, I couldn’t stand the guy. He woke up one day and found himself starting for a championship-caliber Niners team and acted like he had something to do with its success, sold a bunch of jerseys, starred on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Instagram-bragged about his room full of designer shoes and generally did everything you’d expect a multimillion-dollar NFL quarterback to do.

But then, he sucked. Karma beat Kaep down so hard the football gods we sports fans so often kid about suddenly seemed tangible. Coach Harbaugh left, and the Niners defense retired, and the city of San Francisco looked on in horror as the newly-furnished Levi Stadium’s inaugural season was marred by a team so disappointing it made Browns fans smirk.

It’s pretty rare to see a public figure who lost his job to Blaine freaking Gabbert regain relevancy, and rarer still for that relevancy to actually carry serious weight.

I don’t like that Kaepernick kneels for the national anthem before games, but that’s precisely what makes it a protest.

Kaep doesn’t like this trend happening in America where unarmed black youths get shot by police officers. You can — and maybe should — explore how you feel about that particular issue, but it’s not up to any of us to determine whether or not the action of kneeling is an okay thing for him to do. Kaepernick’s well within his rights to kneel, and honestly that’s a relatively tame way of drawing attention to something much bigger than football.

What if the once-prominent quarterback spat on the ground during the national anthem? What if he turned his back on the flag entirely and faced the bench instead? Would area police officers refuse to protect his entering the stadium on Sundays?

In case you weren’t aware, that last question wasn’t hyperbole. This form of protesting has spread throughout the NFL, reaching into the Miami police department and drawing out threats towards the Dolphins with the prospect of pulling the team’s police escort. It makes you wonder what the nation’s police departments plan on doing when NBA season rolls around next month — because if you don’t think this is spilling into the most vocal and socially aware group of athletes in the country, you’re in for a surprise come late October.

The NFL’s incessant faux-patriotic pandering won’t be able to kill it — this thing is heading to the hardwood, possibly beyond. Whole teams might sit. Crowds might boo. We’re going to wonder how we got to this point and remember it was all because of a dude whose greatest achievement as an athlete was not winning a Super Bowl.

And you know? Maybe that’s a good thing. You don’t actually believe in free speech if you don’t support someone’s ability to disagree with you.

People are angry. Sports are supposed to be a relief from the world’s troubles, but maybe those troubles are at a boiling point that hits awfully close to home for a lot of these prominent athletes from the projects.

The whole purpose of the flag is symbolic — liberty and justice for all, right? It’s not exactly a stretch to argue that’s not a reality right now, so maybe protesting the national anthem and kneeling for the flag is, in a way, protective of what those things are supposed to mean. With the current political climate in this country, imagining a scenario where perhaps I don’t feel able to stand for the anthem isn’t out of the realm of possibility. I’d like to think if I made that choice, I wouldn’t be threatened or demonized over it.

I still don’t like Kaepernick. But he has a point, and no matter how the dude looks or plays that point will continue to gain traction until people stop getting shot at.