Kneeling During the Anthem

Marisol Costilla, 19, Physical Educations major, Student at Texas State

1.     Do you know about the issue?

“Yes.”

2.     Describe what happened w/ Kaepernick kneeling in the anthem.

“Well, how the news is portraying, well, they’re getting more plaques and everyone is saying, “Oh, it’s a bad thing’. They’re just getting all mad but the news doesn’t show that it’s not just that race. There are others. But they’re like, ‘oh, let’s make it controversial’ and be like, ‘hey, they can’t do it’. But it’s not wrong for him to be like, ‘hey, this is wrong’. So [Kaepernick]’s doing it for his point of view and other people follow it cause that is wrong. So, it’s good for him to be doing a peace riot instead of doing everything just out of control”.

3.     How do you feel about the approach he took?

 “I think it’s cool because a lot of people, they’re always scared to hide what they truly feel, what they want to show. So, especially being someone famous and being shown to a lot of people, it makes people be like ‘oh yeah okay, I’m with him’”.

4.     How do you feel about the NFLs response to the approach?

“I know, they don’t think it’s a good thing, but they enlisted him… He’s part of them now. If they don’t like it, then… just let him be. It’s like being a parent to him…Let your son or let your daughter do what they want to do in life. You can’t control them”.

5.     How would you handle this situation?

“If I would be with him, I would do the same, because it’s not right.”

Mason Walsh,18-24, student at Texas State, major unknown

1.     Do you know about the issue?
“Yes.”

2.     Describe what happened w/ players kneeling in the anthem.
“So Kaepernick was a football player, knelt during the national anthem because he felt that the black community was being treated wrongly or at lower standards than everyone else- the right racial regards.”

3.     How do you feel about the approach he took?
“I’m not a huge fan of it… I think there’s other ways to get your point across and I think that respecting your country is something that is should be regarded by everybody and not just because it’s a disregard to the military or anything. But we live in one of the best countries in the world and I don’t think that that’s the best way to get your point across.”

4.     How do you feel about the NFLs response to the approach?

“I mean there… he doesn’t have a job right now, but I don’t necessarily think that’s because of his protest. I think it’s because he’s not a great quarterback. I mean the past two seasons, or his last season- I think- he won like two games and the team performed really poorly and just near the end of his career, I don’t think he was performing up to his standards. I think if he was a higher quality quarterback he would be prospected by other teams but not there at that point.”

5.     How would you handle this situation?

“Well I guess if I was the NFL I would’ve done exactly what they did. The teams that didn’t go after him that’s, I mean I wouldn’t want him as my quarterback just because he’s not really good. I don’t really care. I mean there’s a lot of negative energy around it, whether it’s fair or not. But as for him, I mean good for him, he’s going for a cause that he really likes.  Personally, I don’t think it’s the best way to go about it. I think we’re aware of that factor and he has such a high platform that he could go about it in so many other ways, post press conferences, there’s so many other ways that you could go about it besides the one thing where kneeling during the national anthem is not heard of really.”