Admiral Harry Harris was given a chance to honor the memory of those lost at Pearl Habor seventy-five years ago. For an odd reason, he decided to "burn" (CNN's word choice, not mine) Colin Kaepernick for kneeling for the National Anthem in protest of racism. I have a few thoughts on this.

As the CNN article, I linked already noted, the Navy during World War II was heavily segregated; most African-Americans were in service duty, and the first African-American Naval officers weren't commissioned until 1944. As a reminder, Pearl Harbor occurred in 1941.

A bigger the point is that the NFL had no black players from 1934 through 1945, which you may recognize as the entirety of World War II!

We've talked before about how we find it odd to think honoring veterans means standing during a professional sporting event. We are completely behind supporting and respecting veterans. That said, it has gotten bizarrely strange to get mad at Kaepernick about racism by completely ignoring some of the very real issues with race in our history.

Remembering our history is important for our future. And certainly honoring heroes from our past is fine. But doing this by ignoring that there have been and are still problems is folly. As a final note, I find "speaking for the dead," when it's clear you don't even know the full context of their lives to be a bit offputting. Regardless, here's hoping seventy-five years from now we'll be in a place where not standing at a football game won't be a big deal.

-Dre