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# CityWatch Today: This Is What Democracy Looks Like
September 25 2017
Written by Abby Zimet.
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****
GUEST WORDS--Small gesture, big moment. Pretty [electrifying](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/09/24/takeaknee-sunday-nfl-teams-and-players-rebuff-president-trump) to see the over 100 NFL players, along with a number of coaches and owners, [fight ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/24/donald-trump-nfl-protests-kneel-anthem#img-1)for their rights Sunday by taking a knee, sitting down, locking arms, raising fists or just not showing up during the National Anthem, that oh-so-fraught but often [empty symbol](http://www.breakingnews.ie/discover/this-guy-used-the-us-flag-code-to-rip-into-trumps-comments-about-athletes-disrespecting-the-flag-807141.html) of democracy.
It even happened in [baseball,](http://www.sfchronicle.com/athletics/article/A-s-Bruce-Maxwell-first-MLB-player-to-kneel-for-12223798.php&cmpid=twitter-premium) in volleyball, on the street. All those guys, mostly black but with white support, were [saying no](https://twitter.com/hashtag/TakeaKnee?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.democraticunderground.com%2F10029630003) - to our racist Dolt-In-Chief, to his divisive rhetoric, to his ugly [claim](http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/23/politics/nfl-goodell-trump-response/index.html) that while Nazis are fine people, an American who exercises his First Amendment rights to [challenge](https://www.facebook.com/theRoot/videos/10159227442365231/?hc_ref=ARS_mBhlmkBFK_bhWhO7KHjzHH7iiI__s9F85JGmc9cTViMxCocP_KYHP_GyEVTxAyU%20%20) this country's systemic racism and egregious police brutality is a "son of a bitch."
Sounding like an aggrieved plantation owner whose house slaves are getting uppity, Trump trash-talked athletes for being ungrateful and [proclaimed](https://www.commondreams.org/further/2017/09/23/%20https:/www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/09/24/trump-demands-nfl-teams-fire-or-suspend-players-or-risk-fan-boycott/?utm_term=.b05ab68edee5) their peaceful protests showed "total disrespect of our heritage, a total disrespect of everything that we stand for."
Nope. Actually, their protests were "[pledges of allegiance](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/trials_and_error/2017/09/john_legend_on_why_the_nfl_protests_are_patriotic.html)" to what this country is supposed to stand for, but too often doesn't. They were rejections of the hollow, ugly nationalism of "a[ small man](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-louis-armstrong-to-the-nfl-ungrateful-as-the-new-uppity) with a fetish for the symbols of democracy and a bottomless hostility for the actual practice of it."
They were [lessons ](https://www.thenation.com/article/the-fragile-toxic-masculinity-of-donald-trump/)in healing, in integrity, in [constructive ](https://twitter.com/WarriorsPR/status/911671456928382976)action, in "unity, justice, and even manhood." And they were a too-polite way of telling a demagogue too stupid even to know how to [choose](https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/sep/24/colin-kaepernick-conversation-donald-trump-anthem-kneel) his toxic battles, "Get that son-of-a-bitch out of our country."
*(Guest columnist Abby Zimet offers her insight daily at the popular* [Common Dreams](http://commondreams.org) *… where this perspective was first posted.)*
*-cw*
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