By Perry Green , AFRO Sports Editor, pgreen@afro.com
You can call Colin Kaepernick a lot of things, but one thing you can’t call him is uninspiring.
Two young girls from Mount View Elementary School of Seattle, Washington took a knee while the rest of their class sang during the National Anthem before the Seattle Mariner’s Major League Baseball game against the Cleveland Indians Sunday at Safeco Field.
Were two young ladies from Seattle inspired by Colin Kaepernick to take a knee? (Twitter Photo)
The two girls were first captured on video kneeling in protest by a fan in the stands. The fan quickly posted the video on his Twitter account, @LouisPenna. Washington-based sports journalist Ryan S. Clark was also in attendance and tweeted a photo of the girls protesting.
A Latino woman from San Francisco, Calif. named Angel Ceaser later made a post on Facebook, claiming one of the girls that took a knee is her daughter, Helena Gamet, who apparently is half Latino, half Native American. According to Ceaser’s post, Helena’s school was selected to sing the National anthem before the game, but the young girl and her best friend opted out of singing and decided to protest against social injustice, instead.
Ceaser also wrote that Helena’s teachers were very upset with her and asked her “why she abused her platform.” Gamet’s response to the teacher was also included in Ceaser’s Facebook post.
“I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful I took a knee for the Black lives matter movement and for the dead people that don’t get a platform anymore because they’re dead! I also have full intention on being the first Native president of the United States one day… also the song says land of the free and home of the brave but that’s obviously not the case if people are getting killed every day for getting their ID out the glove box or being in their backyard.”
