Kaepernick can protest, but should take a closer look at his cause

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has every right to sit out "The Star Spangled Banner." He can burn Old Glory, trample it into the mud. He could use it to dust his extensive sneaker collection, if he desires, or wash his Jaguar.

Good men and women, some of America's best and brightest, have shed blood and tears fighting for the flag memorialized in the national anthem so he can enjoy those rights — and more.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick said after refusing to stand for the anthem before the 49ers' preseason loss to Green Bay. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder."

Members of the Miami Dolphins, New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs joined in; so have members of the Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks and others.

It is easy to empathize with Kaepernick's hyperbole and chafing frustration about this nation's failure to honor all its promises. It is not always at its finest, its cacophonous spats often seem irresolvable and it sometimes falls far short of its professed ideals.

Too bad, though, the young quarterback and the rest bought into the bold lie promulgated by Black Lives Matter, a sketchy protest movement built on a warped, fictional portrayal of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

[The police and Black Lives Matter are not opposites]

The notoriously anti-police leftist group would have Americans believe redneck cops all over the country catapult out of bed every morning, hustle to work and kill blacks willy-nilly — with absolute impunity. Like all con artists and race hustlers, Black Lives Matter will say or do anything for money and power.

Apparently, Kaepernick et al. have succumbed to the group's novel interpretation of reality. They are not alone. Black Lives Matter's allies and supporters include many on the political left, the media and unctuous politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

[We should stand for the anthem, stand for the flag]

Fortunately for all of us, for countless reasons, Black Lives Matter's claims are garbage.

The Washington Post in 2015 began tracking fatal police shootings. The project is ongoing and, as of early July, the Post reports, 1,502 people had been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since Jan. 1, 2015. Of those, 732 were white; 381, black; 382, another or unknown race.

After adjusting for population, the Post concluded that "black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers" and unarmed blacks five times more likely to be fatally shot than unarmed whites.

But, why is that happening? The Post also tracks the "threat level" of each person fatally shot by police. The majority in 2015 and 2016 were "armed with a weapon and attempting to attack the officer or someone else," the Post reported.

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a contributor to the magazine City Journal and author of "The War on Cops," an analysis debunking claims of a killer cops epidemic.

You might think, if you believe Black Lives Matter, that the biggest danger facing young black men is cops. Using the Post's numbers, Mac Donald's work shows the real danger is other blacks.

In 2014 — the most recent data available — there were 6,095 black homicides, compared with 5,397 for whites and Hispanics combined. Almost all black victims were killed by blacks, she writes in a Feb. 11 Wall Street Journal piece.

Police officers of all races "are also disproportionately endangered by black assailants," and, she says, FBI data over the past decade shows that 40 percent of cop killers were black; that blacks kill police at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police.

While blacks are 26 percent of police shooting victims, they are only 13 percent of the population. Bias? Mac Donald says blacks disproportionately commit violent crimes and points to a Bureau of Justice Statistics tally that shows "blacks were charged with 62 percent of all robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the 75 largest U.S. counties in 2009, though they made up roughly 15 percent of the population there."

Crime and violence concentrated in minority communities also puts officers called there disproportionately in confrontations with armed, often-resisting suspects, she says.

In short, the notion of wild-eyed killer cops roaming the streets looking for black victims is fantasy.

[Arrogance is a poor defense for flag and anthem]

If Kaepernick's protest was aimed at kickstarting a conversation about the nation's ills, good for him. It was a tough and courageous decision.

Too bad it was for the wrong reason.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

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