The entire Dallas Cowboys team linked arms and knelt down together before the national anthem on Monday night, a rebuke to Donald Trump’s endless ramblings this weekend about how NFL players should conduct themselves before games.
The video shows the team, with owner Jerry Jones and head coach Jason Garrett, linking arms and kneeling down before the national anthem. They were met with boos.
Crowd erupts in boos as owner Jerry Jones and entire Dallas Cowboys team kneel live on Monday Night Football pic.twitter.com/jT6dJZOTWS
— Ω (@6upsidedownis9) September 26, 2017
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Despite the negative backlash inside the stadium, the display put on by the united Dallas Cowboys did two positive things.
First, it showed that the team – as well as management and ownership – were in solidarity with other players that have chosen to kneel down during the national anthem to protest racial injustices in America.
Second, since they chose to do it before and not during the national anthem, it took away Trump’s most common attack line – that players who kneel during the national anthem are unpatriotic.
On Monday night, the Dallas team showed that they stood firmly against Trump’s vulgar rhetoric, but they did it in a way in which their critics could not paint them as unpatriotic.
The only question that remains: Why would anybody boo that?
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
