Deadly Silence

I remember the significant outcry in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem, protesting racial injustice. The nerve of an athlete using his knee to desecrate our beloved anthem, many said. Last year, a video showed  a police officer planting his knee on George Floyd's neck, suffocating him to death. The victim was a troublemaker, said many of the same people irate with Kaepernick. This year, one of the rioters storming the Capitol, bending over if not quite kneeling, used an American flag pole to beat a police officer nearly to death.  The rioter was protesting the results of an election. The response I heard  from a vast number of “patriots" was an eerie, haunting silence.    ​