This black army veteran shares his very personal perspective on the NFL anthem kneeling controversy.
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00:00We're tired of being talking points, and since I've been out of the Army, I'm not one who will
00:05pledge allegiance to the flag or anything like that. As a black person and as a vet,
00:10I have a different perspective.
00:20Colin Kaepernick is talking about racial injustices. Young black men and other
00:25minorities are getting shot down for no reason. It has nothing to do with the flag, the veterans,
00:31nothing. I'm 37 years old, and I've picked cotton in my life. I picked tobacco in my
00:44life. I'm from the country in Georgia. I've been called directly to my face countless times.
00:49She was explaining why exactly he was doing it, and it made all the sense in the world to me.
01:00Racial injustice, it never was about the flag or anything like that.
01:08They were fighting for our country. They were fighting for our flag. They were fighting for
01:12our national anthem. And for people to disrespect that by kneeling during the playing of our
01:19national anthem, I think is disgraceful. He likes to use, just like a lot of people in America,
01:28they like to use vets as a talking point. We're a talking point. You say something
01:35about veterans. Yay! Everybody's quitting to support the veterans. Yay!
01:40We're loving our veterans, I think, honestly, more than ever before.
01:45But where was the support when we come back and we need help with PTSD,
01:49and we need help finding jobs, and we don't have anywhere to stay, and we're homeless?
02:08We want you to focus on real veterans issues.
02:12Getting us more pay, getting us more programs that will help find us a job, that will help put us in
02:17an affordable, stabilized house. We earn that. We're tired of being talking points.
02:34I obviously do not agree with the KKK. I'm black. All right. But I think the KKK should have the
02:41right to protest. This is America. If you don't like how something is going, you have the right
02:45to protest to try to change it. So whether I like your message or I don't like your message,
02:50and I definitely don't like the KKK message, but I definitely think they should have the right to
02:55say it.