Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan, left,
sits during the Pledge of Allegiance at Tuesday
night’s Oakland City Council meeting.
PHOTO: Rebecca Kaplan’s office |
OAKLAND CITY COUNCIL |
A week after voicing solidarity with 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his decision to take a knee during the National Anthem, Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan sat during the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of Tuesday night’s meeting.
“I feel like the degree to which people have been hostile toward Mr. Kaepernick–in his very justified stance of sitting–has been so outrageous that I felt compelled to speak out,” Kaplan told the East Bay Citizen Tuesday night.
“It is essential that we continue the fight to call attention to racial injustice, and racial profiling, and killings of unarmed black people, which is still going on,” she added.
An Oakland resident wearing a Colin Kaepernick
jersey speaks Tuesday before the Oakland
City Council. PHOTO: Steven Tavares
|
Kaplan issued a statement last week in support of Kaepernick after he sat during a pre-season game last month to protest systemic racial prejudice and police killings.
Aside from the press release, Kaplan gave no indication she was planning to sit during the pledge. She acknowledged Tuesday’s meeting was the first opportunity to do so.
Following the pledge, Oakland Councilmember Desley Brooks, who was not yet at the dais, said she supports Kaplan’s decision to sit and will follow suit during subsequent meetings. Brooks also donned a Kaepernick jersey during the meeting.
Like the uproar by some towards Kaepernick’s protest, Kaplan could face some blow back from residents who believe the act is unpatriotic. She disagrees. “The notion that someone would be upset about someone sitting instead of being upset about someone getting killed is really unjust,” she said.
“Fundamentally, the right to speak out against injustice and to make statements against injustice by staging sit-ins, or by sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance or the National Anthem, to me, is central with what American democracy is about. Not only is what he and the others who are doing this not wrong, it’s actually in the noblest of traditions of change-making in America,” said Kaplan.
The move by Kaplan is not without some political risk. Kaplan is up for re-election this November. While Kaplan’s re-election is not view as in doubt, it is likely the most competitive of the five council races this fall. “The risk that people are taking everyday of being subjected to racist violence is more important than whether it puts political risk to me.”
John Houlihan,John Redding and Lionel Wilson are spinning in their graves too
LikeLike
Elected officials take a sworn oath (see above). Why don't you try to fix the problems of Oakland. Sitting on your ASS doesn't solve the problems you were elected to address. Kaapernick hasn't sworn an oath so he has a different situation. Frank Ogawa must be spinning in his grave.
LikeLike
Elected officials take a sworn oath (see above). Why don't you try to fix the problems of Oakland. Sitting on your ASS doesn't solve the problems you were elected to address. Kaapernick hasn't sworn an oath so he has a different situation. Frank Ogawa must be spinning in his grave.
LikeLike
Kaplan has no idea what it means to be an American and his ignorance insults all of us.
The statistics from Harvard shown Blacks are shot no more often than Whites by the brave Police who try to do their job. I suggest Mr. Kaplan move to China where they actively engage in organ harvesting of people arrested for protesting or any small crimes. Then, at least, his organs would be some use to someone…and, on his way to heaven, after they “harvest” his liver and kidneys, he may start to understand what a blessing it is to live in the U.S.
Ron Cohen for Congress 2018
roncohenforcongress2018.com
LikeLike
“I, ______, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter…”
LikeLike
Clown Kaplan you need to go. You don't understand the pledge you took when you got sworn into office as city council. Read it again.
LikeLike