Letters: High school team's protest - disrespect or social awareness?

ISSUE | SOCIAL PROTEST

A disrespectful display

I was saddened to read about the Woodrow Wilson High School football team's protest before its game in East Camden, led by the head coach ("Wilson team takes a knee for anthem," Sunday).

I served in the military, as did several members of my family. My father served 25 years.

I used to attend all of Wilson's games and supported the team, win or lose. I understand and support the coaches' and players' rights to express their beliefs. There are better ways of showing their feelings than disrespecting our flag. How many of them have lost family and loved ones defending our country?

It is really great that they can show their feelings in this country as they did. I wonder what would have happened to them in some other country. They can stay in school and get an education and come back and help their friends and family improve their lives.

I applaud the two players who saw the error in the protest and stood for the anthem. And I ask the coach whether this was the way to repay the community for all it has done for him.

|Ray Bowman, Edgewater Park

Student-athletes knew the score

Sports columnist Phil Anastasia's criticism of Woodrow Wilson High School football coach Preston Brown added another voice to the tone-deaf choir that chooses to believe peaceful protest by people of color is an egregious act more worthy of attention than the racial injustice that spurs such protest ("A time and a place for protest," Monday).

Anastasia made it clear that he would have preferred Brown to ask his players to stand for the national anthem, and that black student-athletes are not old enough to understand the complexities of the oppression they protested.

The student-athletes attend a Title I, criminally underfunded high school named after a racist, segregationist president. The students know what they mean when they kneel, far more than they are given credit for.

Brown was right to enable his athletes and give them a model of a peaceful, First Amendment exercise.

|Lauren Boyle, Philadelphia