ON A FRIGID February night in Chattanooga, about 20 East Tennessee State basketball players, coaches and staff made the same peaceful, if provocative, statement many others had since 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick forged the silent act of resistance in 2016. In front of a reported 1,000 fans and many more COVID-era fan cutouts, they took a knee during the national anthem.
Such demonstrations -- notably Kaepernick's -- had stirred controversy before, but blowback from the Buccaneers' simple act of defiance illuminated something different and, in some ways, more personal: a small community's fracturing as it grappled with its racist past and unequal present.