On September 2, Colin Kaepernick, quarterback of the San Fransisco 49ers, sat during the pledge of allegiance before a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said in an exclusive NFL interview after the game. Many other football players have decided to join Kaepernick, including Denver Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall. While Marshall was supporting Kaepernick, he lost two endorsements, CenturyLink and Air Academy Credit.

Now some of you may be thinking, ‘Why did he sit down?’ Well, for one reason our nations song is actually quite racist. The author of the Star Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key, was a slave owner. Also most people think that there is just one verse in the song, but actually there are four in total. The third reads:

‘No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.’

The hireling and slave are the British and the slaves they hired so they can actually have freedom. It doesn’t seem like much has changed since then. There aren’t segregated bathrooms or drinking fountains anymore, but racism still exists in several other forms. For example, when muslims pray on their prayer rugs, other people step on the rugs, tell the person who is praying to go do that somewhere else and even call them terrorists (even though ISIS has nothing to do with Islam). It doesn’t have to be just people of color that get discriminated against.

Because of Kaepernick’s action, there has been outrage and rejoice. Many other players, including the Denver Broncos’ Brandon Marshall and two players of the Patriots, Martellus Bennett and Devin McCourty. Kaepernick plans to sit during the anthem until he believes that the race war is solved in America.