As racial tensions continue to heighten across the country, Donald Trump’s rightfully-criticized comments on the NFL continue to divide an already fragmented nation.
In strong protest to Trump’s deviant statements made during a rally in Alabama last Friday, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) gave a fervent speech from the House floor Monday night and took a knee to decry the racist rhetoric she believes was interlaced in Trump’s remarks.
“We in the Congressional Black Caucus have always stood for what is right,” Lee said. During her time, Lee also made it a point to disparage Trump’s temperament and words that referenced an NFL player choosing to take a knee as a “son of a bitch,” simultaneously calling mothers of the players out of their names.
“I refuse to accept that as a standard of leadership for the highest office in the world,” Lee asserted. The Houston-based Congresswoman vowed that even if Trump continues to play to his base — often noted as racists, bigots, Neo-Nazis and white supremacists — and fails to seek true understanding of the reason behind select players choosing to kneel during the national anthem, the Congressional Black Caucus will stand in the gap, keeping racism under their foot and under their knee.
During the discourse of the #TakeAKnee protests, many have lamented that the meaning behind it has been lost on the narrative that it is a slap in the face to those who have fought hard to protect our country, while the focus should be on the injustice that Black Americans are facing on a daily basis.
As Lee knelt, she affirmed that she was doing so in front of the flag in honor of the First Amendment and as a stand against racism.