You may or may not have heard of this, but a hot topic in recent times is the American football player Kaepernick. The reason for this is because he refused to stand during the U.S. national anthem during a football game. Our fellow classmate Brenden decided to take it upon himself to write up his individual project on the media coverage of this story. Not only is it a topic which is still very much relevant in current times, but it is also one we will be writing about once we do our group project as the “Silver Tongues” which of course will give him plenty of resources to help guide us once it is time for that. However, Brenden is not only analyzing the coverage of Kaepernick. As any Silver Tongue would, he felt the need to push further and to compare it to another important social justice protest which happened some 60 years ago now. You guessed it… Rosa Parks‘ refusal to stand for a white individual to take her seat in a bus is a movement many rallied behind. At the time this was also a hot topic and although initially I am sure the coverage of her actions were mostly negative, she has become an icon for social justice in the U.S..
For this reason Brenden will be comparing and contrasting media coverage of the two events and in the near future sharing his take on this coverage. Hopefully we will have seen some progress in the way people covered the events, but I must say I myself doubt it.
One piece of advice I gave was to also perhaps bring in to the conversation the black fist salute used by African American gold medalists in the 1968 olympic games, which was also treated as disrespectful and non-patriotic. Having said this, Rosa Parks and Kaepernick already offer plenty of material for Brenden, and so I most certainly do not see this as a necessity as too many different sources of material may end up watering it down by giving Brenden less time to go deep into it. I trust he has it all under control and will provide us with an insightful comparison whatever he decides!
Thank you for your time, Good Day and Good Luck!
Signing off – Pedro Candela Terry
Media & Society 16 