Matt Light: Better ways to protest than kneeling during national anthem

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Matt Light told the Boston Herald that watching the dozen-and-a-half or so New England players who kneeled during Sunday's national anthem was "the first time I’ve ever been ashamed to be a Patriot," and he expounded on that during a Monday appearance on Toucher & Rich.

"As a country, we face a lot of issues," he said. "We have a lot of things we have to do better. There are mistakes that get made, there's bad people, there's a lot of things out there, right? And as an NFL player, as a guy who spent 11 years in that locker room, I know the power that that platform creates . . . It gives you an amazing ability, if you want to try to help a situation or raise awareness, you can do it.

"But shouldn't there be some consideration as to how you do it? Shouldn't we ask of the leaders in that locker room, and the men that represent the Patriot brand, shouldn't we hold them . . . accountable for their own actions? And shouldn't we at least beg of them to consider what it is they're doing and the impact that it'll have in the greater community?"

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Light told the Herald he was at the game with a 91-year old veteran and the wife of a slain SEAL Team 6 member who was at her first NFL game. He said on Toucher & Rich:

"Now, again, I would just encourage people to say to themselves, 'Is there a better way to handle this?' And had they done that, they wouldn't have disrespected a guy like Dom Rasso, who is a SEAL Team 6 member, who I was standing next to, and also the widow of a SEAL Team 6 member who was there for her first game, and she literally cried.

"I mean, that's a shame. Because men decided that their way was more important than the other men and women in this country. And if you have something that you want to get a point across on, speak to it. Put your time and energy into it. Put your resources towards it. Do something. To take a knee during our national anthem sends a very clear message to many, many millions of Americans and it's not the right one. And they know that. Yet they chose to do it anyway. That's what I have a problem with."

Light didn't accept the arguments of former teammate Devin McCourty, and others, that the protest was against incidents of police mistreatment of minorities, and the disrespect many players -- particularly black players -- felt from President Donald Trump's remarks and Tweets over the weekend. Nor those of Patriot receiver Brandin Cooks, who stressed: "A lot of people think we're disrespecting the flag or the military, but my father was a Marine. My uncle was a Marine. My family fought in the Vietnam War. I have the utmost respect for the men and women that are fighting for our freedom . . . The message is more respect and unity and there's only so many ways that you can do it."

"This is so black-and-white and so simple. Right?" said Light. "So very 'x equals 8,' because that's the kind of a guy I am.

"The President of the United States . . . the way he does things, I don't agree with. But we all know what he was saying. We all know that he was saying that we should respect the national anthem. He never said that 'I don't like black people.' He never said, you know, 'I'm a racist.' Right? Which is what these guys are alluding to, that he must be a racist because he's saying that we should stand for the national anthem and he's trying to keep us down. Or whatever it is, right?"

That statement drew pushback from co-host Rich Shertenlieb:

RICH: What [Trump] did do, was he said that somebody who kneeled because they believed that there were black people who have been abused by the police system (as Colin Kaepernick did), that somebody like that should be fired because he did a silent protest.

LIGHT: I'm not sure how you got that.

RICH: Easily!

LIGHT: If he said that they should be fired . . .

RICH: He did!

LIGHT: . . . for taking a knee, which he did say, I'm not sure that you . . . all the other stuff you implied in that is something that . . .

RICH: Well, why did Kaepernick take a knee? Why did Kaepernick take a knee?

LIGHT: Listen, I don't know. Because Kapernick didn't go much further than taking a knee. He talks about racism and police violence and all these things, right?

RICH: He spoke at length about why he took a knee.

LIGHT: Right, right, right. So, and he took a knee for those things, right? And that was his decision to do that. I don't know why Devin McCourty and the rest of the guys took a knee, because I haven't seen them take the time to really articulate . . . As a matter of fact, only a few of them talked about it after the game. Again, I just encourage people to understand what's really at heart here. The President wasn't trying to subdue or keep people from taking some kind of a stand on what they believe in. Nobody does that. America stands for that. That's what we are as a nation. To have to say it's about free speech is a little ludicrous because we understand that we have free speech.

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