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Keith Owens and Kid Rock
Keith Owens, senior editor of The Michigan Chronicle, rips Kid Rock in a column titled: "You’re a coward, Kid. And it shows."
His comments stem from an on-stage remark by the performer Sunday at the Iowa State Fair.
Kid Rock, aka Robert James Ritchie, lit into quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49er quarterback who is currently a free agent without a contract. Kaepernick, who gained national attention in 2016 for not standing during the National Anthem before games to protest treatment of people of color.
"Football’s about ready to start," Kid Rock said in Des Moines. "You know what? Fuck Colin Kaepernick."
Owens finds the swipe spineless and writes:
Backatcha, Kid. . . .
Kid Rock, like countless thousands of white pop music (and jazz, and blues, and rock, and . . . let's just go with all of American music) performers, owes the majority of his career to the roots-deep legacy of black music.
Colin Kaepernick is a black athlete who is paying the price for openly and vocally protesting the inexcusable level of police brutality perpetrated against black people, young black males in particular, by refusing to stand with the rest of his San Francisco 49ers teammates (not including those few who kneeled with him) for the National Anthem during the 2016 season. So far this season, Kaepernick has no contract because a young black male who refuses to stay silent in the face of racial injustice is obviously considered a threat by the Pigskin Powers That Be.
During his recent Sunday night performance at the Iowa State Fair, Kid Rock, whose audience is now primarily the hyper-patriotic white country music crowd (as opposed to the urban black crowd who launched his career) decided he just couldn't resist insulting Kaepernick. Because what better way to ingratiate himself with a nearly all-white country music crowd than to jump on the white supremacy bandwagon by enthusiastically attacking the stance of a black man willing to stand up for the rights of his own people within the safe and comfy confines of (confused and mislabeled) patriots.
Because Kaepernick is the real patriot here.
The Detroit journalist ends by saying: "Naw, Kid. Expletive you."
