Camden Football Coach Defends Decision To Kneel During Anthem
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Preston Brown, the Head Coach of the Woodrow Wilson High School football team in Camden, defended his team's decision to kneel during the National Anthem on Saturday to highlight social injustice.
Brown spoke with Dom Giordano on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT about the decision, saying their protest is not directed at the military and police.
"We're not disrespecting the military. We're not disrespecting the police. I work very closely with the Chief of police, Scott Thompson, and some of the sergeants here in the city of Camden to make sure that I can do whatever I can from a community standpoint to support them. So we're not bashing police or anything like that. We're kneeling because we're hurt. As people of color, we are hurt. When you kneel in sports, that's the analogy, that's the connotation that we're trying to create."
He stated the issues at hand are ones that he and members of the African-American community have been confronting their entire lives.
"We're not disrespecting the country. We're very much American as the next person, but we do understand that, because of our skin color, that there are limitations. When I went to Tulane, when I was a student, I would get A's on papers and because I was the only African-American in the engineering program and I was a student athlete, they assumed that I was not supposed to be there, which is why, anybody will tell you, I always would stand up in the lecture hall, I would say my name and where I was from, and the room would go completely silent because they don't expect people from Camden, New Jersey, as I've seen on thousands of posts, oh, they're from Camden, what do you expect? That is what we're trying to overcome."