Vice President Pence portrayed his walk out of Sunday’s game between the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers as an of act patriotism.

Pence’s remarks followed President Trump’s lead in trying to make the NFL players’ national anthem protests of racial inequality in America about patriotism instead of race.

Most Americans, however, see it differently. In a YouGov/Economist survey conducted earlier this month, 66 percent said that NFL players choosing to kneel during the playing of the national anthem is “a matter of race” compared with 34 percent who thought it was “a matter of patriotism.”

But this debate about whether the NFL’s #TakeAKnee protests have more to do with race or patriotism misses a more important point. American patriotism has always been racialized.

Read on, courtesy of The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/10/13/is-white-resentment-about-the-nfl-protests-about-race-or-patriotism-or-both/?utm_term=.f2d536604a82.