Sportscaster Dale Hansen of Dallas’s ABC affiliate WFAA goes viral every now and then when he says beautifully poignant things about race and social issues, and now he’s going viral again with his words on the National Anthem protests sweeping through professional sports teams.
Hansen, who is a Vietnam veteran, dispelled the notion that the protests are disrespectful to military veterans or the flag.
First, he slammed that idea that “any protest you don’t agree with is a protest that should be stopped.”
“Martin Luther King should have marched across a different bridge, young black Americans should have gone to a different college and found a different lunch counter, and college kids in the 60s had no right to protest an immoral war…”
“I served in the military during the Vietnam War, and my foot hurt too,” he continued, referring to Donald Trump’s numerous draft deferments. “But I served anyway.”
Hansen mentioned his best friend from high school who died in Vietnam and said “he did not die so that [Trump] could decide who is a patriot and who loves America more.”
“The young, black athletes are not disrespecting America or the military by taking a knee during the anthem. They are respecting the best thing about America. It’s a dog whistle to the racists among us to say otherwise,” Hansen said.
“They, and all of us, should protest how black Americans are treated in this country. And if you don’t think white privilege is a fact, you don’t understand America.”
Watch the full segment in the video below, via WFAA:
Featured image via screen grab
