San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler stated Friday he’ll refuse to take the sector for the pregame national anthem “going forward,” following the bloodbath at an elementary college in Uvalde, Texas.
“I don’t plan on coming out for the anthem going forward until I feel better about the direction of our country,” Kapler advised reporters Friday earlier than the Giants performed the Cincinnati Reds.
Kapler elaborated in a weblog submit revealed Friday on his web site. In the submit — titled “Home of the Brave?” — he appeared to blast the police response to the bloodbath in addition to the U.S. gun foyer and the political established order.
“We elect our politicians to represent our interests. Immediately following this shooting, we were told we needed locked doors and armed teachers. We were given thoughts and prayers. We were told it could have been worse, and we just need love,” Kapler wrote.
“But we weren’t given bravery, and we aren’t free,” he added. “The police on the scene put a mother in handcuffs as she begged them to go in and save her children. They blocked parents trying to organize to charge in to stop the shooter, including a father who learned his daughter was murdered while he argued with the cops.
“We aren’t free when politicians resolve that the lobbyist and gun industries are extra essential than our kids’s freedom to go to college without having bulletproof backpacks and lively shooter drills,” Kapler wrote.
In the post, Kapler admitted that he “felt like a coward” for standing for the national anthem before his team’s game against the New York Mets on Wednesday, a day after an 18-year-old killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
“But I’m not okay with the state of this nation,” he wrote. “I want I hadn’t let my discomfort compromise my integrity. I want that I may have demonstrated what I realized from my dad, that while you’re dissatisfied along with your nation, you let it’s recognized by protest. The dwelling of the courageous ought to encourage this.”