Now that the N.F.L. preseason has begun, some of the league’s players are again refusing to stand during the national anthem in protest of police brutality. A number of news organizations have mischaracterized the protests as “anthem protests,” and President Trump has gone further, saying they just “wanted to show their ‘outrage’ at something that most of them are unable to define .” He keeps coming back to this issue over and over.

Most of those players are black men. They have lived with the reality of police brutality their whole lives. This slander is an insult to them. But even if everyone who frames the kneeling as “anthem protests” is unintentionally making a mistake, it’s a harmful one.

The protests have always been intended to draw attention to police brutality and the economic and social oppression of people of color. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” said Colin Kaepernick, who started the protests, after a preseason game in 2016. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” Calling the protests “anthem protests” is a dishonest way to change the conversation from systemic issues that the protests have raised again and again.

The false claim that they are “anthem protests” also implies that protesting police violence is inconsistent with patriotism. In fact, African-Americans have a long history of staging protests during the national anthem because of a deep understanding and internalization of the anthem’s patriotic significance.