The point of Colin Kaepernick’s protest was to get the nation talking about race – something the US has rarely done with much civility. The uncomfortable conversation, he said last year, would be a start toward positive change.

For a few days, this past week, it seemed he had succeeded. When Donald Trump unleashed his fury on NFL players who followed Kaepernick’s lead in taking a knee during the national anthem to highlight racial inequality, the ensuing reaction launched such talk. If half your favorite football team is on their knees, linking arms with the team owner, the chances are you will at least ask the question: Why are they doing this?

And that leads to a talk.

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But as the days have gone on and Trump has continued to smell political capital from the players’ newly discovered social justice voice, the tone of the national dialogue has changed. It has gone from being discourse on a racial inequity to a loyalty test of patriotism. Rather than an opening for people to see the world through others’ eyes the player protests are becoming a red-white-and-blue talking point across cable news America.

The call for a conversation is being squeezed into a muddled discourse on American values. This week the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced a program they call Huddle up America, which has the promising-sounding mission of using the symbolism of a football huddle, with white and black players alike discussing the next play, to “improve race relations and drive social progress”. To promote this, however, the Hall covered their campus with 800 American flags.

The Hall called the flag display “a sign of unity to bring all Americans together,” but given the way the flag has been used this week as a way to shout down any discussion about race it’s a curious symbol of a national hug.

What’s unfortunate is that Trump’s bombast last weekend seemed to galvanize the NFL behind Kaepernick’s plea. Football is by tradition a controlling sport. Coaches have long demanded full compliance from their players. Of all sports it is the one where dissent is most discouraged. Any voice that strays from the echo of the weekly buy-in to the game plan is deemed a distraction. Nothing in the football world is worse than being a distraction.

It was extraordinary that players, coaches and owners linked arms and willingly submitted to a protest that deviates from the gameday routine, especially for something that strays so far from the league’s militaristic pregame displays. The moment should have shocked Americans into the long overdue chat about race that Kaepernick was asking everyone to have.

Instead it has turned into a giant wave of a flag.

The irony in the patriotic blowback to the protests is that many of those who express disgust with the players are the same ones you see in the stadium lugging their nachos to the condiment stands while the anthem plays – their weepy nationalism lost in the fight to keep 20oz Bud Lights from wobbling off a cardboard tray. Somehow their moral outrage is only limited to those men who actually listen to the anthem before a three-hour battle from which they could emerge on an ambulance stretcher.

Somehow on Sunday, the NFL players need to return the conversation to Kaepernick. Rather than let America see their linked arms and assume this has something to do with 800 flags on the Hall of Fame’s grounds they need to turn the dialogue to the racial inequalities Kaepernick was trying to address.

If not his stand will be in vain and the division Trump has tried to create will be the winner.