If you take offense at seeing Colin Kaepernick kneel during the national anthem, this is for you. If you believe Jemele Hill deserves to be fired for calling the president a white supremacist, this is for you. If you find something wrong with people protesting against the American status quo, this is for you. If you think you know why anyone is taking a knee in the first place... then this is definitely for you.

You are entirely wrong - this is not about you. This is not about your president. This is about us. This is about the future we believe in. We do not take a knee because we hate this country, because we hate white people, or because we are “snowflakes.” We take a knee because if we do not, nothing will ever change.

America, you love to talk about the veterans. The veterans served and died for our freedom; the veterans served and died for our country. What the veterans did not serve and die for, however, is for you to invoke their sacrifice every time you want to invalidate the beliefs of those who disagree with you. When Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the national anthem, public backlash entirely misconstrued his action. Instead of acknowledging an act of defiance against injustice, you labeled him as ungrateful of the service of our Armed Forces. Refraining from standing during the anthem is not a rejection of the values our servicemen and women fought to uphold; it is an affirmation of the rights granted to us by the Constitution, especially freedom of speech. True patriotism is not pretending the nation is perfect as-is, but acknowledging its imperfections and working to change them. The patriotism that denounces kneeling and protesting is naught more than a facade. In the same vein, people who claim to truly love this country offer nothing more to it than hats over their hearts, Confederate flags, and middle fingers to anyone who begs to differ. Your issue with kneeling has nothing to do with the veterans’ sacrifice, your love of this country, or the principles of our Constitution. Protesting is a bold threat to systemic racism and oppression in this nation, and you want us to sit quietly and accept the hand this nation has dealt us since the days of the Columbian Exchange.

If this nation’s Pledge of Allegiance is the truth, then America stands for liberty and justice for all. Those who fought to protect America fought to protect equality and fairness at home. Our veterans truly believe in this, and that’s what they are willing to give their lives. Equating their sacrifice with your intolerance for others is disrespectful, and ultimately misses the point of our protest entirely: peaceful protest is not a rejection of the American flag or those who gave their lives to protect it, but a healthy use of our rights to call for change where change is due.

Our issue is neither with the anthem itself, nor the nation to which it belongs, but with the fact that you are using it to hide what’s really got you mad. You sing the anthem proudly, but have you ever, for even a second in your entire life, stopped to consider its meaning? If you sing about letting freedom ring, but deny that same freedom to entire groups of people, your patriotism is no more than a masquerade. You don’t love this country; you love yourself. You love people who think like you. How could the same lips that sing “land of free” also hurl “snowflakes,” “sons of b**ches,” and n-words? You love the flag, “so gallantly streaming,” but you hate the “hireling and slave” with every fiber of your being. The mere thought of us rejecting the “gloom of the grave” threatens you and the world you live so comfortably in. Let’s face it - you sing the anthem not for love of this land, but out of complacency with the way things have been since the very day of this nation’s inception.

You’ve been so busy covering your ears with your palms that you’ve never stopped to wonder why we protest in the first place: the values you glorify with your anthem are not preserved for all citizens. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are reserved only for the whitest, most Christian; everyone else is a second-class citizen. We live in a country where a police officer can gun down a 12-year-old boy within seconds of arriving on the scene, without receiving any form of punishment. We live in a country where until just two years ago, not everyone could even get married. We live in a country that is perfectly fine with building walls and passing Muslim bans. When we call you out on your hypocrisy, you get defensive. Suddenly, we are the oppressors. You couldn’t give half a crap about racism until you feel it’s going in the “reverse” (it’s not). Religious freedom doesn’t register in your mind until the liberals, with their “gay agenda” try to take it away from you. For centuries, we’ve sung along to the song of those who are happily complicit with our oppression. Now, however, we’ve had enough, and the only lyrics that we will sing are the ones we write ourselves.

We take a knee. We take a knee because standing for the anthem is to agree with and validate your blind, hateful patriotism. We take a knee because you happily rallied together to elect a president who openly hates us and anybody unlike him. We take a knee because you refuse to even acknowledge our humanity. We are the “criminals,” the “thugs,” the “illegals,” the “terrorists,” and the “f****ts” whom you think deserve to live in your shadow. You’d rather see us learn to hate like you than see us band together, arm-in-arm, to stand against you, and you’d rather see us bow our heads in defeat than hear us tell you that frankly, we don’t care anymore.

We take a knee, and we will continue to take a knee until we receive the rights we deserve. We won’t stop at just taking knees - we will continue to volunteer in the community, and we will continue to carefully choose where we spend our wallets. We will continue to lobby for legislation, and continue to vote against you. We will continue to run for public office, and we will continue to oppose the injustices you have long imposed upon us. We won’t stop taking a knee, even if you wisen up and let us stand. This is not about you. This is not about your president. This is about us, the people who refuse to let hatred and intolerance limit them any longer. This is about the future we believe in. America is changing, and we don’t care if you get left behind.