In the United States, different people have their own feelings towards the American flag and the national anthem.
Drew Brees, rather surprisingly considering current events, chose to express his strong stance that the flag should never be disrespected after being asked about the NFL’s response to racial injustice by Yahoo Sports’ Daniel Roberts.
It certainly angered many of his peers in the NFL and professional sports in general.
Athletes like LeBron James, Devin and Jason McCourty and teammate Michael Thomas expressed their disappointment in the New Orleans quarterback for his comments about Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protests against police brutality in 2016.
Fellow Saint Malcolm Jenkins, who played with Brees from 2009 to 2012 and joined the organization again this offseason, was so irate on Wednesday, he had to delete his first public statement on Instagram.
There was some profanity in the first video, with Jenkins calling Brees “extremely self-centered,” “part of the problem,” and essentially, oblivious or apathetic to the imposed challenges his fellow black teammates have faced.
Jenkins became emotional, most notably when the safety says he considered Brees a friend who he respected and looked up to.
“To assume that you have a perspective about the flag and what it means to you or the national anthem, and that everybody else should have the same mentality,” Jenkins said, as transcribed by TMZ, “it is just completely unaware that my grandfather’s experience is way different from yours.”
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Brees had expressed his perspective was from that of two World War II veterans. Jenkins, as relayed in his now-deleted video, couldn’t believe his quarterback could be so insensitive and tone-deaf.
“To stay silent when your peers are screaming from the mountain top that, ‘We need help, our communities are under siege and we need help,’ and what you’re telling us is, ‘Don’t ask for help that way. Ask for it a different way. I can’t listen to it when you ask that way.'”
Shortly after the first statement was taken down, Jenkins posted a second, basically getting the same point across. But in a caption, he said he’d reached out to Brees to discuss the matter before posting either video.
It’s unclear how the pair’s conversation ended.
