PHOTO: by Mashable
Teammates Eli Harold, left, and Eric Reid, right, joined Kaepernick, center, in kneeling before a 49ers game.

Day 5 Kwanzaa

Principle #5 Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore people to their traditional greatness.

This principle calls us to the practice of building and developing ourselves in our own interests as well as in the interests of the world, seeing greatness in the good we do and share in the world.

I am not a fan of any sports. I especially am not a fan of football, for too many reasons to name here. Despite my stand on professional sports, I have become a fan of  Colin Kaepernick. He ignited a movement by sitting, then kneeling during the national anthem as a method for protesting the killings of unarmed African-American men by police.

I admire that he stood up and put everything on the line, whether I agree with how he did it or not.

Various members of the NFL and other athletes across the country, such as Megan Rapinoe, also began kneeling.

I measure folks not by the money or status they may have but how they step up and serve their community. True greatness is measured by good deeds. It’s measured by how we handle adversary, how we stand up for those with less than us and how we never leave people behind as we ourselves move forward.