If I am driving along the road and someone cuts me off, I decide to shoot him the bird. He pulls over and we discuss. He says, how dare you shoot me the bird? I say, I wasn't shooting you the bird, I was letting yiu know I dont like your unsafe and selfish driving. He says, you weren't letting me know you don't like my driving, you were just being rude SOB. I say, well, I am using a gesture that you might call rude, but I see it as communication of a deeper point, that you drive badly and cut me off, so therefore it's not rude any more. Who's right?
Answer: they are both half right, but mainly they are both half wrong. What is happening is I communicated what I thought about his driving BY shooting the bird. It's one act with two meanings. One is "you drive badly" and yhe other is "screw you." I used one meaningful act as a vehicle for the other.
Of course the decision to protest during the anthem is a vehicle for a deeper message. But that doesn't alter it's own nature as a gesture with its own meaning, and a meaning that, like shooting the bird, is well established to communicate not only displeasure, but disrespect. Anyone who can't see this is simply half right.
Now the locking arms in unison during the anthem to show unity in the face of Trump's divisiveness is not really disrespectful in the same way. But the helmet wearing was. People have a pretty good idea how to interpret various gestures. There's no reason to act like all the protesting has been respectful when some gestures clearly speak otherwise.
