Source: Miami Herald / Getty
L ast year was a year of many movements— from Hollywood’s old guard falling to seemingly endless sexual assault allegations that started with Harvey Weinstein, to Colin Kaepernick taking a knee to protest racial discrimination.
The Time’s Up movement continued last night at the Golden Globes, and the conversation that Kap ignited continues today, with The New Yorker‘s latest cover. It features an illustration of civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King Jr. kneeling and locking arms with Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett and Kaepernick. Kap and Bennett can be seen looking straight ahead, while MLK holds his hands together with his head down. The cover was designed by San Francisco based artist Mark Ulriksen, upon wondering, “What would King be doing if he were around today?”
The protests started while Kaepernick was a San Francisco 49er, and Ulriksen remembers arguing about them with his mom.
“This is 49er country, and my mom and I have been going back and forth—she’s upset that players have brought politics into sports, but I say, How would you feel if you had to show up at work every day and salute a country that treats Black people like second-class citizens? I’m glad that Colin Kaepernick and Michael Bennett are making it political. I’m sure that if King were around today, he’d be disappointed at the slow pace of progress: two steps forward, twenty steps back,” he told The New Yorker.
The cover’s title, “In Creative Battle,” also draws inspiration from King’s 1964 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech where he “mentions creative battle to end the long night of racial injustice.”
Bennett has never been the silent type when it comes to issues that plague the league —and neither has his brother Martellus—which is why he decided to sit during the National Anthem ahead of the first game of the season.
