Michael Bennett on Why He Sat During National Anthem: "I don't love oppression"

Michael Bennett, like his former teammate Marshawn Lynch, sat on the bench during the national anthem at last night’s preseason game. Bennett has been a vocal supporter of Colin Kaepernick and also has written a book entitled “How To Make White People Uncomfortable.” After the game, he told Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times why he did it.

Bennett said he decided to do it spurred in part by what has happened in the last few days in Charlottesville.

"“First of all I want to make sure people understand I love the military — my father was in the military,” Bennett said. “I love hot dogs like any other American. I love football like any other American. But I don’t love segregation, I don’t love riots, I don’t love oppression. I don’t love gender slander. I just want to see people have the equality that they deserve and I want to be able to use this platform to continuously push the message and keep finding out how unselfish we can be in society, how we can continuously love one another and understand that people are different.”"

Last year, we saw a few other players join in with Colin Kaepernick in the kneeling protest. Will others join Marshawn Lynch–who said he has been doing it throughout his career (and was retired last season)–and Lynch?

"I’ve dedicated my life to this. This is what I believe in. This is my purpose. This is what I believe, to change society, to go into communities, doing organic work and just continuing to push the message that things aren’t fair.”"