Mike Pence knew fully well that players would be kneeling in protest today before he ever attended the game. He seems to be trying to make a statement and blow up the issue by himself becoming the distraction he claims to be against. 

When Colin first began kneeling, and they tried to shame him back into the shadows of compliancy by saying that he was opposing the nation’s troops who fought and died for his freedom (“to make millions” as they love to say, because apparently that’s the only freedom that young black men can understand), thousands of those same troops came out in support of him. They were very vocal. That support systematically goes unreported, and the voices of those very troops (who also fought for the voices of those protesting the protests) have been silenced. 

Are there suddenly now no troops to support these protests?! There are no troops who on US soil have been treated worse than they have been treated in foreign countries? How many of them have escaped enemy fire abroad only to return to an inhospitable environment they call home, if not to be literally assailed and fired upon? 

Mohammad Ali spoke of it. 

Nina Simone spoke of it. 

James Baldwin spoke of it. 

And in the subsequent decades the narrative continues to be that it’s all a big black lie. 

Mike Pence should be ashamed of himself. , because not once today has he addressed the root cause, the issue being protested, only the protest itself.. 
#dontchangethesubject