At the party conventions this summer, viewers were treated to an extraordinary amount of flag waving as the candidates wrapped themselves in red, white and blue. From barbeques on the Fourth of July to the obligatory election references to the founding fathers, Americans are not afraid to demonstrate their patriotic spirit.

There is perhaps no part of American society more openly and often excessively patriotic than the National Football League. Fighter jet flyovers and American flags the size of stadiums are regular features at games. This culture of national pride is what made San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the national anthem last Friday so shocking. According to an Aug. 29 NFL media article, Kaepernick claimed that “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” He continued, “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.” According to an Aug. 27 New York Times article, Kaepernick has claimed he will continue to sit in the future, until he believes that the United States is free from institutional racism.

Kaepernick’s desire to protest police brutality is laudable. Institutional racism continues to terrorize people of color in this country, and the evidence is very clear that police disproportionately target minorities and are more likely to treat them more forcefully. According to a Justice Department report released after the killing of Michael Brown, “African Americans account for 85% of vehicle stops, 90% of citations, and 93% of arrests made by FPD officers, despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson’s population.” And Ferguson is not an anomaly; Harvard professor Roland Fryer, Jr. found that police from across the country are more likely to use nonlethal force of all kinds against black civilians, according to a July 2016 study for the National Bureau of Economic Research titled “An Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force.”

However, while Kaepernick’s cause was just, I am skeptical that sitting during the anthem was a philosophically good way to protest. Rather than sending a message that police brutality is unjust, it simply dishonors a symbol of the nation. According to a Sept. 2 USA Today article, Kaepernick has said that he is not “anti-American.” Yet when Kaepernick claims that pride in a racist country is wrong, he implicitly claims that being proud of an American identity is itself racist. I find myself unable to agree.

Should my friends take down the national flags that adorn their dorm rooms? My Indian friends come from a country with a caste system decried by human rights groups. I would not ask them to remove their Indian or Hindu symbols from view. Likewise, I strongly disagree on moral grounds with Israeli policies in Palestine, but I am loathe to say that my Israeli friends should no longer be proud of their Israeli identity. It is impossible to name a country that lacks forms of inequality or oppression toward some group of people. This is in no way an excuse to be uninformed or apathetic towards the suffering of oppressed groups.

Attending a Black Lives Matter rally does not necessarily mean that one is anti-police. Protesting police brutality by vandalizing a memorial to fallen officers, however, is clearly anti-police. The latter method of protest is worse than the former because it desecrates a symbol only loosely related to the issue. Kaepernick’s protest is similar to the latter. The American flag and anthem are symbols which reflect both the positive and negative aspects of the nation’s identity. There are some identities of which it is not ethical to be proud of. For instance, if I were born in a country I believed to be, at its very core, fundamentally unjust, it would be fine and even preferable not to stand for the anthem. Yet, to me, the United States is not convincingly that country. According to a June 23, 2015 FiveThirtyEight article, 48 percent of white southerners in 1972 would not vote for a qualified black nominee for president, compared to six percent in 2010. Although racism certainly pervades the country on certain levels, I doubt that most Americans believe racial inequality to be one of the core principles of the nation. Instead, Americans as a whole tend to cherish values such as human rights, including racial equality, and constitutional limits on power. Perhaps this was not the case when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised fists in a black power salute at the 1968 Olympics, but it is the case today.

There are far better methods to protest the specific policies that countries have. As a famous, important quarterback, Kaepernick attending a Black Lives Matter rally would have generated press and awareness of police brutality. Beyoncé’s use of black panther imagery during her Super Bowl performance was a good example of making a point without disrespecting American symbols, which Beyoncé herself has respected in the past — most notably singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at President Barack Obama’s 2012 inauguration. Kaepernick, on the other hand, decided to not stand for his country’s anthem. This sort of protest will not change minds across the aisle. In fact, it feeds into the far right, white nationalist narrative that people of color are not patriotic and do not cherish the values of the United States in the same way. Fixing race relations and ensuring racial equality should be viewed as a patriotic activity, as great civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. did. At Lincoln University in 1961, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The American dream reminds us that every man is heir to the legacy of worthiness.” If Kaepernick wants to make his protest an act which changes minds, rather than one of personal catharsis, he should not force a choice between the American flag and racial equality.

Patriotism can often be confused for nationalism, the sentiment of superiority used to excuse wrongdoing and deflect responsibility when the one’s country is not in the right. Patriotism can simply be viewed as love of country, rather than blind pride in it. Nationalists stand for the anthem but deride figures like Beyoncé for being divisive and hurting the image of their country. They are the ones who erase the negative aspects of American history from classroom textbooks. To a patriot, love of country means standing for the anthem and working to fix its flaws. These two should never be viewed as mutually exclusive. A citizen who loves their country should feel pride in its strengths and a deep drive to correct wrongs. Football games, in particular, are a time when people of different ideologies and beliefs come together for a shared passion. Rather than dividing the nation, our athletes should try to bring us together to celebrate the values we all cherish.