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Texas youth football team, the Beaumont Bulls of Beaumont, Texas, received death threats online after kneeling during the National Anthem.

The team decided to kneel and protest racism and other injustices in America and now they are being attacked for expressing their First Amendment rights.

A player’s mother is now speaking out about the threats. April Parkerson, mom of 11-year-old running back Jaelun Parkerson, shared on NewsOne Now“This proves the point that we need to be protesting right now in America – all of us should be. Not just people of color, everybody should be.”

Host Roland Martin said, “To have Americans issuing death threats to little boys is stunning.”

Parkerson agreed with Martin, adding the actions are “deplorable.”

“Our children realize what is going on in America today,” she said.

“These kids will be voting in the 2024 election and right now is the time for them to be learning and understanding their rights, what they can be standing up for, and what they need to do to change the future of America, Parkerson said.

The football mom said that her son was “disappointed” by the threats being issued towards the team by a group made up largely of adults.

NewsOne Now panelist Rashad Robinson, Executive Director of the Color of Change, said the response these young adults have received “underscores whey protests are so important, why protests make people uncomfortable, and why protests have been part of one of the ingredients that has brought us forward.”

The activist called the actions of those attacking the youth football team online “pretty sick” and expressed frustration with the reactions the nation has seen in the past few weeks since San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took his stand.

Robinson continued, “Over the past several years, as protest movements seek to elevate and bring forward the issues” of our time, people have “turned a blind eye and pushed back and called into question people’s right to even hold accountable or highlight those issues.”  

Watch Roland Martin and the NewsOne Now panel discuss the threats in the clip above.

PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

Watch NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, in its new time slot on TV One.

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