Uncomfortable? It’s supposed to be uncomfortable.

After the death of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake, protests in professional sports continue. The NFL is no different.

Wednesday afternoon the Milwaukee Bucks were scheduled to take on the Orlando Magic in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Playoffs.

They never took the floor.

The players, like much of the nation, is grappling with another incident of police violence directed at a Black man, filmed for the world to see. In Kenosha, Wisconsin, just forty miles or so outside of Milwaukee, Jacob Blake was seen on film walking away from police officers in the direction of his car. The officers, two of them with guns drawn at his back, follow him to his vehicle. When Blake opens the vehicle, with his children inside, shots are fired. Seven. Seven into his back.

Blake will never walk again.

The imagery has touched off more protests and sadly, more violence. A summer in America that has been marked bythe specter of COVID-19, the shooting of Breonna Taylor and the imagery of George Floyd’s death continues an almost excruciating march of time. But in what direction, we wonder?

The incident hits home for Bucks players in a number of ways. Yes, there is the physical proximity to Kenosha, but this is an organization that has grappled with a situation of their own, when guard Sterling Brown was approached by police in a Walgreens parking lot on a January night in 2018. That night, Brown found himself where George Floyd would more than two years later, on his stomach, with a knee pressed into his body from above by an authority figure with a badge and a gun.

When the city of Milwaukee offered Brown $400,000 to settle his civil suit for police brutality, Brown said no. In his words, “I rejected the offer because I have a responsibility to be a voice and help change the narrative for my people. In order to do so I have to tell my story, so dialogue and conversations about police brutality can help influence and change a corrupt system. It goes deeper than me just illegally parking.”

The NBA postponed all three playoff games that were scheduled for Wednesday, and other teams have made similar moves. The Milwaukee Brewers, set to take the field Wednesday night, decided as a team not to play. Both moves came in the wake of the Detroit Lions canceling practice on Tuesday as a result of incident in Kenosha, with players and coaches coming together to demand change.

And now there is word late on Wednesday night that the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers voted to strike for the rest of the playoffs:

WNBA players proceeded with scheduled games, but paused to bring continued attention to the issues facing this nation:

Thursday dawned, and more teams, including NFL organizations, were following suit:

As with everything that happens in the modern era, battle lines are immediately drawn and people retreat to their corners on their social media platform of choice. In reaction to the decision by the Bucks, and other teams such as the Lions, to take a stand for change after the shooting of Blake, the criticism of those decisions comes along two tracks: One, “why protest like this?” Two, “what will they change?”

Inevitably, the discussion turns to the decision by Colin Kaepernick to kneel during the National Anthem. This is the standard bait-and-switch that is employed during any discussion along this path. The discussion is reframed around the decision of how to protest, conveniently avoiding the difficult discussion that lies underneath. Focusing on the how, and not the why. Debating the how is easy, particularly for those who wish to avoid the why. Make this an issue of patriotism. Of love of country, or of support for the troops, and the argument is over. Those who cannot stand for the anthem clearly do not love this country.

This is an issue that is sure to emerge, again, this fall. During the heated rhetoric of a presidential election with a candidate who has made this very issue at times part of his platform, it is inevitable that in the leadup to Week 1 there will be a barrage of tweets, again with abusive language directed at players, and perhaps even owners, should they dare not stand in line.

Not the why, but the how.

But if the focus must be on the how, the answer comes with that above tweet from Duke Manyweather, a former offensive lineman who now coaches the position privately. Duke tweeted that in the aftermath of the Bucks’ decision not to take the floor for Game 5. Protests are supposed to be uncomfortable. They are supposed to challenge. They are designed by their very nature to take those who observe them out of their comfort zone and face the starkness of what those who are protesting want them to see. To shine that glaring, and sometimes painful light, on the why.

Those critical of the stance taken by Kaepernick and others often try to soften the rhetoric on their part, and wonder why other means would not be more effective, rather than kneeling. After decades of marches and speeches, protest anthems and calls for equal rights, our nation still finds itself at this moment, still haunted and struggling to come to terms with who we are as a nation, and what we want to be. If the work of decades has yet to bear the ultimate fruit, why not try another means of messaging? After all, it got people paying attention, even if the conversation quickly circled back to the how.

Then there is the second track running alongside. The question of what, if any, “difference these athletes can make.” After all, the logic apparently follows, they’re just “highly-paid babies engaging in performance art.” They cannot generate real change.

But at the start, they generate awareness. Awareness of the underlying issues. Awareness of the why. Everyone that tuned into see the Bucks play the Magic, or tunes into the start of an NFL game, is now confronted with the why, at least for a moment. Sure, their minds might quickly turn towards the how, and question the wisdom of a player strike or the patriotism of taking a knee, but for that split moment, they are confronted with the why.

Sure, for many that will be it, a split moment in time before the attention is turned elsewhere. But for a few, that awareness will be met with curiosity, whci leads to education. Which, for maybe even a smaller few, will lead to action.

Think of what many learned in the wake of George Floyd’s death. How many people learned about Juneteenth for the first time, or about the Tulsa race riots (although for many it was the HBO series “The Watchmen” that introduced that bit of American history). If even a few are driven to learn as a result of these protests, that is change. The kind of change that is lasting, much more than a mural or a slogan or a protest anthem. The kind of change that endures. The changing of minds.

But that is not all that is happening. As we have seen over the past few weeks, and even in the past few hours, more athletes and even teams are stepping forward to actively promote change in this country. A group of athletes headlined by LeBron James have joined together to launch More Than a Vote, addressing poll worker shortages and the need to keep polling stations open in majority Black electoral districts. A group of college athletes led by Kylin Hill pushed the state of Mississippi to change the state flag, a portion of which contained the Confederate battle flag. And in just the past few days the Cleveland teams, including the Browns, the Indians and the Cavaliers joined together to promote community movements such as voting rights, law enforcement changes and education initiatives:

For many athletes, they are realizing the power of their voice, and putting it to use.

But the protests will continue, and we know what is on the horizon.

When Week 1 of the NFL season begins, these debates over how – and not the why – NFL players choose to kneel are going to rage anew. When that happens, try for a moment to think of the why. What you might find is a group of athletes trying to do something that is in fact quite patriotic. They are fighting for a more perfect union. Words of our founding, and a goal that is always just over the horizon.

They are using their voices, and their platform, to push for change.

Few things are more patriotic than that.