Both the pro-kneelers and anti-kneelers are doing this all wrong.
Pro-Kneelers- If your goal is to bring attention to police brutality against African Americans I don't think this is the way to do it. People talk more about whether it is disrespectful to the country and to our troops than about police violence. However, if your goal is to piss off conservatives/white people, well done.
Anti-Kneelers- It really isn't that big of a deal that people are kneeling and if you just ignored the whole kneeling during the anthem thing and didn't let it bother you it would have eventually gone away. However, kneelers saw it bothered you and felt cornered and more people starting kneeling as some kind of sign of misplaced solidarity. Fast forward two years and the guy that started this whole kneeling thing has a Nike brand deal basically because he kneeled during a song. That's on you anti-Kneelers.
How do you get real change and progress? Both sides have to look into their communties and change them from within. My family has three police officers in it so i'm not anti police by any means but whenever a police brutality incident happens don't just rally around the cop who committed the action and do mental gymnastics to find some kind of justification of why he shot an unarmed black kid. The African-American community also has to look within itself as well and ask why so many of their youth are turning to crime and how they can change that. Are African Americans getting themselves into unfortunate situations that causes them to be in conflict with law enforcement more often? Black on Black violence is at incredibly high levels, why? It's a very complicated answer but the fact that a much higher percentage of young black men grow up without a father figure/ a good male role model is absolutely part of it. Raising a kid as a single parent is tough.
It's much easier to just submit to tribe mentality and blame another group for your problems. It's absolutely difficult to look within yourself and your community and ask "What can I and the people I live around do better to minimize these horrible situation?" However, real solutions will come from asking this question. This goes for the police and the African American community at large.