Colin Kaepernick, the former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, is unemployed. The flavor of this NFL offseason was every pundit, reporter and former player weighing in on whether Kaepernick is blackballed or is simply not talented enough to be picked up. I believe the former, but not for the reasons you might think.
On the surface, the league is blackballing Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem, played at the beginning of every NFL game. A sizable contingent of NFL fans perceive Kaepernick’s high profile actions as unpatriotic. The Baltimore Ravens looked into signing Kaepernick this summer, but a deluge of negative fan mail quickly put that rumor to rest. Why would a NFL-caliber quarterback entering the prime years of his career with tens of millions of dollars in earning potential on the line do something as un-American as protest the flag?
“Ultimately it’s to bring awareness and make people realize what’s really going on in this country,” Kaepernick said in an August 2016 interview. “There are a lot of things going on that are unjust, people aren’t being held accountable for. And that’s something that needs to change. This country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all. And it’s not happening for all right now.”
Colin Kaepernick kneeled in 2016 to protest police brutality against black bodies and to use his platform as a high-profile professional athlete to spread awareness for the cause of Black Lives Matter. Maybe we knew this a year ago when the whole drama began, but somewhere in the last year, the meaning behind Kaepernick’s stance was lost. Headlines transitioned from The New York Times’ Sept. 1, 2016 article, “This Time, Colin Kaepernick Takes a Stand by Kneeling” to the “roundup of protests from around the league” that SB Nation published last week entitled “Michael Bennett sits during national anthem, others protest in Week 1.”
It is the centering of the action; kneeling, raising a fist or linking arms, that creates a disconnect between why the players are protesting and how their protesting is perceived. In a recent Sports Illustrated MMQB video, fans were surveyed on Kaepernick's protests at preseason games. Their opinions predictably ran the gamut, from calling Kaepernick a hero to saying he is un-American. One notable response involved three women leaning towards the latter pulling a complete 180-degree switch upon learning the reason for Kaepernick’s protests.
It’s easy and convenient to blame the media for covering Kaepernick and the growing number of NFL players’ protesting in a way that obfuscates the purpose of their protest. Certainly in the infinite world of online sports journalism, where the only barrier to entry is a wifi connection, there are trash articles. That ignores the excellent work of publications like the MMQB, which recently interviewed two NFL players -- Anquan Boldin and Malcolm Jenkins -- on the motivation for their protests.
In the end, the disconnect between player and fan serves the NFL’s interests by discouraging high profile athlete activism and underscores the need for Kaepernick’s brand of protest. Kaepernick is using his platform to speak for those who traditionally haven’t been heard. It’s on the media to relay that message and it’s on us as fans to open our ears and listen.
Bird's Eye View: Drowning Kaepernick's activism in punditry
