{"id":975,"date":"2026-09-03T15:11:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=975"},"modified":"2026-09-03T15:11:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T15:11:34","slug":"kaepernick-and-the-movement-he-inspired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=975","title":{"rendered":"Kaepernick and the Movement He Inspired"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Next week, I will publish a piece on the 10 years since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the national anthem. But before that drops I wanted to share an adapted introduction to my 2021 book <\/em>The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee Changing the World. I still stand by most of my analysis, but I was wrong to think that the 2020 protests of athletes following the police murder of George Floyd would launch a new era of activism in sports. For both athletes and the broader resistance movements, the protests that summer were not a jumping-off point\u2014they were a capstone. My next piece is going to examine why so much promise came to an end\u2014but also why it could quickly start again. Natasha Cloud\u2019s facing down that ant-trans jackass and former NBA player Enes Kanter is just one recent exhibit of a person of uncommon courage proclaiming dissent on the field of play in the face of a whirlwind of prejudice. Please read this before you read part two.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more The Fight for Serious AI Regulation Just Won a Big Victory in Massachusetts<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014Dave Zirin<\/em>
\u2002<\/p>\n

When Colin Kaepernick\u2019s knee hit the ground during the national anthem in August 2016, a debate was launched about police violence, patriotism, racism, and the history of the anthem itself. Through his actions, Kaepernick had also forged a link with both the Black Lives Matter movement and an often-buried history of radical athletes: people like Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and Billie Jean King.<\/p>\n

Kaepernick\u2019s actions also provoked something deep, ugly, and primordial in the (white) American consciousness. They prompted a violent and highly racialized rage among a self-branded \u201calt-right\u201d of fascists being marshaled together to support the 2016 candidacy of Donald Trump. The unrepentantly divisive and proudly bigoted Trump said on the campaign trail that Kaepernick \u201cmaybe should find another country to live in.\u201d This comment, with its \u201cGo Back to Africa\u201d overtones, provoked a deluge of death threats leveled at Kaepernick in city after city during the 2016 season. Even with all that, Kaepernick was moved into the starting lineup and with the world breathing down his neck had a remarkable year, throwing for 16 touchdowns and just four interceptions, while leading the NFL in yards per carry. Then came Kaepernick\u2019s exile. A league that accepts players\u2014and owners\u2014who have abused women, driven under the influence of alcohol, and even killed people could not stand the thought of having an avowed antiracist among \u201ctheir\u201d players, even one who engaged in community service to the extent that Kaepernick did. While taking a knee, week in, week out, Kaepernick gave away more than a million dollars to the kinds of grassroots community organizations that have trouble keeping the lights on.<\/p>\n

NFL ownership, politicians of both stripes, and their media water-carriers were afraid of Kaepernick\u2019s message. They were afraid because his words were politically different from those of other athletes who had raised their voices after the police killings in the summer of 2016. His words were different because, as welcome as the outspokenness of other athletes was, they were calling for peace, whereas Kaepernick was calling for justice. Through his peaceful protest, he was proclaiming that as long as there is a gap between the values the flag purports to represent and the real world, then the fight will continue.<\/p>\n

In this regard, Kaepernick stood in the tradition of Muhammad Ali. The great Ali did not try to \u201cbuild a bridge\u201d between the pro\u2013Vietnam War establishment and anti-war activists. He took a side. He took a side in order to win a political fight against an unjust war.<\/p>\n

And yet for so many frothing members of the sports media, the same press that had praised Ali to the heavens upon his death just a few months earlier, Kaepernick was an enemy. The irony of praising Ali while bashing Kaepernick was lost upon them. Tragically, many in my profession lived up to Hunter S. Thompson\u2019s description of sports writers as \u201cchimps masturbating in a zoo cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was not just right-wingers, frothing sports columnists, and a racist president putting Kaepernick on blast. Liberals, people who ostensibly should have been supporting Kaepernick, also critiqued his actions. Their most common response to the anthem protest against police violence was, \u201cI support his goal, but not his methods.\u201d This was \u201cthe line,\u201d from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to Hall of Fame receiver Jerry Rice to quarterback Drew Brees. It was also the widely trumpeted view of then\u2013New York Times<\/em> columnist David Brooks and a host of liberal Beltway pundits. Brooks, without irony, even invoked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.<\/em> to justify his position for why Kaepernick should stop<\/em> protesting.<\/p>\n

Read more How Bernie Sanders Should Talk About Democratic Socialism<\/a><\/p>\n

As for the NFL, Roger Goodell\u2019s league exiled Kaepernick after the 2016 season. But at least Goodell supported Kaepernick\u2019s goals. NFL owners decided that Kaepernick had more value as a ghost story than as a quarterback. He was more important to franchise owners as an object lesson to haunt a new generation of players, a warning to not speak out.<\/p>\n

Despite their efforts, he has become a spirit, inspiring in 2020 a new generation of athletes to take the field of play and use it as a platform for protest. We have seen that dramatically in the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd, as an unprecedented number of \u201cjocks for justice\u201d have stepped forward, taken a knee, demonstrated in the streets, and even gone on strike to demand justice.<\/p>\n

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More from Dave Zirin<\/h4>\n