Colin Kaepernick, Ten Years After Taking a Knee

0:01The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. You know, controversies in the world of sports have been making headlines all year. For months now, the WNBA has been drawn into the debate about trans athletes in sports, even though there isn't a single trans player currently in the league. And the NBA is still reeling from a salary cap scandal, broken by the reporter Pablo Torre, that's led to the billionaire Los Angeles Clipper owner Steve Ballmer being suspended from the sport for an entire year. But a decade ago, the biggest controversy in sports, and one that we're still thinking about, surrounded just one athlete, Colin Kaepernick.

0:48Is Kaepernick still looking for a job because of his stance on social issues and is kneeling for the national anthem last year? Without a doubt, I think this is a big image blow for the NFL. They have to figure out what side of defense they're on. Kaepernick had a stunning rise as an NFL star. In 2012, he won the starting quarterback job for the San Francisco 49ers and then led the team all the way to the Super Bowl, a game that they narrowly lost. On the field, Kaepernick was a dynamic dual threat. He could beat you with his arm, he could throw long, or he could beat you running down the field.

1:23To this day, Kaepernick still holds the record for rushing yards by an NFL quarterback in a single playoff game. But his considerable skills as a player were quickly overshadowed by his decision to engage in protest for racial justice. You'll remember well, he would kneel during the national anthem before games. And that gesture, that protest generated an enormous amount of backlash, with everyone from his fellow players to future presidents weighing in. Are you following that story at all? Well, I have followed it, and I think it's personally not a good thing. I think it's a terrible thing. And, you know, maybe you should find a country that works better for him.

2:08Let him try. It won't happen. And Kaepernick paid a price, a really steep price. Even as a star quarterback, after leaving the 49ers, no other team in the league, not one, would sign him. In his new memoir, The Perilous Fight, Colin Kaepernick writes that this wasn't even the full extent of the league's efforts to punish him. So I sat down the other day with Colin Kaepernick to talk about how he feels about football now on the eve of a new NFL season.

2:44You were such an all-around athlete as a kid growing up. Yeah. Why you chose football over all the others? There is a camaraderie that's built in the huddle and on the field. That you don't have in baseball. You don't have in baseball. You don't have in basketball. Because especially as a quarterback, your physical safety is dependent upon 10 other people doing their job. It builds this sense of camaraderie and dependence on each other. And you loved it. And you love that element of it. Like there is a brotherhood there. because you know what's at stake, you know what's at risk there, but you go out and you put the work in to be able to accomplish that goal together.

3:31And it was hard to find that anywhere else. And football was also culturally very different for me. How so? There was a lot more black players. For me being a young black boy adopted into a white family, predominantly white community. You needed that. I found community in football. And that was also an important element for me. And that seems to be the heart of your origin story, Colin, if I can. Yeah. That to be adopted by however well-meaning white parents, but who were also making mistakes all the time of language, of intent. And you set these out really beautifully in your book. And you have to teach yourself in some way blackness in a way that was not there in the house and kind of in a way teaching yourself.

4:30Tell me about that process. Yeah, it's an interesting process because one of the important pieces for me is I think sometimes people assume there was a journey to find my blackness. And I just don't view it that way. How do you see it? I knew I was black at a very young age. Gotcha. You know you're black. Right. Society tells you you're black. Like, my parents were very open and transparent about that. Like, that wasn't a secret. Where the evolution comes from is putting your experiences as a young black boy into context of larger black society and black history that you don't receive in your own household.

5:19And for me, largely in Turlock, there were no black mentors. I had a few, but most of them were coaches. Tell me about the town you're growing up in. You're where? Turlock, California, where I grew up, Central California. I also tell people when you think about California, normally I think California like Blue State. So you think of L.A. or San Francisco. Central California is red. So very different environment there. But I think Turlock at that point in time was somewhere, I think it was between like 1 % and 3 % black. so black community black population not significant so for me i had to figure out how to be able to navigate these situations these circumstances without really having a guide and getting older and later in life and then being exposed to literature like malcolm x and Baldwin and Fanon and Huey Newton and Angela Davis.

6:23Like getting a broader perspective helped put my experience growing up into context, but also helped put it in a broader context of black community and black history that was important to get me to understand systems level thinking. How do you mean by systems level? So think about that in relation to when we talk about policing. Oftentimes there's a positionality of, oh, this was a one-off instance or like this was one bad action by a police officer. As opposed to looking historically of policing coming out of slave patrols, the original intention of policing. Why policing shows up much more significantly in black communities than white communities.

7:11the relationship and engagement that black communities have with policing, how that feeds into the prison industrial complex. So having a broader perspective around it gave me the insight to understand better why situations and circumstances were happening as opposed to being like, oh, you know what? That one interaction, like that was a bad moment. That shouldn't happen. Interactions that you experienced as well? I mean, being pulled over, having police come in our house in college because neighbors called that a bunch of young black men were robbing a house while one of my teammates was moving out.

7:50Literally, one of our teammates graduating and were helping move some of his furniture. Now, at this point, we had been in this house for over a year. So it wasn't like the neighbors didn't know us or hadn't seen us before. Right. So you deal with circumstances and situations like that. And there's definitely awareness of broader conversation of the black community's relationship with police. But at that point in time, I didn't have the larger understanding or systemic understanding of policing and the intention behind it beyond. Hey, they're going to target you. You need to be prepared for it.

8:28How about the institution itself of the NFL? You entered the NFL, which in a way, people talk about the monoculture, what's left of the monoculture. It doesn't exist anymore in music, which is more fractured or movies or anything else. The one thing all television networks want now is the NFL. It is the most galvanizing entertainment that this country has at this moment. You can see it in dollars and cents. Yeah. When you entered the NFL, did you experience racism in the NFL itself or was that an escape from racism in greater society in some way?

9:06Both. It's a complex dynamic because in some regards, you're able to have the benefit of being with other players. NFL is approximately 70 % black. So you have community in that regard. By the time you are in the NFL, most players have significant salaries. You're making significant money well beyond the average. So you then reach a different class status that gives you different privilege associated with it. How political were you in the beginning when you got into the NFL? And how much, if at all, did you talk politics with other players? Politics writ big. you know, in the broadest sense. Yeah, I would say you talk about it, but for me, I didn't have, I didn't have the broader perspective around it.

10:02So you see it show up in relation to, and we talk about this in the book, it shows up in the combine of, you know, the treatment of players. Explain that, because this is very strange. Oh, it's... The combine is where prospective players go to show their not only how fast they can run or jump to catch a ball, but also they strip down and display themselves. Yes. So the combine is what the public sees is the on-field performance, the drills, the throwing sessions, all of that. But it's actually a three to four day event. and a lot of it is you do have moments where you're walking across stage in your compression shorts and they're taking photos of you as part of that which there's there's an understanding that this is has parallels to slave auction blocks like there's there's no reason for us to walk on stage and does this occur in any other sport?

11:09not to my knowledge not to mine either And it, there's quite literally no relevance to it for the ability to perform the job. Did the players talk about that in the moment or is it only in kind of retrospect that you now think back and think, wait, that was really sick? Players know it in the moment. And what do they say? I mean, it's one of those things that as a college player, at this point, you're probably somewhere between 21, 23. You've worked your whole life to get the opportunity to play in the NFL. You know this is wrong and you have an understanding of like, this doesn't make sense. Why is this even happening?

11:59but in the moment that you're about to get drafted do you raise that and be like no I'm not doing that for you and potentially hurt your draft stock or capital do they then say oh this guy is undraftable he's rebellious he has an attitude problem bad attitude he's not coachable doesn't listen well not a team player those are the euphemisms Yeah. Is it racial often? Oh, oftentimes. Yeah. Which really ties back to you're not obedient. Right. And that – within that also comes the interviews as part of the combine where a lot of the interviews that I had and they're well-documented publicly, they're not asking you questions about your ability to play football oftentimes.

12:56There's questions about players' sexuality. Are you gay? There have been questions about players and their mothers. Are they prostitutes? Wait a minute. Are you gay? Is your mother a prostitute? Do you get questions like that come at you? Oh. I mean, post-2016, players got asked, what do you think about Colin Kaepernick? What is the purpose of that? 2016, the year that you protested. Yes. Police racism and so on. So really trying to get a gauge of – now, mind you, all of these are illegal questions to ask in a labor engagement. But to me, those are questions designed to be able to understand like is this player obedient?

13:45Are they going to conform? Are they going to be compliant to what we're asking of them? and do I feel like they're going to act in our best interest at all times? And I think the reality for players is you know those things shouldn't be happening, but you're also in a position that's like, well, two, three months from now, we're going into the draft and we're going to decide where you get drafted which has direct impact on dollars that you're going to make. And if you don't get drafted, you go back to your hometown and figure it out. I'm speaking with former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick.

14:38We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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17:29Follow or watch Cold Call wherever you get your podcasts. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I'm speaking today with ex-NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick. Now, as any fan knows, reaching the pinnacle of professional football is incredibly difficult. Even a storied career as a college athlete is hardly a guarantee of prolonged success in the NFL, just as Tim Tebow or Johnny Manziel. For Colin Kaepernick, there was yet another hurdle he had to overcome as a pro ball player. Deeply entrenched attitudes about race and even the position of quarterback. Let's continue our conversation.

18:15Colin, I'm 15, 20 minutes older than you are. So when I was growing up, black quarterbacks weren't around. I mean, Warren Moon came along and it slowly, it changed. And, but it was, it was exceedingly rare, even in college. And I wonder how that affected your psychology as a, as a quarterback. How did that figure into things that the particular position that you play, the leader position on offense? So there's, for me, one of the mentalities that I have is you have to break boundaries. And we saw instances of this happening, to your point. Warren Moon, Donovan McNabb, Randall Cunningham. Doug Williams.

19:02Mike Vick, Doug Williams. We see flashes of this and we see the success. But the abilities were always called into question of black quarterbacks, in part because the quarterback is viewed as essentially the CEO. And the question is, should your CEO look like this? Do they have the capability? And there's always a question on the intelligence of black quarterbacks. We see that consistently show up. They'll get all the accolades on physical ability and athleticism and being gifted or being a monster or a beast. But when it comes to intellect, it's never the same adjectives used for white quarterbacks.

19:57They're never described as a student of the game or a field general or a coach on the field. Those are white descriptions. Yeah. You'll get those for white quarterbacks. Black quarterbacks will not be described that way. Historically have not been described that way. even though the intellectual abilities are still there they just have the athletic abilities in addition so you have as we're as you're developing it at the at the niners you you've got a political part of your head you've got a football part of your head and then you have this explosion in terms of your career in like out of seemingly out of nowhere i got to tell you as a pretty casual fan, but oh my God, who's this guy in San Francisco?

20:42And then the next year you're in the Super Bowl. You had this really explosive, um, and at the cost of somebody else's injury and you, you appear and have these games where you're throwing 250, 300, 400 yards in the air and running and it extraordinary. How explosive was your political development or radicalization and calling it what you will. What's happening in your mind as we're leading toward 2016 that you're becoming in some way a different person as well as a different level athlete? Yeah, I look at both of those as preparation and putting the work in. The same way on the football side in 2012, people like oh you came out of nowhere like your your 10th start is in the super bowl like how did this happen where did you come from years an overnight sensation yeah exactly and it's like no this has been this has been years and years of work and preparation in showing up as if i'm the starter even when i'm not in that position and i think similarly on the political side is putting in the work to make sure that I am prepared to be able to take the actions that I need to to be successful in that space.

22:11And that's everything from reading the literature we had talked about, from Malcolm to Baldwin to Fanon to Angela Davis and some of the black radical and revolutionary tradition. But also, in doing that, I was auditing graduate classes at Berkeley. What were you taking? What were you reading? The one class that I remember specifically was a class around decolonization and looking at it from a global perspective. And I was spending time on Berkeley's campuses. I was in these classes. I was doing my own research and studying. I was doing work directly in communities. And this is before ever taking a knee in 2016 and protesting.

23:00And again, I think it's similar in the sense that people are like, oh, well, this came out of nowhere. Like, how'd this happen? It's like, no, this has been happening. Yeah. It just wasn't in your face or in the public eye. Because to me, I feel like you have to do the work. And I think one of the pieces that ties back to this is even in 2012 on that Super Bowl run, one of the pieces that came up as part of that, going back into having a black quarterback, was there was an article written after my second or third start in taking over that, I believe it was David Whitley, wrote an article that was like, the primary question was, do you want the CEO of your team to look like he just got paroled?

23:49You're black with tattoos and you don't fit the mold of... He wrote that. Yes. And that's part of where in 2012 in the lead up to the Super Bowl, that's where Kaepernick came from, which was a touchdown celebration. Really me saying, I love my blackness. I love my tattoos. Like you're not going to try to make me feel like I shouldn't be in this position because of that. Why I think that's important is I was trying to push back on those narratives then, but I only had an understanding of it from an individualistic perspective of, oh, you're directly attacking me. The later understanding is, no, you're not attacking me.

24:36You're attacking the idea of someone like me in this position. and you're trying to remove the opportunity and the pathway for other black quarterbacks to be in this position by trying to denounce me in this position. And that goes back to like the systems level thinking and think about it from a collective perspective as opposed to just the individual one. Why did you decide in 2016, I've been sitting on the bench for a couple of days, nobody seems to notice during the national anthem, I'm going to take a knee. Which people would notice and did notice in the most various and sometimes hysterical ways.

25:17So tell me about why you made that decision and what you expected to come out of it. Yeah. So when I first started sitting in 2016— This was in the preseason too, right? This was in the preseason. and at that point in time, we had seen a wave of killings, a continuation of wave of killings of black people. We saw this with Mario Woods in San Francisco. We saw it with Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. We saw it with Philando Castile in Minnesota. And the conversation that was being had more broadly is we have to do something about this. and putting that in context with the work I have been doing on understanding systems, when I walked out on the field and they asked us to rise for the Star Spangled Banner, I had a realization of, well, why do I take pride in this?

26:24When historically this country has discriminated against black people, we're seeing black people being killed by police with impunity and if we go further into the star spangled banner it talks specifically about no slaves shall escape um essentially slavery and it was a moment of well why are we taking pride in this like we need to have a different pathway forward. We need to address this. We need to build safer communities. The actual gesture itself, the one that it reminded me most was John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968, I think it was Mexico City Olympic Games. They came in first and third in the 200 meter dash and then stood on the victory platform with bowed heads, wearing black socks and gloves in a racial protest.

27:22yeah was that in your head that that moment or something like it why did you decide to kneel so we we started taking a knee um after the third preseason game and you say we um yes so i think it's an important context in this because the first three games i've been sitting by myself. That guy identified by Steve Weiss. And he asked me why I had been sitting. Steve Weiss is? He's a reporter for the NFL. And he asked me why after the game. We had a conversation. And that led to broader coverage around why I wasn't standing for the anthem. And on the back of that, we were going into our next game down in San Diego.

28:10And this was our last preseason game. And Eric Reid, who was our first round draft pick out of Louisiana, a safety. He was also someone that I constantly competed with in our early morning workouts. But he was like, look, I'm from Baton Rouge. I care deeply about this as well. I want to join you and I want to be supportive in it. Would you be open to us taking a knee? Because they're saying you're distancing yourself from the team, because it's a way that we could be up front and center. There was a broad narrative around disrespect around the approach of protest, which I think is always a distraction from the actual issue.

28:58But it was a way that we can continue this. We're going to try to continue to grow and expand with that and make sure that it's very clear that the work that we are doing is trying to bring awareness to the issues directly in black communities. Were you disappointed that more teammates didn't do it along with you? Yes. Were they scared? Yeah. What did they say to you? I mean, I had players that came back and were like, oh, I talked to my agent about it or I talked to my family about it. We had players across the league. I remember one which this is a little bit of a mind-blowing like playing this back is a little bit of a mind-blowing conversation I had one player that came back and was like my owner told me that I can't protest my owner and I that was an unfathomable sentence to me anybody call you up owner commissioner saying cut it out?

30:09What kind of pressure did you get? They wouldn't explicitly frame it that way. But it would be like, well, have you thought about doing something else? Have you thought about... I bet you have. It was always a passive-aggressive, like trying to redirect, which is interesting because I think the part that stands out to me and really the NFL told on themselves in this situation is I wasn't protesting the NFL. Like there was no point in time that was like, the NFL, you are the ones doing this. But their reaction was, oh, we have to make this stop. We're going to take an oppositional position. They aligned themselves with Donald Trump in the process.

31:08Donald Trump, who, of course, was running for president that year. Running for president. And made you a campaign issue. Tell me about that. Yeah. And NFL owners did fundraisers for him, raised millions of dollars. And he had Robert Kraft lying on Air Force One with him. Who owns the Patriots. Who owns the Patriots. You had Jerry Jones, who owns the Cowboys. There was a reported phone call that was like Trump saying, this is a winning issue for me, essentially fall in line. Colin, I got to ask you, and remember, it is now 10 years after the fact, so maybe it's a little less fraught. Michael Jordan was once asked about why he wasn't more political.

31:52And he said, you know, Republicans buy sneakers too. Yeah. Which is a very different approach than Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, Tommy Smith, and a lot of NBA players too.