Colin Kaepernick is still fighting – for justice and for his football career

This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. Ten years ago, quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem before a San Francisco 49ers game, protesting police brutality against Black people. He said he wouldn't stand to show pride in a flag for a country that oppressed people of color. Within days, he was the most talked-about athlete in America, and after that season, he never played another NFL game. Kaepernick later filed a grievance accusing NFL owners of colluding to keep him out of the league and later reached a settlement. He went on to found the Know Your Rights camp and a publishing company and co-created a Netflix series with Ava DuVernay about his childhood. He became a father, and through all of it, he kept training for another shot at the NFL, a shot that still hasn't come. Over the last decade, Colin has given very few interviews. Now he's written a memoir. A memoir called The Perilous Fight, and it begins not with the protest against the anthem, but with Colin as a Black child, adopted by white parents and growing up in a predominantly white town, learning about race and ways that would shape the rest of his life. Colin Kaepernick, welcome to Fresh Air. Tanya, thanks for having me on. Very excited for the conversation today. Well, Colin, I'd like to actually start where you begin in the book. You are eight years old. You are walking home from playing with friends. You are drunk on the freedom of being a kid in the summer, and you spot this group of middle schoolers inside of someone's open garage, and you decide to walk over. And can I have you pick up and read from there? Yeah. I stopped short, and the three boys stared back at me. They were all white, like almost everybody in Turlock. The boys exchanged words with each other. Then two of them sprinted towards me. The other one went off deeper into the garage. My heart jumped as they grabbed me around my arms. Hey, what are y'all doing? They pulled me toward a large rose tree that stood next to the house. The third boy reappeared from the garage with a rope in his hands. With my back pressed against the tree, they started wrapping the rope around me. It was happening so fast, I didn't understand. All three were laughing hysterically. I began to panic, and then cry. The threads of the rope, coarse and itchy, bit into my arms. Why are they doing this? Stop, I cried out, hot tears streaming down my face. What are you doing? I thought these kids were my friends. Why are they trying to tie me to a tree? Please stop, I shouted, the tears now clouding my vision. I felt thorns pressing into my back through the t-shirt I was wearing. Go back to Nigeria, n****! One of them spit out. The other two giggled in response. Just then, one of our neighbors drove by, a white man who lived on the street. He looked down the corner. "Hey, what are you kids doing?" he said, slowing down in the middle of the street with a curious look on his face. My captors took off running, laughing the whole time. - Thank you for reading that, Colin. You know, the start of a book often tells us a lot about the greater story that we're about to read, and kids, for better or for worse, don't often tell their parents everything they experience. And for you, a Black boy adopted by white parents, you seem to instinctively know this was something you could not tell them. What made you unsure that they wouldn't have your back? - I think the experiences that I had up to that point in my life. At a young age, I knew how teachers were engaging with me and the response there. I saw how the community would engage with me, I saw how people would treat me when I'm by myself versus when my parents were there. And I also knew that our house wasn't one that talked about race or talked about issues or problems more broadly. And again, instinctively, as a Black boy, I didn't think they would believe me. I didn't think they would have my back in that moment because I hadn't seen that show up in that way. And I think it's one of the things that, I knew I had to get myself together before walking in that house. I went and got cleaned up, came downstairs and went about the day like nothing had happened. But it was a moment that also shaped and defined me. - You write about your parents that you understood they loved you. That was not a question, but that there was only so much Blackness that they could stand. What did that look like in your house? - It showed up in relation to how I dress, the music I listened to, my hairstyles, who I looked up to and admired. Just culturally, there was a pretty consistent tension and clash there, just as far as who I was, being a young Black boy and what they thought was best being two white parents coming from Wisconsin. And my parents very much took the approach of, "Hey, we're gonna treat all of our kids the same or treat all of them equally." And I think the intention behind that is right. But the reality is how I have to navigate the world as a young Black boy and how they need to think about how they show up for a young Black boy is drastically different than what my brother and sister would need as far as support. - You know, one of the striking things that you write about in the book are your experiences with Black people in this mostly white town. What were your experiences with the small number of Black people that you would encounter? - Yeah, well, I would say the part that I was navigating is culturally, how do you show up? As a young Black boy within a community that largely doesn't have Black folks in it? And where do you get guidance? Where do you get mentorship from? And I saw that from other Black folks in the community in different ways. You know, some of my teammates, their mothers being ones that are looking out for me and giving me guidance and support while we're playing sports. It showed up as friends and teammates giving me guidance in relation to navigating hair and some of the politics around that. But also more broadly, as I'm getting older, understanding how to navigate police, understanding how to navigate situations where you may be targeted, understanding how racism shows up within a community. Those are things that I had to learn outside of my household, and I'm very proud of that. - You were naturally an athlete from a very young age, an optimum athlete. And it sounds like sports kind of became your escape. Is that a good characterization? - It did become a escape in many ways. It's not to say that those issues don't still arise there, but one of the things that I always appreciated about sports is it became a reality. It became much more difficult for people to approach things from a subjective lens. Sports is very, you won or you lost, you did your job or you didn't, you scored a touchdown or you didn't, you completed the pass or you didn't. And having that level of definitive clarity that people can't manipulate to say, "Oh, you aren't good," or "You aren't capable," it becomes much more difficult when things are so objective. And I will say, particularly with football, culturally, there were more black people within football, so I got to have more of that sense of community around it. - Okay, Collin, it is August, 2016. You're with the 49ers, a pre-season game at home against Houston. And you're not even playing because you have gone through some surgeries. You're in a sweatsuit on the sidelines. And the anthem starts. Take me to that moment. What was happening in the world and what was happening in you? - Yeah, August, 2016. I had, at this point, I had played in the Super Bowl, had played in the NFC Championship game back-to-back years. I've gone through this process of educating myself on black history, on systems. on the politics of black culture. And that had been going on for years. And then alongside that, we also are in the wave of seeing very viral and very visceral instances of police killing black folks. We had seen this with Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner. But leading into the 2016 season, we see Mario Woods in San Francisco. We see Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. We see Philando Castile in Minnesota. And having all of that history, all of that context, to be able to put those moments into a systematic. issue led to the moment of when the Star Spangled Banner played. I didn't stand up for it because I didn't believe in the propaganda that the U.S. ultimately is putting out. The treatment of black people and the systems that have been built to continue to oppress black people and people of color more broadly. That's not something I was okay with. And I wasn't going to show pride in those things. There are systems that are continuing to kill us, continuing to target us and hold us back and discriminate against us. And to your point, at that point, I wasn't playing. I was coming off of injuries. But that ultimately led into the moments that followed that became the much broader conversation of the protest that I think most people are familiar with. Right, right. Taking the knee. Okay, so for years, the story. of how the knee came to be has gone like this. You were sitting during the anthem, as we just talked about. A former Green Beret named Nate Boyer wrote you an open letter. Then he came to San Diego, sat with you in a hotel lobby. And the story goes that he talked you into kneeling instead as a way to respect the military. And you even said as much at a podium that night that as you and another teammate, Eric. like Reed, had talked through this with Boyer, you came to taking a knee. But in this book, you tell a different story. Tell me what really happened. Yeah, the background of taking a knee came from after I first sat and had the conversation with Steve Weiss after our third preseason game. And that became national news around the fact that I was protesting. Right. Right. To remind people who Steve is. Steve Weiss is a reporter for the NFL Network. And he saw that I wasn't standing for the Star-Spangled Banner and pulled me to the side and asked me about it. And that is ultimately where I detailed out why I was protesting, the intention behind it. And that led to the national conversation around the protest before our next preseason game. Eric Reed, who is one of our safeties for the San Francisco 49ers, pulled me aside and he was like, hey, can I talk to you? I agree with what you're doing. I want to be a part of it. And he was like, what if we go out and take a knee? We do it on the sideline. And we do it right there with our teammates. Now, on the back of that, the San Francisco 49ers had asked if I would meet with Nate Boyer. And I was like. I was like, yeah, I'll meet with him. That's fine. I'm open to perspectives. I'm open to hearing people out. We gave him the insight that we were going to go out and protest by taking a knee that night. He was like, oh, I think that's a great idea. But the idea came from Eric Reed. Now, as part of that conversation, Nate Boyer also told us he was going to go out there and protest with us and take a knee with us, which is ultimately why we're here. Why he was on the sideline during that game. Now, right before the Star Spangled Banner was going to be played, he came over and told us that, you know what, I can't protest with you. I took an oath and ultimately ended up just standing there. And that was really the extent of the back and forth or engagement with Nate. I'll say disappointing to see him walk back like that. So it gave us some insight as to what to expect moving forward and how people would take this as a moment that could be used opportunistically. So I actually had a playlist that was put together by my wife, at that point, my partner, Nessa. And it was a mix of some of the revolutionary songs throughout history, but also intercut within that were speeches, speeches from Malcolm or Ali or Huey or, you know, Angela Davis or Stokely Carmichael or Kwame Ture. And those being, those being intermixed, one just gave a, gave a great reminder of the purpose and intention and the seriousness of the moment. And also making sure that the preparation that I have stepping out onto this field, how I perform is no longer going to be just a conversation of my performance. How I performed on the field was going to be tied and I think wrongfully so, but would be tied to how the protest and the legitimacy of the protest and issues that the black community were facing. That was going to be so closely linked that I knew I had to go out and perform and play well, regardless of how I performed. Regardless of what the circumstances were, because it had a much bigger impact than just whether or not I played well in that game. You know, you, you've got a beef with the media. And I wonder what, what upset you the most about the coverage back then? I would say the, the coverage overall, I think, was used to detract from the actual issue of addressing police killing black people. I think it was also how it showed up. I think oftentimes was very disingenuous. No, we're talking about police brutality. We're talking about the issues directly in our community. And a lot of the narrative is, well, are you disrespecting the flag? Are you disrespecting the military? Is this the right form of protest? Should you be doing it a different way? Should there be a different approach? And oftentimes, a missing piece of this was actually the intention behind the protest. And the thing that we had repeated over and over again as to why we were protesting. And I think that was a part that was frustrating to have to navigate. I will say there were some phenomenal journalists and phenomenal people within the media that were steadfast in covering this true to form in relation to our goals and objectives, and also calling out some of the broader manipulation within the media. I think that was a part that was frustrating to have to navigate. Because throughout the 2016 season, I'm having to speak to the media three days a week as a quarterback. Any reporters that wanted to come in and speak to me had the opportunity to do so. And I'm explaining the protest over and over again. And Eric Reid is explaining it over and over again. So it became less so of what the intention was. I had continuously been reaching out to teams. We had put out workout videos. I've released directly through my channels that I want to play and want to continue. And really what that became is a way to try to manipulate people to say, oh, you shouldn't care about this because he doesn't care about it. And that's just demonstrably false. I love playing football. I am passionate about it. I was actively seeking and pursuing my career. But I also didn't see the need to sit down in an interview and explain that I wanted to play football when I had been saying it and showing it in all of the other ways. Our guest today is former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Colin Kaepernick. Ten years ago, as a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, he took a knee during the national anthem to protest police killings of Black people. He was out of the league by the next season and later filed a collusion case against the NFL and settled it. He's the founder of the Know Your Rights camp and started a publishing company and an AI literacy company. And in 2021, he made a Netflix series with Ava DuVernay about his childhood called Colin in Black and White. His new memoir is called The Perilous Fight. In your efforts to get back into the NFL, a lot of it seems to be from an outsider. One of the stipulations for you actually coming into the fold again is not necessarily your silence, but maybe your silence about these things, to just play. We did see teams, and the Seattle Seahawks were one that came out and said this more explicitly. Are you going to take a knee before they brought me in for a workout? And more specifically, they asked, will I stop taking a knee? And when I wouldn't commit to that, they canceled the workout and it didn't happen. So there was a goal of trying to incentivize my silence or use that as a way to be able to get me to accept an agreement for my silence. But that wasn't something I was willing to go along with. I think I can be phenomenal at my job and help a team win and also speak out to try to create a better society and better environment. Now, I also want to say the response from the NFL and the positioning of a lot of the conversation is also a little bit mind-blowing to me. Just looking at it from a fundamental level of, hey, we want to stop police killing black people. And the NFL had an issue with that being said. I want people to just pause and take a moment and think about that. Why would that be an issue for anybody to say we want police to stop killing black people? And as I was protesting, I also was not protesting the NFL. The NFL had inserted themselves in the conversation and had taken a very clear stance and position. And I want people to understand that as well because the NFL revealed who they were and their intentions and also where they sit politically in that moment. And I want people to understand that as well. Simply by saying we want police to stop killing black people. Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league was wrong for not listening to players and that black lives matter. What would it take for you to believe him? I would need to see their practices as an organization actually change. The marketing and lip service doesn't move the needle. And the commissioner, Roger Goodell, only came out and said that because there was a group of high-profile NFL players that explicitly called him out in the wake of the killing of George Floyd and said the NFL needs to take this position and called out Roger Goodell specifically. So he said that in the same vein, during that time period, the NFL is still blackballing me. The NFL is still targeting Eric Reid. It's still targeting Kenny Stills. Still targeting Albert Wilson. Players that have been protesting. So while they said it on the surface, their practices actually were otherwise. Also, the opportunity and leverage to be able to do work directly into the NFL in communities and create systemic change, the NFL has significant leverage there to be able to actually affect that. And they largely have not done that. So for me to actually believe what they are saying and what he is saying, I would actually need to see that show up in practice and not just in words. You mentioned all of those players who have stood up in protest. And you're not the first athlete even when you're in the NFL. And you decided to make that step to come to this understanding about the country and your place in it or really the institution that you're a part of. I mean, I think we can even take it outside of sports. But for a lot of black people in this country, it's like, yeah, of course it's racist. But that's beside the point. I'm going to get my American dream anyway. And you actually ran into that in the league. Players who knew exactly what you knew, they agreed with you. But they did not or they felt like they could not join you in solidarity. Do you see where they were coming from as well? I understand the perspective. I just, I don't agree with the approach. And I think when you you collectively put communities and the black community in a position where we are typically socioeconomically disadvantaged, often low to moderate income communities. And that has been done systemically. When you create opportunity where an individual has a moment to create significant wealth, I understand why players are like, this, this isn't going to come again. I'm going to get mine and I'm going to take it as far as I can. And I understand that. I also think there's a broader perspective at play that you should be able to do that and still fight for the benefit of your community. And I think the broader perspective is if this becomes a collective movement and a collective action, there actually isn't a whole lot that they can do to help. There's a whole lot that they can do outside of being supportive, in particular with the NFL being 70% plus black. And if players didn't step on the field, if players collectively boycotted, there is no NFL. Their bottom line, the financial structure collapses. And that is a extreme source of power for players that I think largely has been untapped and unutilized. Yeah. I mean, one player told you, I want to protest, but I need to ask my owner. And what came to mind when you heard that, that phrasing in particular? It was mind-blowing, candidly. I did not think, I don't think in my lifetime I would hear a black man say, I need to ask my owner for permission. I think it speaks to the mentality that the NFL tries to breed, though, which is be obedient and we'll give you opportunity. Do as we say and you'll be rewarded for it. If not, we'll try to take away what you have built your lifetime towards earning. And, again, I understand players trying to navigate this and say, you know, I'm supportive of it in theory, but in practice, I'm afraid to lose what I have. And I think the dynamic of players being afraid to lose what they have, That is an environment that the NFL has created. My guest today is former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. We're talking about his new memoir, The Perilous Fight. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is Fresh Air. This is Fresh Air, and today I am talking with Colin Kaepernick. His new memoir, The Perilous Fight, traces the experiences that shaped him before his protests during the National Anthem made him a national figure. This book actually pulls back the curtain on some of what you're talking about, about the inner workings of the NFL, the things that fans never see. And one of the, oh my gosh, the section that you write about, the NFL scouting combine. For people who don't know what that is, what is it? So for people who aren't familiar with football and the process. The NFL scouting combine effectively becomes a consolidated interview process, and I put that in air quotes, an interview process for NFL players. Now, what people see publicly is typically the last day that players are at the NFL combine. Normally you're there for three days. You're there for three and a half to four days. The first three days of the event or of the combine are all things that I think people would be very surprised by if they ever had to go through. That is everything from you're doing interviews, you're walking across stage in your draws. Your compression shorts, yeah. A lot of. A lot of parallels there to slave auction blocks. Also has no influence on your ability to go out and perform and do the job of playing football. But the interview process, it is well documented. I mean, through that process, players have been asked, are you gay? Is your mom a prostitute? After 2016. How do you feel about Colin Kaepernick? Why would they need to know that stuff, your sexual orientation or what your mother or father did? How does that impact play? Exactly. And also, it goes more broadly into labor laws. In a normal interview process, you would never be able to ask any of those things. That would be an immediate lawsuit. But the part that comes into play is, well, the NFL knows and understands the impact coming out of the NFL combine is ultimately going to be where you get drafted. Do you get drafted in the first round, second round? Do you become a free agent and no one drafts you? So players are doing everything they can to try to get drafted in the best position possible. Now, as part of that, you have typically call it 21 to 23 year olds walking into the NFL combine. And it's young men hoping to realize their dream. Right. And they're asking to jump through hoops and do things that they should never have to do. But in that moment, you're like, I'm so close to realizing my dream. Like, whatever I have to do, I'll get through it on the other side. Like, I know I'm right there. And I think that is the leverage that is held over them. Doing normal interviews around football, like, yeah, amazing. Like, that should happen. And that makes sense. But the other dynamics that show up within the combine, I think those are more a space of setting the tone for players to be obedient. As they step into the NFL. Devil's advocate on this. The NFL is a business. So do you also feel like it comes down to, is it good business sense to have a person who is a protester, to have a Colin Kaepernick or several Colin Kaepernicks on teams really speaking out, speaking truth to power in this way? Is it a distraction? Is it a distraction from the main business model? I love this question because this is one the NFL had tried to push for a great deal of time. And speaking to the business side of it, when I first started protesting, my jersey went to number one. It was the best-selling jersey in the NFL. And that speaks to how people viewed the process. I mean, you have to look at a lot of different ways that people viewed the process in the NFL. You have to look at a lot of different ways that people viewed the process. And we say, well, that actually isn't enough proof. We also saw this in 2018 with the Dream Crazy campaign with Nike. And that overall campaign was really the first moment that we saw on the corporate side of an entity like Nike taking a stance and saying, no, we support all of these communities. And we support the work they're doing to support the community. And we support the work they're doing to change society and also create a more equitable society. And doing that partnership, launching that campaign was something at that point in time that was viewed or deemed as extremely controversial. And what came out the other side of that was Nike's valuation increasing by over $6 billion. So the argument that this isn't good for business is actually counter to facts and the reality. What I think is important in it is communities and consumers are also looking at corporations now and saying, do you actually align with my beliefs? And if not, we're not going to support you. If you're just joining us, my guest is former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick. And we, have talked back and forth on this and we we would avoid our kids playing football at at all costs and i say that because we we now know the impact of it um now if we if we had a son that was adamant on playing we i don't think we would let him play contact football until he was much older um because at least from the studies thus far yeah um not until high school because at high school you you start to get into the space of you would have to get ready for college you'd have to get ready to go beyond if that that's ultimately what you want to pursue but the the younger years of football i mean they're again at least the studies that exist today show significant impact you on their brain in particular because their brain is still developing colin you've just described a business that treated you as a product withheld information about your own body and then made an example of you and you still get up at 4 30 in the morning to train why why do you still want to play i still love the game of football i am a competitor in that regard and i know i have the capability to play the last time i stepped on the field and the reason that i'm not on the field today is not because of my ability to go out and perform is because the political beliefs and the maintaining of power by the nfl and the nfl owners i'll also say i know i cannot control the decisions that they make but what i can control is how i respond to those decisions and how i prepare in the dedication that i have to something and i think that for me extends beyond not just the opportunity to play in the nfl and play football again but also who i am as a man and who i am as a person and i want to make sure that i am doing everything i can to make sure that i am to fulfill uh fulfill that responsibility and fulfill that dream and passion of playing football the other part is the nfl tried to send a very clear message that if you protest police killing black folks if you fight for a better society and better uh community we're going to try to take your career from you and i also don't accept that that is going to be the end outcome of this and we'll do everything i can to make sure that i change that narrative at the same time there is a reality where you may not ever play professional sports again and does writing this book kind of mean you you've accepted that because i i got that sense as well no i i don't accept that um i understand the the scenario and i understand the the reality of where we are at today um but i am not at the point of accepting the fact that i will never step on a field again i don't think that's the case um or at least the actions that i'm going to take is going to do everything i can to make sure that that is not the case now are there decisions on the nfl side that would have to be made to open that door absolutely but i know as far as the things that i can control i am going to do what i can to make sure that we bring that about colin kaepernick thank you so much for this conversation oh thank you so much this has truly been a pleasure colin kaepernick's memoir is called the perilous fight tomorrow on fresh air danielle brooks she's best known for her roles and orange is the new black as tasty and in the broadway revival of the color purple and its movie adaptation as sofia we'll talk about growing up in the church where her mother was a minister and her father a deacon brooks also sings some gospel music during our interview i hope you can join us to keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews follow us on instagram at npr fresh air fresh air's executive producer is sam brigger our technical director and engineer is audrey bentham our engineer today is adam stanishevsky our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by phyllis myers and marie baldonado lauren crinzel theresa madden monique nazareth thea challoner susan yakundi anna bauman and nico gonzalez whistler our digital media producer is molly cv nesper roberta shorrock directs the show with terry gross i'm tanya mosley