Just in time to chase one more big NFL paycheck, Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest is done.
So much for the cause he once called “bigger than football,” and so much for the anger he once had toward a flag that “oppresses black people and people of color.” On Thursday morning, according to ESPN, Kaepernick, who spent an entire season either sitting or kneeling during the national anthem, no longer planned to protest, and was done being a polarizing figure in the ongoing national struggle against police brutality and racial injustice.
“Kaepernick no longer wants the past method of protest to detract from the positive change that he believes has been created, per sources,” ESPN’s Adam Schefter wrote.
Kaepernick has endured plenty, drew criticism and hate, death threats and jersey burnings and had every inch of his life dissected. And his stand to draw attention to injustice deserves praise. But let this be a caution to every activist athlete in a nation with deep racial fissures: When an athlete takes the protest path of most resistance, putting themselves and their livelihood on the line as Kaepernick did, walking away has painful consequences both for the athlete and the fight.
Backlash is inevitable, because Kaepernick took on a hallowed symbol, and the current optics open him to ample criticism.
It’s when he’s in the market for a new contract that Kaepernick is perfectly fine putting on a more palatable face, being a hypocrite and pretend protester. His bold actions sparked a stunning movement against racial injustice late last summer, but now he forsakes that movement, refocusing on the football future he once claimed did not matter.
None of this undoes any of the good Kaepernick did, the $1 million he donated to multiple causes, or the Know Your Rights camp he ran for kids. But it’s hard not to notice the timing of the end to Kaepernick’s protest.
Just one week before the opening of free agency, Kaepernick wants to comport himself like every other athlete, content to fight behind the scenes instead of being the face of the racial injustice war. The man who galvanized so many minorities tired of seeing innocents die in police shootings is suddenly no more, but the new Kap is an easier sell to the NFL. The game of football is more important than the rules he himself set forth for his protest.
For all the good Kaepernick did, for all the athletes and youngsters he awakened to activism over the last few months – like the 11- and 12-year-old Beaumont Bulls, a Texas youth football team that had their entire season cancelled for kneeling – he obviously didn’t understand that this might cost him his money. He spent a season kneeling upon the softest of fields, kneeled upon $14.3 million, but he was never the second coming of Muhammad Ali or Tommie Smith and John Carlos, men who sacrificed their wallets for their causes.
It’s not that we didn’t know this protest would end sometime, either. It just wasn’t supposed to end with its central figure betraying all those who justified and emulated his actions. For months, Kaepernick’s critics contended that his method, a nonviolent anthem stance, was somehow a problem, but his supporters confidently responded that such criticism selfishly missed the quarterback’s point. On Thursday, Kaepernick’s decision was painful poetic injustice for his supporters, his critics’ “method of protest” language transformed into his escape route.
This was supposed to end with at least signs of real change, because those were the conditions Kaepernick himself set forth back in September.
“I don’t want to kneel forever,” he said then. “I want these things to change. I do know it’ll be a process and it’s not something that’s going to change overnight. But I think there are some major changes that we can make that are very reasonable.”
Did those changes really happen in these last few months, when Donald Trump landed in the White House and briefly instituted his so-called “Muslim ban”? With I.C.E. teams hauling illegal immigrants out of the country? If we hold Kaepernick’s view of the country to the standard he himself set, then apparently these are part of positive “major changes” for a nation trending toward recovery.
Except none of this looks like recovery. It only looks like a quarterback who could no longer carry the burden of his cause, who could no longer endure, perhaps because he never realized how arduous this fight truly was.
Kaepernick understood how to be resolute and obstinate for racial injustice, understood how to donate million dollars to worthy groups, but did he ever understand the depth and nuance of this cause? Because he never voted in a pivotal election, a scary example for the next generation, and he briefly defended the totalitarian legacy of the late Fidel Castro, just months before the United States would be battling against a slow totalitarian death of its own.
And that’s because Kaepernick was always a privileged child playing at protest, and now, that child wants his allowance. Now, the child realizes the battle against racial injustice isn’t easy, so he’s done, leaving the likes of LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and Malcolm Jenkins to lead the charge while he chases one more contract.
Not that NFL personnel people are buying any of this. Said one veteran personnel man: “Too little, too late now. Sounds more like ‘damage control’ by his agents to try and get him another contract.”
Just in time to abandon those who worked so hard to justify his national anthem protest, that’s exactly what this is.
