Colin Kaepernick. The former San Francisco quarterback turned out to be a disappointing enigma to an untold number of NFL fans. Despite earning nearly $40 million while playing football and $20 million from Nike, “Kap” not only intentionally threw away his career; he hypocritically now blasts capitalism.
More precisely, Kaepernick believes “black liberation” isn’t “possible under capitalism.” And whose fault is that, according to the quarterback-turned-racial-activist? Two words: “White supremacists,” who else?
Kaepernick has now hooked up with “prominent Black Marxist” academics Robin D.G. Kelley and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor on a book project that defends a controversial race-centered curriculum in American schools. In an interview with The New Republic, Kaepernick defended his decision to collaborate in the editing of “Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies.”
The book is largely based on Marxist-derived Critical Race Theory (CRT) and includes radical gender theories, as well.
Kaepernick said he’s long admired the Black Marxists (emphasis, mine):
I’ve long admired Keeanga and Robin’s work as well as their uncompromising political analysis and understanding that Black liberation simply isn’t possible under capitalism.
I think the anthology makes this argument quite well, and I hope it challenges readers to see that racism is not white supremacy’s only ingredient. White supremacy persists in part because of its relationship with capitalism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and so on.
Man, he checked off a few “woke” boxes, including the ever-impressive “heteropatriarchy” — cis-heteropatriarchy, to some — which asserts a “system of power and control that positions cis-straight white males as superior and normative in their expression of gender and sexuality.”
Dude’s come a long way from simply kneeling during the playing of the National Anthem, huh?
Out one side of his mouth, Kaepernick said, “Black studies is for everyone: black students, non-black students of color, indigenous students, and white students,” while from the other side of his mouth, he declared “Black studies” is “core” to the “white supremacist political project.”
Black Studies is for everyone: Black students, non-Black students of color, Indigenous students, and white students. It is worth mentioning, however, that working to develop a sophisticated understanding of Black history and being in authentic relationship with Black people is an absolute necessity in order for white people to support the Black freedom movement without unknowingly doing great harm in the process.
[…]
Black Studies and, more generally, a critical engagement with U.S. history, threatens the white supremacist status quo. Any attempt to whitewash the past should actually be understood as a concrete step toward fascism and a desire to build a nation state where power is concentrated in the hands of a self-anointed few. That said, I wouldn’t characterize GOP attacks on Black Studies as an “obsession” but rather as core to their white supremacist political project.
Translation of that last line:
Conservatives don’t criticize CRT because it promotes a radical race-based agenda that proclaims in part that white people are systemically racist at birth, solely due to skin color, and therefore whites must not only atone for their whiteness throughout their lives but also be proactively anti-racist. Nope, as Kaepernick sees it, conservatives attack CRT simply because they’re white supremacists.
How did Kaepernick become so radicalized, you ask?
Let’s go straight to the horse’s ass mouth for the answer.
The evolution of my thinking comes from a combination of elevating my own political education by reading the works of Black radical thinkers and being in conversation with Black radical organizers. These are the types of experiences that helped to inform the work and political framework of Know Your Rights Camp, a nonprofit organization I co-founded in service of building power in our communities.
Did I mention that anti-capitalist “Kap” lives in a $5.4 million mansion in Las Vegas?
The Bottom Line
In spite of Colin Kaepernick’s stab at pseudo-intellectualism to explain his obsession with all things “racist” and “white supremacist,” he’s simply another iteration of millionaire race hustlers like Barack Obama, Jessie Jackson, Al Sharpton, Whoopi Goldberg, and Joy Reid.
As with the aforementioned race-baiting hypocrites, the disgruntled former quarterback continues to do damn fine in a system he claims is unjust.
Oops, I almost forgot: you can pick up Kap’s book on Amazon for a mere 52 bucks in hardback.