Colin Kaepernick Reflects on a Decade of Activism and His New Memoir, 'The Perilous Fight'

by Brittany Delk

"If we see an issue collectively, we're all watching the same things, at what point do we have to understand we're seeing it and we take action - and for me seeing it and knowing it and not taking action, that's a reflection of your character. And to me that's not the man that I wanted to be. That's not the man I believe myself to be and that's not the person I want to be for my community," Colin Kaepernick said.

The former NFL quarterback and civil rights leader isn't letting another year go by without setting the record straight in his new memoir, "The Perilous Fight."

Perilous means full of danger, risk or great hazard. Kaepernick chose the word to describe his experience of racism since childhood, his search for safe spaces to be Black, and the uproar he faced for kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 as the quarterback who had led the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII.

The past 10 years, he says, have been full of questions: Why did he protest, and what got him there?

He wanted to protest systemic racism, police brutality and the killings of Black people. According to The Guardian's "The Counted" project, at least 258 Black people were killed by police in 2016.

That July, Alton Sterling, 37, was pinned to the ground by two Baton Rouge police officers outside a convenience store where he sold CDs. After a physical struggle, officer Blane Salamoni opened fire and killed him. No state or federal criminal charges were filed against the officers, though the city reached a $4.5 million wrongful death settlement with Sterling's family.

The next day, Philando Castile, 32, was shot and killed in Minnesota by St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez. Castile had told the officer he was legally carrying a firearm, and Yanez fired when Castile reached for his pocket. Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, streamed the aftermath live on social media. Yanez was later acquitted of manslaughter.

Kaepernick began protesting the following month, first sitting and then kneeling during the anthem. The silent protest drew intense backlash and a national debate over patriotism and free speech in sports. After the 2016 season, he never played in the NFL again.

One of the driving forces behind his fight is his wife, Nessa Diab, who gave him a Malcolm X book. That sent him deep into revolutionary literature and toward a sense of "where he is positioned in society."

"Having a strong partner with you on your journey is so important. It is something that I've seen people try to use as a negative like, oh, Nessa is the one who gave you the autobiography and radicalized you and all these things. And, I'm like one, I was facing a lot of this beforehand and she helped give me context and insight. You should want your partner to make you better—that's what a relationship should be. And, she continues to make me better. I hope I make her better and help make her better in this journey together."

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Kaepernick stopped in Atlanta on September 19, one of many cities on his book tour. He has close ties to the area through his Know Your Rights Camp, the national youth-advocacy organization he and Diab founded in 2016.

He told the audience he was supposed to have an NFL workout in the Atlanta area, and explained why it fell apart. In 2019, he said, the league office called on a Tuesday, offered a Saturday workout and demanded a response by 2 p.m.

"My agent called me and he was like I never heard of this before—this doesn't exist. We don't know what this is but we'll be there."

Kaepernick said the NFL had never organized a workout for an individual player before. He said the league promised a list of attendees that never came, then reversed on letting media in. When his team asked to bring its own camera, he said, the league insisted only its camera was allowed.

"This is three years of them blackballing me like we just want transparency in the process. No, you can't bring a camera in—it can only be our camera."

None of that was a dealbreaker until the waiver arrived.

"The traditional waiver is an injury liability waiver. If you get hurt during the workout, they're not responsible for you getting injured. We sign those all the time, that is standard. The NFL went out and hired an outside law firm to draft a waiver specifically for me. This waived all my employment rights. They could collude against me, they could discriminate against me. Any action they took I had no recourse against them. That's the waiver my lawyers was like, 'this would be malpractice if we told you to sign this. We asked for the standard waiver and they said no.'"

The NFL disputed much of that account at the time. In a statement released Nov. 16, 2019, the day of the workout, the league said it was "disappointed" Kaepernick did not appear, and that 25 clubs were present. It said it sent his representatives a standard liability waiver on Wednesday, and that at noon on the day of the workout they sent back "a completely rewritten and insufficient waiver."

The league also said it agreed to his request to bring his own receivers, and that it first heard about his own video crew the night before and about opening the workout to all media that afternoon. It said it offered his team the raw footage from the league's video crew, calling that unprecedented, and noted that the location he chose was more than an hour from the Falcons' facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia.

The statement did not address his claim that the league hired an outside law firm to draft a waiver waiving his employment rights.

After the league's workout fell apart, Kaepernick connected with Jamaal May, an Atlanta-based sports business professional and brand manager who co-founded the Albert Wilson Foundation and serves as its executive director. May, who helped organize the Know Your Rights Camp, got him onto a local high school field for his own workout to answer whether he can still play. Kaepernick says one of the scouts in attendance reported that he was "still an elite talent."

Another lingering question on social media is why Kaepernick wants to return to the NFL. He addressed it directly.

"It's always interesting to have that conversation. If you want to continue your career, assimilate. That's really what the conversation is. Well, you can't be great at your profession and also fight for your people. I don't believe that. I don't think there should ever be a position where we have to choose…In fighting to keep my career, I have every right to be able to critique the institution as not living up to the standard and expectations that we should have for them. I think both of those exist. The final thing I'll say along that journey is understanding the messages that are being sent. If I go out and try to continue my career, I'll do what you say. I'll fall in line. What message does that send to the rest of our community? The message it sends is very loud and clear—if you want to continue your career, if you want to reach the highest levels, you have to assimilate. You have to fall in line."

Kaepernick says he is not fighting for the status quo. He points to where it has gotten the community so far and urges others to take a different approach.