Colin Kaepernick Blasts NFL & Claims League Is “Actively Blackballing” Him

Ten years later, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is talking about what led him to take a knee during games, sparking one of the most controversial and impactful athlete protests in sports history.

He spoke exclusively to NBC News just two weeks before his memoir The Perilous Fight hits bookstores. Kaepernick is going on a multi-city tour to promote the book, with moderators including Jemele Hill, Nikole Hannah-Jones, W. Kamau Bell, Funk Flex, Chamillionaire, Van Lathan and Chris Broussard.

He told NBC’s Rohan Nadkarti that his decision to start kneeling came from an extended injury break prior to the 2016 season. During rehab, he started reading about African-American history, absorbing the systemic racism and police brutality African Americans had endured since many came to America in chains.

Two of the books he read were The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon. Kaepernick, now 38, identifies as a biracial Black man and was adopted and raised by a white couple in a Northern California suburb near Modesto.

In July 2016, Alton Sterling was selling CDs outside of a convenience store in Baton Rouge when he was shot and killed in a confrontation with police, drawing protests. The next day, Philando Castile, a public school employee with a license to carry, was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, near Minneapolis.

Kaepernick says his reading and the incidents of police brutality made him uncomfortable standing for the national anthem. The first time he did so was at a preseason game on Aug. 14. But the protest didn’t make national news until he was asked about it during a third Niners preseason game on Sept. 1, 2016, when he and then-teammate Eric Reid both kneeled.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told Steve Wyche of NFL Network. “To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

He says in The Perilous Fight that when he called his then-partner and now wife, radio personality Nessa Diab, he thought what he said would get a reaction of about a “four.”

“Hmm. Well, what did you tell him?” she asked. “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, how hard did you go?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a 4,” Kaepernick said he replied.

“This is not a four, man,” Kaepernick remembers Diab telling him after the anthem protests blew up.

Instead, the response spilled into two NFL seasons. Players and even Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones joined the protests, which were mocked by right-wingers and conservatives including Donald Trump. Kaepernick received death threats from angry NFL fans, while also receiving a wave of support from the Black and progressive communities.

His protest may have ignited the historic moment on Aug. 26, 2020, when multiple sports leagues, including the NBA, MLS and the WNBA, refused to play scheduled games the day after the police shooting of Milwaukee motorist Jacob Blake.

Though Goodell says he doesn’t believe Kaepernick was blackballed, he never played another down of NFL football after the 2016 season. In 2020, after Ahmaud Aubrey, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd were killed; Taylor and Floyd by police, Aubrey by would-be vigilantes, Goodell acknowledged the protests as a valid response to police violence and racism. That led to the formation of the Inspire Change initiative, which has donated over $575M to community organizations across the country.

“His response through that video was only because of pressure from players, not because it was altruistic,” Kaepernick told NBC News.

“The idea that the league should have listened to protesting players “is so laughable in my mind, and so disingenuous,” he added. “We had been trying to address the issue that the NFL created with blackballing me for years. To come out and say we should have listened on the back of that — while I’m still actively trying to play in the NFL — it’s so performative.”

He said that an NFL player-led group chat of approximately 100 athletes from all 32 teams became contentious and cited both former Seahawks star Richard Sherman and former Eagles player Malcolm Jenkins as both being part of the contention.

Kaepernick formed his own organization, Know Your Rights Camp, which raised millions of dollars for programming and events to educate young people about their civil rights. It also contributed financial support for legal fees and bail relief as well as 150 independent autopsies, including for Nolan Wells. In August, Kaepernick pledged to contribute another million dollars to community organizations.

Kaepernick also talked to NBC News correspondent Lester Holt for his podcast debut on Sept. 7. Holt asked him what he’d hoped to achieve with the protests.

“To collectively move us forward as a society, very specifically fighting against police killing Black folks,” Kaepernick responded. “But also looking at systemic oppression holistically to get society thinking and moving in the direction of addressing these issues to create a better society. We have to do something different, and there has to be motion and momentum and movement around that.”

Kaepernick pushed back on reports that say a white veteran, Nate Boyer, told him and Reid that kneeling would be a more impactful protest while still being respectful to the military. Kaepernick says that Reid deserves the credit for that idea.

He also reveals that of all the coaches that could have signed him, it was now New York Giants head coach John Harbaugh, who has been reviled for his and his brother, L.A. Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh’s friendship with Trump, that was the most willing to do so. He says in the book that the then Baltimore Ravens coach was “shut down from above.”

In 2019, Kaepernick and the NFL came to a confidential settlement after he filed a grievance against the league for collusion. That year, he also agreed to a workout for all 32 teams but called it off after he was asked to sign a comprehensive waiver that he didn’t feel was fair. He then organized his own workout – infamously wearing a Kunta Kinte T-shirt. The workout went nowhere.

Reid also received a settlement from the NFL.

“I don’t think the NFL has materially changed. None of their actions show that,” Kaepernick said in the NBC News interview. “We have seen it time and time again. For them, it has gone back to business as usual, and I think that is a tragedy that we have allowed them to be able to get to that point.”

Now a father to a four-year-old daughter with Diab, Kaepernick says that his days consist of early AM workouts, taking his daughter to school, and working with his various companies, including Kaepernick Media and Lumi Story, his AI firm.

What he doesn’t do? Watch NFL football. He says it’s strictly college football airing in his household.

“I’m not gonna support an organization that one, is actively blackballing me, but two, has targeted my brothers who have been protesting as part of this as well,” Kaepernick says. “I watch college football.”

This is the first time Kaepernick is speaking out at length to share his version of the historic events. And he says he’s sharing now not just to sell his memoir but to continue to be part of what should be an ongoing conversation backed by action.

“No individual should be speaking for everyone across the country. I don’t think that’s a responsible way to approach things,” Kaepernick says. “It’s also being able to enable other people to step into leadership positions, because that’s what movements actually are. It’s not one person just driving things.”