As Super Bowl LIV came to a close on Sunday night, the man who started the national anthem protest movement, Colin Kaepernick, pushed an article from The Daily Beast that both portrayed the multi-millionaire as a victim and credited him for an NFL PSA critical of police officers.
Through his Twitter account, Kaepernick, who formerly played for the San Francisco 49ers, tweeted out an article titled, “Colin Kaepernick, Blackballed by the NFL, Is Why League Will Air a Police Shooting PSA During the Super Bowl.”
The post specifically re-tweeted by the former QB included the caption: “Every attempt by the [NFL] to rehabilitate its image among Black viewers will ring hollow as long as Kaepernick is still unsigned to an NFL team. You cannot co-opt his message and blackball him at the same time.”
Every attempt by the @NFL to rehabilitate its image among Black viewers will ring hollow as long as Kaepernick is still unsigned to an NFL team. You cannot co-opt his message and blackball him at the same time. #SuperBowl https://t.co/wkiNvnlt9T
— Rashad Robinson (@rashadrobinson) February 2, 2020
The PSA centered around the killing of Botham Jean, a black male, by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, a white female. The officer mistakenly entered the wrong apartment; allegedly believing it was her home, she thought Mr. Jean, who was sitting in his own apartment, was an intruder and shot him dead.
WATCH:
https://t.co/0k9IQU4xM5
We are in this together.#EveryonesChild #InspireChange pic.twitter.com/yaH04eG2OA— NFL (@NFL) January 22, 2020
The words in the PSA, argued The Daily Beast, “hew awfully close to ones spoken by Kaepernick back in 2016—the last season he played before being blacklisted by the NFL.”
Kaepernick first refused to stand during the national anthem at a preseason game against the Houston Texans on August 14, 2016. “The next week,” The Daily Wire reported at the time, “Kaepernick sat on the bench again for the playing of the anthem ahead of the preseason game against the Green Bay Packers, at which point, his private protest started to get national attention.”
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” the QB said of the protest.
“To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way,” he added. “There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
According to the left-leaning outlet, Kaepernick was “blacklisted” from the NFL for dissuading “white fans” “from spending money.”
“He was sidelined for violating the one tenet to which the NFL adheres, which is ensuring that white fans aren’t dissuaded from spending money by inconvenient reminders of antiblack racism during their beloved pastime,” The Daily Beast said.
“The NFL gets to use Kaepernick’s uncredited message to clean up the PR mess it made by ditching the quarterback, but nothing else changes,” continued the post. “The organization has no plans to rehire Kaepernick, nor to have him be involved in the police brutality campaign he essentially led them to undertake. What’s more, you can bet, its players remain well aware that kneeling during the anthem could cost them their jobs. The NFL’s ‘owners,’ a conservative bunch who collectively donated $8.9 million to the Trump campaign, will continue to profit off all the black bodies that endure brutal hits and suffer irreparable damage, as long as they don’t speak of uncomfortable racial truths.”
In November, Kaepernick famously skipped out on a private workout organized by the NFL, complicating the Kaepernick-favored “blacklisted” theory.
“The session, according to ESPN, allowed Kaepernick an on-field workout and an interview, which would both be taped and made available to all teams. Moreover, the workout was set up to provide teams anonymity, so if they watched Kaepernick and didn’t want him, they wouldn’t catch flack. This was done to encourage more teams to attend the event, thus helping the quarterback secure a position,” The Daily Wire noted of the squandered private workout.
The athlete canned the workout about a half-hour before the session was supposed to start, apparently because he wasn’t allowed to bring his own camera crew and had to sign a largely standard waiver.
Related: Here’s The Kaepernick-Themed Ad PETA Says The NFL Blocked From Airing During The Super Bowl