In preseason 2016, Colin Kaepernick, then the back-up quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, sparked the polarizing national anthem protest movement when he told a reporter after being asked about refusing to stand for the anthem, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. 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.”
While Kaepernick would make clear over the next few months that he held the United States in low regard in general, even going so far as to compare the U.S. government unfavorably to Fidel Castro’s tyrannical communist regime, the central focus of his movement has continued to be criminal justice reform.
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