As part of an ongoing media blitz to promote his upcoming memoir, former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick dismissed the league’s condemnation of racism as “performative.”
In an interview with NBC News, Kaepernick criticized NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell over a video he released in 2020 amid nationwide protests following George Floyd’s death.
“His response through that video was only because of pressure from players, not because it was altruistic,” Kaepernick said.
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In the video, Goodell said the NFL condemned “racism and the systematic oppression of Black people.”
“[Goodell’s message was] so laughable, in my mind, and so disingenuous,” Kaepernick continued. “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.”
Kaepernick is right.
The NFL’s social justice campaigns and messaging are performative. Painting “End Racism” in the end zones and approving “Black Lives Matter” on helmets were ways for the league to signal its virtue. They were public-relations decisions, perhaps even financial ones, designed to avoid potential backlash from sponsors and consumers.
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The fact that Goodell, or anyone else, felt obligated to announce that the NFL does not support racism and the systematic oppression of black people perfectly exemplifies the term “performative.”
That said, Kaepernick is not the one to lecture anyone about fraudulent behavior.
The former quarterback has spent the past decade performing, pandering, and spreading propaganda. His entire claim to activism is fraudulent.
Most notably, Kaepernick participated in a Netflix docuseries in which he compared the NFL scouting combine to a slave auction.
“Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod, and examine you. Searching for any defect that might affect your performance,” Kaepernick narrated in Colin in Black & White. “No boundary respected. No dignity left intact. What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic.”
The scene then shifts to one in which players transform into enslaved black men in shackles while white slave masters bid on them and whip them.
Meanwhile, Kaepernick continued trying to return to the NFL, despite comparing the process of entering the league to slavery. Imagine that.
He is no more honest than Goodell or the sports media figures who championed his campaign.
Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since 2016. He later filed a grievance accusing the league and its owners of colluding to keep him out. The case was settled in 2019, with neither side admitting wrongdoing.
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