A small group of supporters of national anthem protester Colin Kaepernick paraded in front of the National Football League’s New York headquarters, upset that the former San Francisco 49er second-string quarterback has not found a new team.
A group of about 50 Kaepernick supporters gathered outside the NFL’s New York HQ at about 5PM on Wednesday evening, Sports Illustrated reported.
Among the protesters were black lives matters advocates, anti-war protesters, and people who work to create support networks for ex-convicts.
“He stood up for our community,” said ex-con advocate Kevin Livingston. “He took these issues to a national platform. I feel that it’s only right that we stand up for him. We want to let the NFL know, we are not sitting silently, we are buying consumers, and we want to make sure he gets a fair shot.”
Another protester insisted that Kaepernick had become a “scapegoat.”
“Look at where we are at as a nation,” protester Luis Mercado said. “It’s a trying time when people feel they are not being heard and some rights are being taken away. It’s important now, more than ever, to speak up for what we believe in.”
“Kaepernick has become the scapegoat of a bigger issue,” Mercado concluded.
Kaepernick spent the whole of the 2016 season protesting against the U.S.A. by refusing to stand for the playing of the national anthem. He also spoke out against America’s first responders, police, and soldiers, said America was “never great,” and insisted that the U.S.A. is a racist nation.
At the end of the season, Kaepernick became a free agent, but he went months without a team interested in picking him up. That is until this week when a Seattle city council member cajoled the Seattle Seahawks into considering Kaepernick as a backup quarterback.
The council member, self-avowed socialist Kshama Sawant, wrote an open letter demanding that the Seahawks give Kaepernick a shot at joining the team and only a few days later coach Pete Carroll suddenly announced that he might offer Kaepernick a workout to take the role as a back up quarterback to first stringer Russell Wilson.
But until politics seemingly intervened, no team even considered giving Kaepernick a chance.
The whole issue is fraught with politics instead of football. Even among the protesters in front of the NFL’s HQ, the whole discussion was about politics, not football. Not a word was uttered about Kaepernick’s play, which had been flagging in recent years. The only subject was the player’s politics, with each protester assuming that his politics should assure him a spot in the NFL.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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