Colin Kaepernick Slams NFL’s ‘Performative’ Social Justice Movement After ‘Blackballing’ Him from League: ‘Great Marketing’ Campaign’

FILE – In this Nov. 16, 2019, file photo, free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick arrives for a workout for NFL football scouts and media in Riverdale, Ga. Kaepernick is getting his first chance to work out for an NFL team since last playing in the league in 2016 when he started kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality. Two people familiar with the situation said on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, that Kaepernick will work out for the Las Vegas Raiders. (AP Photo/Todd Kirkland, File)

Ex-NFL player Colin Kaepernick believed the NFL’s social justice push in 2021 was nothing more than the league caving to pressure while lacking meaningful substance.

Kaepernick sparked a national conversation in 2016 when he took a knee during the national anthem of a preseason game. The gesture was done as an act of protest against the killing of Black people at the hands of the police.

In a recent interview with NBC News, Kaepernick looked back at at the last decade and talked about his upcoming memoir “The Perilous Fight.” When he spoke of the NFL’s social justice movement that seemingly came in response to the killing of George Floyd, Kaepernick was unconvinced that the league truly cared.

The report read:

“We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black people,” [NFL commissioner Roger Goodell] said in the video, echoing the words players demanded from him. “We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe Black lives matter.”

Kaepernick wasn’t impressed.

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

The idea that the league should have listened to protesting players “is so laughable in my mind, and so disingenuous,” Kaepernick says. “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 then took aim at the NFL’s inclusion of on-field messages like “End Racism.” The league ended that campaign in 2025:

“‘End Racism’ in the back of the end zone is a great marketing campaign, but what are the actions behind it?” Kaepernick says. He adds that at the same time the league was putting slogans on the field, it was employing the practice of “race norming,” arguing that Black players began their careers with lower cognitive function in an effort to deny them payments as a result of a 2013 concussion lawsuit. (The NFL halted the practice in 2021.)

“I don’t think the NFL has materially changed. None of their actions show that,” Kaepernick says. “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.”

Kaepernick, 38, has not played in the NFL since 2016. The NFL has denied allegations of blackballing, but Kaepernick told NBC News that coaches wanted to sign him years earlier. Higher-ups on the those teams, he claimed, shut down those efforts.

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