Colin Kaepernick’s protest of the National Anthem due to the lack of racial equality and unfair treatment of minorities in the United States by law enforcement has caused a national debate.
On Tuesday, Kaepernick was asked about the shooting of another unarmed black man, Terrence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the 49ers quarterback mentioned that he had be receiving death threats since he started making his public stance, via Cam Inman of the San Jose Mercury News:
“I’ve had a few come my way, but not too concerned about it.” When Kaepernick was asked if these threats came via social media, he responded: “Couple different avenues.”
Kaepernick added that these death threats furthur proves his point:
“To me, if something like that were to happen, you’ve proved my point and it will be loud and clear for everyone why it happened, and that would move this movement forward at a greater speed than what it is even now,” he said. “Granted, it’s not how I want it to happen, but that’s the realization of what could happen. I knew there were other things that came along with this when I first stood up and spoke about it. It’s not something I haven’t thought about.”
Kaepernick said the shooting of Terrence Crutcher in Tulsa, OK is a “perfect example” of the point he’s trying to make in his protest:
WARNING: These videos contain graphic content.
After the 49ers’ game Sunday vs the Panthers, Kaepernick said he recieved verbal and visible tautns from fans before and at halftime as he left the field in the 49ers’ 47-26 loss.
Here’s more of Kaepernick’s comments:
“It’s something they either don’t care about it or they don’t understand it, which i find it very hard that people don’t understand what’s going on, I think the message has been out there loud and clear for quite some time now.There’s a lot of racism disguised as patriotism in this country and people don’t like to address that and they don’t like to address what the root of this protest is. You have players across this country, not only in the NFL but soccer and NBA and high school players, they don’t like to address this issue that people of color are oppressed and treated unjustly. I don’t know why that is or what they’re scared of, but it needs to be addressed.”
There seems to be no end in sight of Kaepernick’s protest, as he will continue to exercise his freedom and bring up these issues that the nation faces and it also seems that other athletes could be joining him and the number of NFL players that have taken on the protest themselves.
