Exclusive: Colin Kaepernick Opens Up About Trump, the NFL and the Fight That Never Ended
Exclusive: Colin Kaepernick Opens Up About Trump, the NFL and the Fight That Never EndedIn a wide-ranging interview with Ben Meiselas, Kaepernick discusses Trump, NFL owners, Jay-Z, athlete power and his new book, The Perilous Fight.
Colin Kaepernick joined MeidasTouch co-founder Ben Meiselas for a wide-ranging conversation about Donald Trump, the NFL, its billionaire owners, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft, athlete activism, and the lessons Kaepernick says Americans should take from his experience over the past decade. Full disclosure: This is also a deeply personal conversation for Ben. He previously represented Kaepernick in his case against the NFL, has worked alongside him on initiatives including Know Your Rights Camp and the Autopsy Initiative, and considers Colin a close friend and family. And we’re doing something a little different today. In addition to making the full interview available to watch and listen to, we’re publishing the complete transcript below for anyone who would rather read the conversation in full. Kaepernick did not hold back. He discussed Donald Trump publicly targeting him during his first administration, and revealed how an effort was later made to bring him to the Trump White House, an invitation Kaepernick says he immediately rejected. He also revisited his battle with the NFL, arguing that recent events demonstrate that powerful NFL owners are willing to coordinate to protect their interests. “They are willing to collude,” Kaepernick told Meiselas. “They are openly colluding.” Kaepernick also spoke candidly about Jay-Z’s relationship with the NFL, the power professional athletes could wield through collective action, why he believes athletes should think carefully about participating in White House events, and what his years of activism have taught him about challenging powerful institutions. The conversation comes as Kaepernick releases his new memoir, The Perilous Fight, which looks back at his experiences confronting the NFL and other powerful institutions, as well as the organizing and activism that followed. Kaepernick says he hopes readers come away from the book recognizing their own ability to act. “We need you to have agency,” Kaepernick said. “We need you to be bold. We need you to take action. And we need to do it now.” You can listen to the full conversation right now on the MeidasTouch Podcast or watch the complete interview on the MeidasTouch YouTube channel. And if you want to hear more directly from Kaepernick, pick up a copy of The Perilous Fight, available now. For those who prefer to read, the complete transcript of Ben Meiselas’ conversation with Colin Kaepernick follows below. FULL TRANSCRIPTBEN MEISELAS: In full disclosure, Colin was my client. I represented Colin in the case against the NFL. Colin and I have worked on various initiatives together, whether it’s Know Your Rights Camp, the Autopsy Initiative within Know Your Rights, and we’ve been involved in various endeavors together. More importantly, Colin’s one of my best friends in the world, and he’s like family to me. I give you all that in full disclosure going into this interview. So doing this interview with someone who has all of that background with me, I just want the audience to know all of that. But Colin’s out with a new book. It’s called The Perilous Fight. Make sure you all order this book or buy this book now. It’s out in stores. You can order it online. Support independent bookstores as well. Colin, I want to talk about this book, The Perilous Fight. And it’s hard not to situate it in the current experience that we all are feeling in the United States. I think the psychological torture that Americans are experiencing, what you warned against when you took a knee and when you were speaking out and when you’ve spoken out. And so I want to remind people, though, that back in the first Trump regime, you were one of the first people that Donald Trump targeted. A private citizen. You were out there, superstar quarterback, brought a team to the Super Bowl, San Francisco 49ers. Then Donald Trump got up there in Huntsville, Alabama. He said, “Get that son of a bitch off the field.” And that was one of the first times, if not the first time, that we saw the office—I mean, he had been making social media posts, Don Jr., there was a whole right-wing movement to cancel you—but that was one of the first times we saw a president in a public speech like that go after a private citizen, go after an athlete. Let’s just play the clip to remind people, and I want to talk about it. Let’s play it. DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]: BEN MEISELAS: Talk about that moment and how you think it relates to this current moment where this is what this guy does now on a daily basis, it seems. COLIN KAEPERNICK: Now, the other part that we saw in conjunction with that is the corporate partners, in part with the NFL, and the close relationship with Donald Trump, and being okay with this and supporting it and helping him take that further. I think the part that’s important for people to think about in this moment is we don’t want governmental overreach into being able to impact private citizens’ employment opportunities, private citizens’ rights. There has to be a clear distinction there. And what we’re seeing with the present administration is not only the willingness, but the excitement to be able to target individual citizens. And I think that sends a chilling message, but is something that we collectively have to combat and fight against. BEN MEISELAS: And one of the things that you were warning about back then as well was there’s a power structure here of people who are owners. Not just owners in the NFL, but ownership, right-wing oligarchy, people who control the methods and the means of production, who are treating workers horribly and who have a very hateful view of labor that actually supports the enterprises that have made them rich and have viewed it as a source of exploitation. So when Donald Trump says those things, and when he says these things today, it’s more than just rantings and ravings of a lunatic, which it is. There are also marching orders for an oligarchy. And that was what you were warning about then as well, when you were telling NFL players and people within the culture: solidarity is important. We can’t break, because if we break, they’re going to pit us against each other. Talk to us about that. COLIN KAEPERNICK: Donald Trump, he had Robert Kraft, who’s the owner of the New England Patriots, flying on Air Force One with him. We got to see him operate, and there’s a reported phone call between him and Jerry Jones where he says, “This is a winning issue for me,” essentially telling Jerry, you need to fall in line, which he abides by. We also see it with the fundraisers and events that the NFL owners are out there doing, raising millions of dollars for him and, in many ways, going out and kissing the ring. For context, for those who don’t have this background, I believe Donald Trump previously sued the NFL when he was trying to start his own football league. So there was always tension there. But he was able to get them to step in and say, here’s my position of power now. You have to kiss the ring if you want benefits. And we’re seeing this play out not just in the NFL, but across corporate America. We’re seeing CEOs go into the White House, offering up gifts, making gestures and capitulating to him, and essentially saying, whatever you want us to do, we’re willing to do, even if it’s counter to our interests or our employees’ interests and our workforce interests. Being able to see that play out in real time, I don’t think it’s something that we can be complacent about. I think people need to be organizing against it. They need to be taking action against it. If not, we’re setting precedent where that just becomes okay and becomes the norm. BEN MEISELAS: But there was also a playbook to try to attack that. And one of those tactics was trying to find people within the movement, or people who are perceived to be, to work against it. And so one of the issues that arose was Jay-Z and how Jay-Z was working with the NFL, ultimately doing something that you wouldn’t do. And the very first thing that took place in a meeting was saying, “We’ve moved beyond kneeling. We need to not take a knee and we need to start focusing on another paradigm of change.” And it was the one that was kind of being force-fed by ownership, and it was not the one that was being organically moved by the people and by the movement. And so people are often asking you, well, what’s this whole thing with Jay-Z? And Jay-Z performed at Yankee Stadium, and Jay-Z said negative things about Colin. Like, why is Colin on Jay-Z’s mind all of the time? And I think it’s important that people know the framework, that one of the things that was taking place was trying to find an individual who would be able to basically say, we’re done with kneeling. We’re done with this. We’re done with having this solemn protest that was gaining such— Talk to that. I mean, am I perceiving that right? Or what’s going on? COLIN KAEPERNICK: And coming out of that meeting, we have reports of Robert Kraft, again, the owner of the New England Patriots, saying, you know, the elephant in the room is this kneeling and the protests. We need to address it. And then you have Terry Pegula, who is the owner of the Buffalo Bills, on the back of that, coming out and saying, you know, “We need a Black face to help us end this.” So we’re hearing very explicitly from the NFL owners and that oligarchy class of, we need a Black face to help us subvert the protests, work counter to the people’s interests, and we’re in search of that. They tried it first with the Players Coalition. They tried it with me directly, trying to offer me a major deal to lead their social justice initiatives while they’re actively blackballing me. BEN MEISELAS: COLIN KAEPERNICK: And what we really see is this alignment of classes. We see a billionaire class in the NFL owners. We see that aligned with Jay-Z’s interests personally, but working counter to the people’s efforts and working counter to the people’s goals. And again, all of them financially benefit from it. But what we’re left with is the people on the ground having to deal with the realities of police still killing Black people, of the prison industrial complex, of not having the resources to be able to thrive in their communities. And we’re seeing these efforts continue to ramp up. And that was in Trump 1.0. We’re seeing this now in Trump 2.0 and the alignment of interests across all of these different sectors. BEN MEISELAS: And we hear about Trump trying to do all of these deals right now. This deal that, you know, “I’m going to do a deal. I’m going to do a deal.” After he said, “Get the son of a bitch off the field,” like we showed, shortly thereafter he was apparently working with Kanye West and other people to try to bring you to the White House to do like a Black summit or something. They were going to call it something like that, where they wanted you to basically have him put his arm around you, or you put your arm around him, in the Oval Office and be like, he’s cool with the Black community, right? He’s one of us. He’s our guy. And you said, “Ben, I’m not doing that. Why would I do that? I’m not going to do that.” So when we see him do that stuff now—he would say, “Get that son of a bitch off the field,” but then he wanted to meet with you and he wanted to bring you into the Oval Office for this Apprentice-style kumbaya performative moment—and you were like, nah. COLIN KAEPERNICK: And what we saw in this moment was, you know, part of that conversation, what was relayed to me was the outreach that came from Van Jones for this. They wanted to have us come in. I don’t know the details around it because, candidly, as soon as it came up as, “Hey, here’s the opportunity,” it was immediately rejected. Again, this is after him going out publicly and trying to target me and my employment. What it also speaks to, again, as we talk about this alignment of interests within this oligarchy, him trying to garner support and put up a facade that he’s working for Black people or trying to be to the benefit of Black people. History shows otherwise. There’s a longstanding history there, whether it goes back to the real estate side, whether it goes back to the Exonerated Five. Those are not debated things. Those are well documented. But again, it also ties this oligarchy and this class struggle in here. We see the connection between Trump, connection to Van Jones, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft with the Reform Alliance. And ultimately what we see is, on the other side of that, pardons being handed out. And we’re seeing those pay-for-play right now. And I think this alignment of interests that we’re seeing, and them trying to reach out to give the marketing and the facade and the perception like, hey, all of the negative actions that we are taking that are counter to your interests, let us put on a good show and try to give you the visibility and perception like we’re trying to do good for you—which actually is just not the case. And that has been proven time and time again. BEN MEISELAS: And then he’s like, I got kicked off the tour. And what he says, he says Ed Sheeran called him up and said Robert Kraft said you can’t play at Gillette Stadium, and told the other owners you can’t play at his stadium. And now he’s like, I’ve now been kicked off the tour. And again, I mean, I think these were things that we’re seeing now repeat over and over and over again. And it shouldn’t just be a daily story. It shouldn’t just be this happened to Macklemore this day and this happened to someone the next day. I mean, you were profoundly warning that this is not the way this should be happening. And you were warning about it in 2017. You were saying, hello, this is what they’re going to do. And Colin, people were saying you’re being hyperbolic. You know, that’s just some lefty stuff. Like, lefty stuff? Aren’t we all supposed to be against government intruding into our lives and blocking people? Why is that a lefty thing? It’s great, right? COLIN KAEPERNICK: And when we filed the grievance, it was like, well, the owners wouldn’t do that. Everybody just wants to win within the NFL. And the realization is, no. They want to protect their interests. They want to protect their power. They want to protect their money. And they also want people to know that if you take an action that they don’t agree with, they will come for you. And that was some of the warning coming out of the protest, and some of the warning coming out of the grievance, is that they will organize against you. Which means that we collectively have to organize to be able to protect our interests as well. And I hope this gives a space where people realize how significant this is, and also gives a little bit of insight into the fact that while it may not touch you today, at some point it’s going to come knocking on your doorstep or someone you love’s doorstep. And that’s not the moment to be able to take action. We should be taking action actively right now. BEN MEISELAS: But one of the things we’re seeing now that I want to get your take on also, though, as a QB, I think so much of what we’re seeing in the debate is through a gamified political lens. Who’s up this time? Democrats up, Republicans up, this person. I know in traveling with you, you hated that gamified political stuff. It was not your thing. And it’s not because you don’t care about the issues. You were always telling me it’s actually the politics that distorts that these are human values and core principles that we need to be dealing with. And one of them that I just think isn’t talked about is just leadership. It’s just grown-up adult behavior. And as a QB, you have to be accountable to your team. When you win games, it’s great, but you’re up, you’re down. You have a good game, you have a bad game. You don’t win every game. When you lose a game, you don’t go, “I won. I’m really the winner. I’m really the winner. That was unfair. The ref did this. The ref did that.” And so much of this for me, Colin, and why I stepped into this—I’m watching this behavior, I’m inspired by you, frankly—and what I’m observing from the presidency, from the commander in chief, someone who’s supposed to be the QB of the nation, is loser behavior. Loser behavior that you’ve seen on the field, that someone like that wouldn’t be in the locker room with. You’d kick that guy out of the locker room in a second. So Supreme Court is unfair. The Democrats, the this and the that. And how, though, the power structure has normalized this loser behavior, which has, to me, permeated the way the world views the United States in a very bad way now. So I want you to talk about that. As you observe this behavior from Trump, the whining, the this, the that, what’s your reaction to just the behavior from a leadership perspective as a QB, as a captain? COLIN KAEPERNICK: You know, one of the things that you were taught early on as a quarterback is when you win, you’re going to get more praise than you deserve. And when you lose, you’re going to get more of the blame than you deserve. And your job is to stay focused. And when you win, you celebrate your teammates. You give them the praise. You redirect that to all of the work that they put in because that’s ultimately why you’re successful. And then on the flip side, when you lose, you are supposed to take the brunt of that and be at the forefront and make sure that you’re supporting your teammates as you go back to go out there and continue to try to take these actions to go out there and win. I haven’t seen a leader on the field or off the field approach things in such a way of constantly whining about them. Own your actions. Own the losses. Say we’re going to move forward, we’re going to try to get better. But what it speaks to more broadly is the integrity of the position. And what we see right now is a lack of integrity and just being forthright with people and trying to approach it with decency. And to your point, we’re seeing this show up more broadly across the spectrum, where now we have followers in that regard approaching politics and leadership in the same way, which doesn’t effectively get us anywhere. It also doesn’t lay a foundation where people are approaching conversations and approaching solving problems in a way that’s effective. So to me, I think about it as you have to keep the problem the problem, and that being the focus, and taking efforts towards actually solving that. And I think that’s the issue. What we’re seeing is leadership that is unwilling to take action to go out there and solve the problems, and more so is just taking actions to their own benefit and their personal benefit and some of that oligarchy’s benefit. And all of the whining, complaining become deterrents and distractions from actually focusing on the issues. BEN MEISELAS: Early on they were doing the Trump dance. They were doing the YMCA Trump, you know, whatever you want to call it. People have different names for whatever that is. And they were doing that in the end zone, right there. I saw college players doing it. And you were thinking to yourself, what the hell is going on here? Now that seems to have faded. The crazy thing is that there was a moment, and that moment’s passed. And Trump has record-low approval right now. And we seem to have at least purged this spell amongst the people. We’ll see. But I feel that’s where we’re heading, is people see this was all a big fraud. This was all a big scam, covering up Epstein files, this and that and the other. But you had people doing the thing, and I’m like, have you guys—what the hell’s going on here? What were you thinking when you saw that early on? Glad that stopped. And now you’re seeing the culture start to, I think, become a little more resilient to this. Get your take on that as well. COLIN KAEPERNICK: It felt like it was more of a movement around, can they get attention? Will it help them go viral? Versus actually being foundational political beliefs. Or at least that’s my hope, and maybe I’m being optimistic within that. But that wave has since passed. At this point, I think people have seen Trump for who he is. They’ve seen the behavior. They’ve seen the lack of execution. They’ve seen him work detrimental or counter to their interests. And people are feeling that on the ground now and reality is setting in. And I think a lot of the people that thought they were going to get handouts and checks in the mail and get some personal benefits out of it have realized that’s not the case, that he is actually just looking out for himself. And now with that reality setting in, I think a lot of them are left in a space of, well, they got played and got fooled, and now have to go back to the space of, what is the next step for me? I obviously can’t approve of this now. I think there’s probably a level of embarrassment that comes along with that. But now I think we’re seeing that undercurrent and that wave of, you know what, all of the people that we’re talking about, he is working counter to our interests. We do need to organize against this. It looks like there’s a tremendous amount of corruption happening. We actually need to rethink our position and show up differently. And hopefully we see that play out this fall and beyond. And I’m hoping it also returns to a space of people being just much more pragmatic in the approaches that they’re taking and how they’re thinking about issues and trying to solve them, as opposed to just buying into the hype that people are selling them. BEN MEISELAS: You’re a young player. You’re a young Black or brown player in this sport or that sport. You see these power structures. You want to do something. You want to say something. You know in your heart when you go to sleep that this isn’t right. You know the communities you grew up in and how your family was treated. Heck, you probably still have family or extended family who’s being pulled over by ICE or being racially profiled or any of these things. But now you’re in the league or you’re in a position where you’re making money. And you’re saying, what do I do? I saw what happened to Kaepernick. He could have made $150 million or $200 million in his career, and that didn’t happen. Colin stood up. History has a kind place for Colin when people remember the sacrifice he made, but history doesn’t buy me a Bentley. History doesn’t buy me a mansion. History doesn’t pay the bills right now. And so what do that mean? I’m sure this is, whether they want to articulate it or not, a dilemma that lots of people in communities across this country are thinking about as well. Let’s go there. And then I have another question about how that’s probably starting earlier because of NIL and college. But let’s start with the first piece over there. COLIN KAEPERNICK: And I think the piece that comes to mind here is players need to be able to take collective action. When you see an issue and you know it exists, and when you want to go out and address it, you have to take action against that. If you have integrity, if you are the person that you say you are, if you are a person that wants to work to the benefit of everyone collectively and not just your own self-interest, you should be taking action right now. Now, you should organize around that, because the part that the ownership class does not want you to understand or fully appreciate—which is why they take targeted actions like the ones they took against me and in the past have taken against others—is they don’t want you to realize the power that you collectively have. We’ll just take the NFL as an example here. The NFL is approximately 70% Black. If the players and the Black players in the NFL collectively said, “We are not stepping on the field until you address this list of issues,” and this could be within the NFL, it could be within the political side, you would see an ownership class collectively organize to solve that issue immediately because it directly impacts their bottom line. You as players are their product—or, the product on the field. They want you to think that you’re their product. You are the product stepping on the field. Now, being in that position gives you a tremendous amount of leverage, tremendous amount of power and control. It hasn’t been seized. And for players, I think understanding this, that same message that they have tried to send down to players by colluding and blackballing myself and others, then becomes a message that you can send back to them that, no, we’re not going to let you wield that power against us. So I think there has to be this moment of taking action. I think there has to be a moment of organizing to make sure that that ownership class is taking the actions that you actually want as players, because you have the power to do so. I think that also exists when we go down to the NIL side. We saw this, I believe it was at Missouri. We saw, I believe it was the president there had spoken out, taking actions that the players didn’t agree with. The players boycotted, didn’t step on the field. We saw that president of the university very quickly removed. So when you start touching the financial structure and power structure, you will see them move quickly and move mountains to be able to resolve that, because they don’t want that power to continue to be utilized by the players and by the working class. BEN MEISELAS: In the one part, it’s empowering, getting paid, and rightfully so, because there were institutions making billions of dollars off the back of athletes who were not getting compensated for it. Also, though, on the flip side—which we’ve seen, and perhaps flip side’s not the right word, but another consideration is—well, now you have people right out of high school who are getting lots of money. And that could make them subject to unscrupulous actors in their lives. And they’re very young, and they may not have some of these life experiences to say, well, how do I contend with it? And it also puts them, though, in a money power structure right away to start being pulled by these moneyed interests, by oligarchs who start buying players and buying teams and treating it as a commodity, as property. “I’m going to make a super team,” and start finding high school students and start giving money and treating it like that. And so what do you think about that? How do people build the resiliency to that, especially if they’re coming out of high school? I mean, you remember coming out of high school and being 17, 18 years old. And all of a sudden, how do you deal with the head of a major—a billionaire who’s run all these things, who’s an alumnus of University of Whatever—who says, “You know what? I’m going to give you $4 million a year. But you got to do this, this, this and this.” And you go, “$4 million a year? Oh my gosh.” How do you deal with that? COLIN KAEPERNICK: One, to be successful at that level that their talents are valued and how they show up is valued in that way. What it also makes me think of is, as NIL has progressed, we also need stronger infrastructure for our players to be able to have the right supports in place, whether that is navigating negotiations of deals, whether that is the financial support after they get those dollars, making sure that they’re handling that responsibility. Because you have players that are 17, 18 years old that are walking into life-changing money and what can be generational money for them. And if they have the right support and structures there, that sets them up to be able to utilize that and benefit from that long term. To your point on navigating some of the oligarchy and the influences there, I think that’s where the preparation for athletes has to be much better, because I didn’t have to really navigate that until I was in the NFL. I’m 23, 24 years old, still young, but have more experience. And it was still difficult to navigate because you don’t truly learn people’s interests and the game that they are playing and what they’re trying to accomplish, in many ways, until you go through it multiple times and ultimately probably get burned in that process. And that’s where the learning experiences come as far as how they approach it. So I think a lot more education to be done, a lot more support to be put in place to make sure that as they’re getting these dollars, they also aren’t being exploited in the process. BEN MEISELAS: And in the past, we’ve seen sports teams show up at the White House, but usually the president says nonpolitical things and thanks them, maybe gives them something for showing up to the White House, takes a photo. We’re used to that. We’ve seen that before. That’s not rare. The difference here, though, is we’ll see a team like Indiana win the national championship, and then they’ll be there in front of Trump and he’ll be talking about his agenda, his propaganda, his hateful and venomous speech. And then you have the players behind him. You have Coach Cignetti behind him. And I want to zoom in on the Indiana one for a second because I would watch college football and I would see Coach Cignetti of Indiana as this no-nonsense disciplinarian guy who said, I mold young boys into men, and this is how I teach them how to behave. I watched him standing next to Trump. Trump didn’t even know who he was. Trump didn’t even take the time to say, this is Cignetti, this is who the—Trump’s like, “Where’s Sagnari? Sagnari?” And then the guy was there in that moment, kind of laughing off all of the ridiculous, hateful, demented kind of stuff that Trump said. And to me, it was like, Cignetti, you may be a great football coach or whatever, but in that moment right there, that’s kind of your legacy, is you standing next to him with the players who you’ve boasted about molding into men. But the behavior that we saw right there, to me, undercuts everything you taught and does generational damage to young men in a way that you have now contributed to the problem. And it’s like, I look at the guy very differently right now. So I wonder what your take is on those moments. COLIN KAEPERNICK: Whether you explicitly say that or not, or whether you try to approach it from, well, we’re just going there to celebrate because it’s been done in the past. By showing up, you are showing a level of alignment and agreement with where the administration is going and what they’re doing and the actions that they’re taking. And you are also, in many ways, putting, in this instance, young men in college in the crosshairs of that, of saying, oh, will you align with this now as well? And they’re going to have to go back and answer questions around that. And the flip side of that is if players are in a position, they say, well, I’m not going to go. Well, are you going to pull their scholarship? Are they going to be targeted on the back end? What are the repercussions that go along with that? So you’re putting players in a very difficult position. And for the players who don’t agree with it, it’s difficult to see a space where they win. They either sit with their moral beliefs, they take action, say, I’m not going, which likely leads to repercussions on the back end, or they show up and they end up in a position where it looks like they are co-signing what the administration is doing. BEN MEISELAS: That was actually never about the politics at all. Because to me, when you fight for the people, the politics should find you. You shouldn’t be finding the politics. And I think one of the problems that we have is when you’re searching for the person who’s going to save you or this person, you’re chasing egos. And egos are going to let you down. And the emphasis that you always had was listening. And so I think about your creation of Know Your Rights Camp. And I think about initiatives that you’ve done in Know Your Rights Camp just behind the scenes. I mean, you quietly do the work. You’re not out there doing big press events for these camps. I’ve been to them. You could do big press events for the camps. They’re very compelling events. But behind the scenes, quietly, you throw these events across the country where you’re educating the youth, and you just do it. And you don’t tell people you’re really doing it. The only people you tell are the local community organizations that work with you to bring the kids to the camps and to get the educational resources. And so it’s an interesting kind of paradigm that oftentimes you don’t get talked about a lot when you do these things because you’re not out there boasting about doing these things. So, I don’t know. Talk to us about that. It’s an interesting dynamic that I found fascinating knowing you. COLIN KAEPERNICK: It has to be grounded in you doing the work and taking action. Going out and telling people, hey, we’re doing great things, without just doing the work, it rings hollow. And people eventually see through that. I think the part that’s most important is, to your point, going out and doing work, it only makes sense to do it if it’s actually solving and addressing issues for people. And the founding of Know Your Rights Camp was actually based upon the fact of, how do we make sure that Black and brown kids and Black and brown communities make it home safe? And that was the initial founding principle of trying to address this issue of police killing Black folks. Now, as we were doing that work, obviously we uncovered so much more that we needed to address. Not just getting our community home safe, but how do we allow them to thrive, whether that’s financially, technologically, through education, through health. We built all of these other components of the camp, and that continued to expand and grow. That ultimately led to the Autopsy Initiative, where we do free second autopsies that are independent for families who have lost someone within custody. That is whether police, whether they’re incarcerated, whether they’re in ICE detention centers. All spaces that we cover to give transparency because of the issues that we’ve seen with the lack of transparency within autopsies. This is also showing up with our Legal Defense Initiative in 2020, protecting protesters, providing pro bono legal services, the COVID-19 Relief Fund, directly distributing resources into communities. Again, based upon feedback that we’re getting directly on the ground. Communities saying, this is what we need and this is the support that we need. And we would go out and just try to take action against that and continue to build the organization around it. So for us as an approach, we don’t want to make up problems to solve. What we need to do is be phenomenal listeners in the process. In that listening, once we have an understanding of what the issue is, then figuring out how we can go out and solve it. And then, how are we able to scale that? So I think that becomes important as opposed to, hey, I hope to be this political figure and I hope people look at me a certain way. People very quickly see through that. What stands the test of time is going out and taking actions that are to the benefit of people and doing that consistently. BEN MEISELAS: But when they would need the Autopsy Initiative and would want just transparency because they had a loved one who was killed by police and they wanted answers, they were shocked that you took their autopsy request. And you said, I never even looked at what your political belief was. I didn’t look at what the color of your skin was. You could be a white MAGA Republican. You could be a Black Republican. You could be a Black Democrat. You could be Hispanic. That’s not what this is about. If you submit to this criteria and you want transparency, that’s what we’re trying to do. And I’m from a community’s view, from a community where I’ve seen Black and brown people killed in my communities. So that’s why I’m raising attention. But just because disproportionately Black and brown people are getting killed, don’t think it’s not going to come to you next. It’s just we’re first. And so we need to be united as people. And so one of the things that I observed—and talk about your experience here—is you had MAGA people who used the Autopsy Initiative who left with a very positive view of Colin Kaepernick and said, you know what? They were great. They were transparent. They kept me apprised of what happened. They gave me the answers that I was looking for during the most tragic time in my life. COLIN KAEPERNICK: And to me, I want everybody to have justice. To your point, we’re seeing this disproportionately impact Black and brown communities, and we see that basically across everything. But in this instance of trying to address this issue of transparency within police killings around cause of death—and part of what launched the Autopsy Initiative was some of your past work in Bakersfield, where we saw the sheriff was also the coroner. So you have the same police department that has done the killing also ruling what the cause of death is. So there’s an inherent conflict of interest within that. And in providing transparency, everyone should have that. And we have taken those actions. And to your point, we’ve seen this with MAGA Republicans coming in, using the program and being like, this is just not what I expected from you. And to me, I hope it speaks to people in a sense of while we may have different political beliefs, I still believe you should have justice. If you have someone who is wrongfully killed, it doesn’t matter if you’re a MAGA Republican to me. You should get justice. You should have transparency and clarity there. And that’s how we approach the work that we’re doing. We obviously have a focus on Black and brown communities, again, because it disproportionately happens there. But the programs are open to everybody. We need people to understand what is happening. We need systems to change. We need institutions to change. We need policy to change. And that starts by doing the work on the ground in this way. And the part that’s been interesting is, even beyond the Autopsy Initiative, this has shown up over the last 10 years in a lot of areas that I didn’t expect. A lot of Republicans and MAGA Republicans that previously were like, “You know, when I first saw the stance you took, I hated you. And I’ve seen the work that you’ve done over the years. I’ve had more conversations. I’m more informed and have more insight now. And man, I was wrong.” And I think seeing people—again, just the consistency of doing the work and trying to do it to the benefit of people—people are realizing that, you know what, a lot of the issues that directly affect the Black community and Black and brown communities, actually, they touch me too in many ways. It just may not show up as significantly. And I think being able to get people to understand that this makes a better society. That is our end goal. And we see it show up disproportionately in where the gaps are. But being able to bridge those gaps and fill those gaps allows us all to collectively move forward in a much more effective way. BEN MEISELAS: They said, “Hey man, I appreciate what you’re doing. I don’t agree with it, but I appreciate it.” And I remember standing next to you with that one. I remember where it was. It was in Texas. But other than that, overwhelmingly, in all of these places, people—that was kind of the worst you got. And you and I would be in stadiums and people would cheer for—I mean, in the heart of it, where if you turned on the media narrative, you would have thought you’re like the most hated guy in the world. And when we went out into the real world, in all of these cities, in Republican cities, in the reddest of the red cities, people were nice to you and you were nice to them and you would shake their hands and you would take photos with them. That’s what we saw. And that was a major realization for me. Talk to us about that. COLIN KAEPERNICK: As we went around the country, as we touched down and interacted with people directly, a lot of the responses were very different. And it was consistently different. And I would say in many instances, to my surprise, because I didn’t know what to expect walking into some of the communities and some of the cities that we walked into. And to see the level of response is something that gives me hope in relation to where we can go as a country and where we go as a society. Because I think what is being pushed at the level of administration—and again, going back to this level of oligarchy—is a lot of division that actually, on the ground, we’re seeing people collectively say, yeah, we actually don’t agree with what they’re doing. And I think we’re starting to feel this undercurrent that’s connected to a lot of what we got to see over the last 10 years, is people want to collectively do better. What they want to make sure that also doesn’t happen is that they’re not exploited. They aren’t left out of doing better. And the goal and intention is always, how do we advance? How do we make sure that we take one action after another to get people to a better place? And I think that’s the part that people realize, and it showed up consistently. And I would say doing that with integrity as well is incredibly important. And I think when you do all of those things over time, people see that and they appreciate it and they respect it. And that’s a lot of what the experience has been as we’ve gone across the country. And we want to continue to build upon that because that’s how we think, collectively as a society, we should be moving. That’s how we should be interacting with people. So I think we’re seeing a lot different experience actually on the ground versus what is being pushed in other places. BEN MEISELAS: I mean, if this interview—I know you and I have a copy, and I want to get another copy and see if I missed something. I want to get more copies of it. So everybody should definitely get their copy of this now. But before we go, Colin, why now? Why release this book right now? Here it is, September. The world looks a lot different than it did when you began to peacefully protest in a respectful way. You didn’t request, you didn’t want the media attention. It was hoisted upon you. Everything that’s happened since then—you warned about a lot of these things that have all happened. I would tell people, maybe go back and listen to this. Maybe go back and listen to a few of these things that he was saying was going to happen. Because, I mean, dude, you were warning about ICE. You wrote a book about abolishing ICE. And people looked at you when you wrote this book five years ago. You talked about abolishing ICE in the Biden administration. You’re like, I’m telling you, this is what’s coming. Be very careful. We could spend a whole podcast just talking about your book on why you’re focused on abolishing ICE and a lot of these government structures that have been turned against the people and why we need more people-focused structures to ensure safety and protection. We could do a whole other show on—people like, let’s do the next one. I have to save some material for another interview, Colin. But why now? Why this moment? Why are you ready to publish this memoir right now? COLIN KAEPERNICK: And what I hope with the memoir is—I hope everybody goes and checks it out, gets a chance to go through it—because I hope my experiences and some of what I had to navigate, and the players that we had to navigate within this, whether it is Trump and the administration, whether it’s the NFL ownership class, whether it’s their co-conspirators to try to co-opt the movement, these all became pieces that were incredibly informative as far as how we can actually move forward, how we have to navigate them, and also where they have vulnerabilities. The areas that they want you to feel like you don’t have power, but you have significant power and influence to be able to take action and actually create change systemically. And ultimately what I hope people walk away from the memoir with is: we need you to have agency. We need you to be bold. We need you to take action. And we need to do it now. Taking an approach of being passive doesn’t get us to the goal of actually creating the change that we want. So I think the moment in time we are at, as a society and as a country, we are at, in many ways, a fork in the road. We are either going to redirect this ship towards a future that is actually built and beneficial for everybody, or we are going to be passive observers and watch the country go down the drain in a way that I don’t think benefits anybody. So taking action now, and be bold with it and be confident in it. BEN MEISELAS: And so here’s my question for you, though, because there was a time where nobody wanted to talk to Colin Kaepernick. Nobody wanted to be around you. No one wanted to do anything, right? At all. Then there was a time when everybody wanted to be associated with Colin Kaepernick. Everybody wanted to do a deal with you, and all of these structures wanted you to do this, that and the other. And then when Trump came back, everybody who wanted to be with you now were turning their back on you again. And they said, see you later. We don’t want this. No diversity. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When the pendulum swings back and they come back—you’ve always been Colin Kaepernick, and they’ve been, which I think is one of the systemic problems that we have in our country—how do you deal with it? How do I deal with it? How do we together, Colin, how do we deal with that when they’re like, “All right, we’re here,” and we’re like, “Oh, really? Really? Because you weren’t there when I knew.” How do we deal with it? COLIN KAEPERNICK: What I will say there is, collectively, we have to understand the power of our dollar. And this is why boycotts are extremely effective. We’re seeing this right now with Target. Target, the pendulum swung. They had DEI policies in place. The Trump administration comes in, they capitulate, they roll that back. And the response is, we’re boycotting Target collectively. And we saw that impact their bottom line, which sends a message to every other company out there. If you’re taking actions that are counter to the benefit of the people, everyone is going to hold you accountable, and it’s going to impact your bottom line. And I think that’s the action and lever that we have to utilize most significantly. There’s other actions that we can take surrounding that, but I think that becomes the immediate lever. The other part that I would say is, for all of the companies out there, just know that everyone is watching your actions. Every person in every community is watching the actions that you take. And those who are steadfast in their beliefs and their morals and their integrity and working to the benefit of people, those are going to be the companies that everyone backs. The ones who sway with the breeze and capitulate, everyone is going to remember the positions that you are taking now and the convenience that you’re taking within that approach to your own benefit that are counter to people’s interests. And when that pendulum swings back and you want people to come support you and you try to position it as, “Hey, we were always with you. We just had to navigate this situation,” people aren’t going to believe you. And the majority of people are not going to come back to you. So I think it’s important that collectively we are steadfast in sending that message because that’s one of the key levers that we have to make sure that companies stay true to the mission. And as we do that, it sends a message to every other company out there. BEN MEISELAS: But this is a very special moment for me, selfishly, personally, but it’s been an honor to be able to share this with the people, to share our relationship with the people. And Colin is someone who’s been beyond inspirational in my life. And it’s an incredible honor to have been by his side for that part of history, into the future. And I think you all see here why Colin is really such an incredible person who walks the walk every damn day. So the book is called The Perilous Fight. Buy 10 copies of it. Not even one. Buy 10 copies of it. Go take a look at it. Read it. And thanks, Colin. We really appreciate you. COLIN KAEPERNICK: And I will say it is always a pleasure. And for all of the listeners out there, viewers out there, I would not be here today and you would not see me in this way if it wasn’t for the work that Ben was doing to be able to support and fight for me and fight for other players. And prior to that work, fighting directly in communities. And Ben, just to be able to spend this time with you, to see all of the success that you’re having and continuing to fight for people and fighting for a better future, is something that makes me incredibly proud, incredibly excited and grateful for all of the work that you have done for me personally and that you’re doing for us collectively. BEN MEISELAS: In it together. Me, you, the Meidas Mighty, all the people out there, not just in this country but abroad, fighting for freedom, fighting for truth, for empathy, for love, for a path forward. Thanks, everybody. This has been Ben Meiselas at the MeidasTouch Network. Hit subscribe to get to seven million subscribers. |
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