Colin Kaepernick will not be remembered in NFL history for the Super Bowl that he won for the San Francisco 49ers (though he should, in part).

No, as far as NFL history goes, he will be known as the guy who knelt and did it first, before it became somewhat acceptable, or at least understandable. Kaepernick did it before Trump, before George Floyd, and before Kyle Rittenhouse. Kaepernick did it alone.

That is why history will remember Colin Kaepernick, not as an ex-NFL quarterback, but as a smaller profile Martin Luther King, a John Lewis, but still his own man, there is no direct comparison.

There is no need for any comparisons, once one says Kaepernick, everyone understands the topic. Black men don’t stand a chance in modern America, not as the system stands now. This is what he teaches. He is now a teacher, not an athlete.

Many of us who are white and have considered what it would be (have been) like to marry a black spouse and have a black child, suddenly gasp, realizing just how different life would be for our child, only then fully appreciating the difference that “just skin color” makes. (Ask President Obama).

We would want to dress our black child in the preppiest, “whitest,” clothing as possible. Whereas many parents give their kids driving lessons, fathers of black sons have to give their sons “Pulled Over” lessons, lessons on how to stay alive. Every black person knew this long before Kaepernick came along, he was just the first to put tens to hundreds of millions of dollars on the line for taking a knee. And that taught many of us everything.

MAGAs get to destroy our Capitol, and then have their hero cheered on when – after taking two lives, white lives protecting black lives – when the MAGA is found not guilty, Kaepernick didn’t take a knee, he is done with “reform.”

“Reform” means keeping portions of the law enforcement system, and yet people like Kaepernick know what part would be kept. Perhaps that’s why his one tweet today dropped on the net and shot to the top of Twitter:

We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist.

This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed.

— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) November 19, 2021

At one point, he was the face of the Superbowl MVP. Now, he is the face of the civil rights movement and it’s likely long past time to fall in line behind him.

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