Colin Kaepernick’s unfinished business

quote:

---

Ten years after taking a knee to stand against racism and police brutality at great cost to his career and finances, the former star quarterback is stepping back into the spotlight.

His memoir, “The Perilous Fight,” comes out on Sept. 15. And in interviews with NBC News, his first time speaking in depth about his protest’s fallout in years, Kaepernick reveals the story behind how he came to take a knee in 2016, an act that made him both a hero and a pariah, and one of the most divisive figures in the country.

Kaepernick, 38, is now also a father to a 4-year-old girl. That, he says, helped him understand he has unfinished business in his life and cause. Being a dad “increases the responsibility and urgency of the work we’re doing,” he says. He doesn’t want his daughter — or anyone else — to think he stopped fighting or that the fight was not worth it. “I don’t want my community to watch me and have the takeaway be that if you fight for Black folks, it’s over for you,” he writes in his book.

---

quote:

---

Though the years have provided perspective, Kaepernick says they haven’t dulled his displeasure with the NFL. The quarterback who once led the San Francisco 49ers on a Disney movie-esque run to the Super Bowl in 2012 says he hasn’t watched an NFL game since he was exiled from the league.

“I’m not gonna support an organization that one, is actively blackballing me, but two, has targeted my brothers who have been protesting as part of this as well,” Kaepernick says. “I watch college football.”

---