Eric Reid believes that the intent of the original protests is being lost

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"He thinks that [the weekend's protest] was a direct response to, obviously, what the president said," Reid said. "He wishes that this many people were involved last year. I don't think the narrative would have went in as many directions as it went if we had more solidarity. We could have focused in on these issues, but we have got to be pragmatic about it. We have this opportunity now, and it's important that we discuss the issues and make changes."

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Reid, who is currently dealing with a left knee injury and normally wouldn't be made available to speak while injured, talked to the Bay Area media for about 20 minutes Wednesday. In that discussion, he hit on a variety of topics and attempted to steer the conversation toward the issues that he and Kaepernick first wanted to address as well as what he hopes will come next. Throughout the course of the session, Reid repeatedly referred to notes he had on his phone from friend Clint Smith, a writer, teacher and Ph.D. candidate at Harvard, who has focused his research on mass incarcerations, the sociology of racism and the history of inequality in the U.S. Among the topics Reid specifically addressed were police brutality, social injustice, the bail system and the importance of local government elections, specifically with district attorneys. Along the way, he retraced the steps of inequality starting with the Great Depression through the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965, respectively.

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"I think these conversations make people uncomfortable, and I think that's a way for them to deflect from the issues that we really want to talk about and steer the narrative in a different direction," Reid said. "And so, my goal is to do a better job this time around of controlling the narrative, talking about the issues, which I hope we can talk about today and getting people to understand why we're doing it, because these issues are real."

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