Former NFL star Colin Kaepernick says that he doesn’t believe that capitalism would allow for the end of white supremacy.
Kaepernick made the statement in an interview with The New Republic promoting his new book, Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies, co-edited by Kaepernick, Robin D.G. Kelley and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. The book compiles work from Black authors including W.E.B. DuBois, James Baldwin and Octavia Butler, and is available as a free ebook from Haymarket Books and Kaepernick Publishing.
When asked why Kaepernick partnered with two Black Marxists as his co-editors, he praised their work and credited them as “understanding that Black liberation simply isn’t possible under capitalism.”
“I think the anthology makes this argument quite well, and I hope it challenges readers to see that racism is not white supremacy’s only ingredient. White supremacy persists in part because of its relationship with capitalism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and so on,” Kaepernick said.
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He also called out Republican efforts to keep what they call “critical race theory” out of the classroom.
“Black Studies and, more generally, a critical engagement with U.S. history, threatens the white supremacist status quo. Any attempt to whitewash the past should actually be understood as a concrete step toward fascism and a desire to build a nation state where power is concentrated in the hands of a self-anointed (read: white) few,” Kaepernick said. “That said, I wouldn’t characterize GOP attacks on Black Studies as an ‘obsession’ but rather as core to their white supremacist political project.”
Kaepernick rose to prominence as a popular quarterback after being chosen by the San Francisco 49ers in the second round of the 2011 NFL Draft. He earned conservatives’ ire in 2016 by kneeling during the national anthem in protest against police brutality and racial injustice. After the 2016 season, he became a free agent, but was not signed by any teams. Kaepernick last played in the NFL on January 1, 2017.
Our History Has Always Been Contraband is not Kaepernick’s only book this year. This March, he released Change the Game, a graphic novel he wrote with Eve L. Ewing that was illustrated by Orlando Caicedo. The book, intended for young adults, is about his high school years.
“Part of the goal in telling the story is [for readers] to take pride in your Blackness, take pride in your culture. My hope is young people and readers walk away and they seize their power,” he told CBS Mornings.
Featured image taken from YouTube screenshot from CBS Mornings appearance.