With guest host Jane Clayson.
Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who took a knee during the national anthem, remains shunned by football. We’ll toss around why.
While every player stood, hand on heart, Colin Kaepernick kneeled, on the ground. In protest. During the national anthem. Fans didn’t want it. Unpatriotic. And now coaches and owners don’t want him. A distraction. A year after his stand on his knee, Kaepernick has been, essentially, blackballed. This hour, On Point: Should Kaepernick be back in the NFL? And, CTE found in the brain of Aaron Hernandez. — Jane Clayson.
Guests
Cindy Boren, sports reporter for the Washington Post. ( @CindyBoren)
Sarah Jackson, professor of communication studies at Northeastern University. Author of “ Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press: Framing Dissent.” ( @sjjphd)
Alejandro Danois, editor-in-chief of the sports website The Shadow League. ( @alidanois)
From The Reading List
The Washington Post: Colin Kaepernick Has Done More Than Make A Statement, He Has Shown NFL Players Their Power — “Kaepernick, who has moved to New York since leaving the San Francisco 49ers in March, has spent his time fulfilling a pledge to donate $1 million to organizations that fight oppression. On Thursday, he announced to 1.23 million followers on Twitter that he has given away $900,000. Just don’t expect him to be more visible. Babb writes that ‘he rarely appears in public and has in fact been asked by event organizers to not appear at rallies in his name.'”
The Shadow League: Horrible NFL Ratings Are Chickens Coming Home To Roost — “At this point, with the quality of quarterback play in the NFL, it’s both laughable and absurd that Colin Kapernick remains unemployed. There’s no denying the dearth of quality signal callers in the league, and to suggest that Kap is worse than every starter and backup suiting up right now is the dictionary definition of Fake News.”
The New York Times: The Awakening of Colin Kaepernick — “Attempts to explain who Kaepernick is — and how and why he became either a traitor (“Maybe he should find a country that works better for him,” Donald J. Trump said as a presidential candidate last year) or a hero (“He is the Muhammad Ali of this generation,” the longtime civil rights activist Harry Edwards said in an interview last week) — tend to devolve into partisan politics and emotional debates ranging from patriotic rituals to racial inequities. Kaepernick is now (and may forever be) known for a simple, silent gesture. He is the quarterback who knelt for the national anthem before National Football League games last year as a protest against social injustice, especially the deaths of African-Americans at the hands of police.”
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