Former NFL quarterback and woke activist Colin Kaepernick last fall likened the NFL draft to a slave auction: “What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic. Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod and examine you searching for any defect that might affect your performance. No boundary respect. No dignity left intact.” But Kaepernick has been longing for years to subject himself once again to the tyranny of those who are responsible for this horrific indignity, and now he may have his best opportunity yet: Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll has revealed that the hard-Left quarterback contacted him and that he thinks he deserves a second chance.
The Seahawks are looking for a quarterback, and Carroll said Wednesday: “I thought about another guy,” Carroll said. “You can ask questions about Colin Kaepernick. I know. You’re going to ask me, so let me just put it out there. He contacted me the other day. Said, ‘Hey, I’d like to get a shot. I’m working out.’ He sent me some videos. Next thing I know, he’s working out with Tyler Lockett. I don’t know how that happened. Does that guy deserve a second shot? I think he does. Somewhere. I don’t know if it’s here. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know if it’s even in football. I don’t know.”
A tepid expression of interest at best, but if Carroll thinks Kaepernick deserves another shot, he may be the one to make it happen. Kaepernick is the best-known mediocre (at best) quarterback in the history of the NFL: the San Francisco 49ers won two and lost six with him at the helm in 2015, and in 2016, Kaepernick was even worse, leading the 49ers to only one win against ten losses. He is 34 years old. Ordinarily, a quarterback with that kind of record would be looking into sportscasting at this point, but Kaepernick has made a name for himself with his far-Left off-field activities, and it is because he is a notorious Leftist, not in spite of that fact, that he might get another shot now.
Ben Shapiro explained why on Twitter Tuesday before Carroll revealed that he was interested in Kaepernick: “Honestly, I would love to see someone sign him and start him. Do it. Seriously, if you’re the Lions, you sign him and start him, the entire media fetes you for your bravery, you earn the eyeballs of a nation that couldn’t care less about you, and you simultaneously get to tank for a first round pick. Or alternatively, he shocks everyone and is good, and it’s the most incredible story in sports. There is essentially no business downside to signing him.”
Related: That’s Adorable: Colin Kaepernick Still Hopes to Return to the NFL
That’s true. There is no business downside. But there is plenty of downside nonetheless. Kaepernick last year released a book, Abolition for the People, which the accompanying press release described as “a manifesto calling for a world beyond policing and prisons. The collection includes over 30 essays representing a broad array of voices and experiences, including political prisoners, grassroots and formerly incarcerated community organizers, scholars, and family members of those killed by the anti-Black terrorism of policing and prisons.” As PJM’s Kevin Downey Jr. pointed out at the time, “Kaepernick’s book, calling for the abolition of police and prisons, comes out after a year of soaring, violent crime in predominantly black neighborhoods, much of which is attributed to bail reform and early prison releases. Abolishing prisons will result in more dead black people. Surely he knows this, but Nike won’t pay him to be a good role model and suggest young black men stay in school, avoid gangs, and not resist arrest.”
Kaepernick is a symptom of our troubled age, a fantastically wealthy, highly privileged individual touting fictional and exaggerated grievances in order to sow division, hatred, and strife. He shouldn’t be disqualified from playing in the NFL because of his political views, but he shouldn’t be handed an NFL job he doesn’t deserve because of those views either, and the latter is much, much more likely to happen.
As my PJM colleague Chris Queen said to me in connection with this story, Kaepernick and Pete Carroll “probably deserve each other.” Indeed. After all, it was Carroll who in September 2020 denounced “a system of slavery” that he claimed had “never gone away,” and added that white people needed to be “educated about what the heck is going on in this world.” Now Carroll could have Colin Kaepernick as his personal tutor to show him what the heck is going on in this world. Carroll would no doubt be an apt pupil.
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