Colin Kaepernick has gone from having a target on his back in the figurative form, to the literal form. The San Francisco 49ers quarterback says he’s received death threats since he protested the national anthem.
As expected, Kaepernick‘s decision to protest the national anthem generated much vitriol among fake patriots saying that he’s disrespecting the flag and the troops that fight for “our freedom.” While Kaepernick has repeatedly told people that he is bringing attention to the oppression and police brutality that plagues Blacks and other people of color, those statements have fallen on deaf ears.
Now, a few of those people who refuse to listen have gone as far to start sending Kaepernick death threats. Kaepernick tells reporters he’s “not concerned” about the few he has received and that some of them have come through social media, and the rest via a “couple of different avenues.”
Kaepernick sounds like was already mentally prepared for the extreme backlash. When asked how he would handle an event where someone chose to act, he responded:
“It will be loud and clear for everyone why it happened, and that would move this movement forward at a greater speed than what it is even now. There’s a lot of racism disguised as patriotism in this country. And people don’t like to address that. And they don’t like to address what the root of this protest is.”