The New Yorker Radio Hour - Colin Kaepernick, Ten Years After Taking a Knee

Episode Date: September 11, 2026

Colin Kaepernick had a stunning rise as an N.F.L. quarterback after becoming a full-time starter, in 2012. He was a legitimate dual threat—as effective running the ball as he was throwing it. And, to this day, Kaepernick still holds the record for rushing yards by an N.F.L. quarterback in a playoff game. But his formidable skills as a player were quickly overshadowed by his decision—quiet at first—to engage in protest for social justice a decade ago. He knelt during the national anthem at games, and that generated an enormous amount of controversy, with everyone from his fellow-players to a future President weighing in on his decision. In the aftermath of his demonstrations, the San Francisco 49ers told him that they were going to cut him, and no other team would sign him. In his new memoir, “The Perilous Fight,” Kaepernick describes how this wasn’t even the full extent of the league’s efforts to punish him. He and David Remnick discuss his new book and the consequences of his political activism. “I had football taken away from me,” Kaepernick explains. “I didn’t get to leave on my terms. And I didn’t get to leave because, ‘Oh, you're not good enough to play anymore.’ It was because of the causes I was supporting and the change I was trying to effect. So that leaves a sour taste in your mouth.”Further reading: “The N.F.L.’s Change of Tone, and the Limits of Merely Listening,” by Louisa Thomas“Colin Kaepernick’s Contested Workout and the Power Plays of the N.F.L.,” by Louisa Thomas“Behind Nike’s Decision to Stand by Colin Kaepernick,” by Jelani Cobb“What Will Taking the Knee Mean Now?,” by Doreen St. Félix“The Racial Demagoguery of Trump’s Assaults on Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry,” by David Remnick New episodes of The New Yorker Radio Hour drop every Tuesday and Friday. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and the New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. You know, controversies in the world of sports have been making headlines all year. For months now, the WNBA has been drawn into the debate about trans athletes in sports, even though there isn't a single trans player currently in the league. And the NBA is still reeling from a salary cap scandal, broken by the reporter Pablo Tori, that's led to the billionaire Los Angeles clipper owner, Steve Balmer, being suspended from the sport for an entire year.

But a decade ago, the biggest controversy in sports, and one that we're still thinking about, surrounded just one athlete, Colin Kaepernick. Is Kaepernick still looking for a job because of his stance on social issues and is kneeling for the national anthem last year? Without a doubt, I think this is a big image blow for the NFL. They have to figure out what side of defense they're already supporting the players.

Kaepernick had a stunning rise as an NFL star. In 2012, he won the starting quarterback job for the San Francisco 49ers, and then led the team all the way to the Super Bowl, a game that they narrowly lost. On the field, Kaepernick was a dynamic dual threat. He could beat you with his arm, could throw long, or he could beat you running down the field. To this day, Kaepernick still holds the record for rushing yards

by an NFL quarterback in a single playoff game. but his considerable skills as a player were quickly overshadowed by his decision to engage in protest for racial justice. You'll remember well, he would kneel during the national anthem before games. And that gesture, that protest generated an enormous amount of backlash with everyone from his fellow players to future presidents weighing in. You following that story at all? Well, I have followed it, and I think it's, uh, I think it's personally not a good thing. I think it's a terrible thing.

And, you know, maybe you should find a country that works better for him. Let him try. It won't happen. And Kaepernick paid a price, a really steep price. Even as a star quarterback, after leaving the 49ers, no other team in the league. Not one would sign him. In his new memoir, The Periless Fight, Colin Kaepernick writes that this wasn't even the full extent of the league's efforts to punish him.

So I sat down the other day with Colin Kaepernick to talk about how he feels about football now on the eve of a new NFL season. You were such an all-round athlete as a kid growing up. Yeah. Why you chose football over all the others? There is a camaraderie that's built in the huddle and on the field.

That you don't have in baseball. You don't have in baseball. You don't have in basketball. ball because especially as a quarterback, your physical safety is dependent upon 10 other people doing their job. It builds this sense of camaraderie and dependence on each other. And you loved it. And you love that element of it.

Like there is a brotherhood there because you know what's at stake. You know it's at risk there. But you go out and you put the work in to be able to accomplish that goal together. And it was hard to find that anywhere else. And football was also culturally very different for me. Oh, so? There was a lot more black players. For me being a young black boy, adopted into a white family, predominantly white community.

You needed that. I found community in football. And that was also an important element for me. And that seems to be the heart of your origin story, Colin, if I can, that to be adopted by however well-meaning white parents, but who were also making mistakes all the time of language, of intent, and you set these out really beautifully in your book, and you have to teach yourself in some way blackness in a way that was not there in the house, and kind of, in a way, teaching yourself.

Tell me about that process. Yeah, it's an interesting process because, I think one of the important piece for me is, I think sometimes people assume, like, there was a journey to find my blackness. And I just don't view it that way. How do you see it? I knew I was black at a very young age.

Like, that's, you know you're black. Right. Society tells you your black. black, my parents were very open and transparent about that. Like, that wasn't, that wasn't a secret. Where the evolution comes from is putting your experiences as a young black boy into context of larger black society and black history that you don't receive in your own household. And for me, largely in Turlock, there were no black mentors. I had, I had a few, but most of them were coaches. Tell me about the town you're growing up in.

You're aware. Turlock, California, where I grew up, Central California. I also tell people when you think about California, normally I think California like Blue State. So you think of L.A. or San Francisco. Central California is red. So very different environment there. But I think Turlock at that point in time was somewhere, I think it was between like one and three percent black. So black community, black population, not significant.

So for me, I had to figure out how to be able to navigate these situations, these circumstances, without really having a guide. And getting older and later in life and then being exposed to literature like Malcolm X and Baldwin and Fanon and Huey Newton and Angela Davis, It's like getting a broader perspective, help put my experience growing up into context, but also helped put it in a broader context of black community and black history that was important to get me to understand systems-level thinking. How do you mean by systems level?

Think about that in relation to when we talk about policing. Oftentimes there's a positionality of, oh, this was a one-off instance or like this was this was one bad action by a police officer. As opposed to looking historically of policing coming out of slave patrols, the original intention of policing. Why policing shows up much more significantly in black communities than white communities. The relationship and engagement that black communities have with policing, how that feeds into the prison industrial complex. So having a broader perspective around it gave me the insight to understand better why situations and circumstances were happening, as opposed to being like, oh, you know what? That one interaction, like, that was a bad moment. That shouldn't happen.

Interactions that you experienced as well? I mean, being pulled over, having police come in our house in college, because the neighbors called that a bunch of young black men were robbing a house while one. of my teammates was moving out. Literally, one of our teammates graduating and were helping move some of his furniture. Now, at this point, we had been in this house for over a year. Right.

So it wasn't like the neighbors didn't know us or hadn't seen us before. Right. So you deal with circumstances and situations like that, and there's definitely awareness of broader conversation of the black community's relationship with police.

But at that point, time, I didn't have the larger understanding or a systemic understanding of policing and the intention behind it beyond, hey, they're going to target you. You need to be prepared for it. How about the institution itself of the NFL? You entered the NFL, which in a way, people talk about the monoculture, what's left of the monoculture. It doesn't exist any more music, which is more fractured or movies or anything else. The one thing all television networks want now is the NFL. It is the most galvanizing entertainment that this country has at this moment. You can see it in dollars and cents. Yeah. When you enter the NFL, did you experience racism in the NFL itself, or was that an escape from racism in greater society in some way?

Both. It's a complex dynamic because in some regards, you're able to have the benefit of being with other players. NFL is approximately 70% black. So you have community in that regard. By the time you are in the NFL, most players have significant salaries. You're making significant money well beyond the average. So you then reach a different class status

that gives you different privilege associated with it. How political were you in the beginning when you got into the NFL. And how much, if at all, did you talk politics with other players? Politics writ big, you know, in the broadest sense. Yeah, I would say you talk about it, but for me, I didn't have, I didn't have the broader perspective around it. So you see it show up in relation to, and we talk about this in the book,

it shows up in the combine of, you know, the treatment of players. Explain that, because this is very strange. Oh, it's... The Combine is where prospective players go to show there, not only how fast they can run or jump to catch a ball, but also they strip down and display themselves. Yes. So the combine is what the public sees

is the on-field performance, the drills, the throwing sessions, all of that. But it's actually a three-to-four-day event. And a lot of it is you do have moments where you're walking across stage and your compression shorts. They're taking photos of you as part of that, which there's an understanding that this is, has parallels to slave auction blocks. Like there's no reason for us to walk on state. And does this occur in any other sport? Not to my knowledge.

Not to mine either. And it, there's quite literally no relevance to it for the ability to perform the job. Did the players talk about that in the moment, or is it only in kind of retrospect that you now think back and think, wait, that was really sick? Players know it in the moment. And what do they say? I mean, it's one of those things that as a college player, at this point, you're probably somewhere between 21, 23. Yeah. You've worked your whole life to get the opportunity to play in the NFL.

You know this is wrong. And you have an understanding of like this doesn't make sense. Why is this even happening? But in the moment that you're about to get drafted, do you raise that and be like, no, I'm not doing that for you and potentially hurt your draft stock or capital? Do they then say, oh, this guy is undraftable? He's rebellious.

He has an attitude problem. Yeah. Bad attitude. He's not coachable. Doesn't listen well. Not a team player. Those are the euphemissons. Yeah.

Which really ties back. Oh, oftentimes. Which really ties back to you're not obedient. Right. And that, within that also comes to interviews as part of the combine. Where a lot of the interviews that I had, and they're well-documented publicly. They're not asking you questions

about your ability to play football oftentimes. There's questions about players' sexuality. Are you gay? There have been questions about players and their mothers. Are they prostitutes? Wait, wait a minute. Are you gay as your mother a prostitute?

Do you get the questions like that come at you? Oh, I mean, Post-2016, players got asked, what do you think about Colin Kaepernick? What is the purpose of that? 2016, the year that you protested, police racism and so on. So really trying to get a gauge of, now mind you, all of these are illegal questions to ask in a labor engagement. But to me, those are questions designed to be able to understand, like, is this player, obedient, are they going to conform?

Are they going to be compliant to what we're asking of them? And do I feel like they're going to act in our best interest at all times? And I think the reality for players is you know those things shouldn't be happening, but you're also in a position that's like, well, two, three months from now, we're going into the draft, and we're going to decide where you get drafted, which has direct impact on dollars that you're going to make. And if you don't get drafted, you go back to your hometown and...

And figure it out. Yeah. I'm speaking with former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick. We'll continue our conversation in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. And I'm speaking today with ex-NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick.

Now, as any fan knows, reaching the pinnacle of professional football is incredibly difficult. Even a storied career as a college athlete is hardly a guarantee of prolonged success in the NFL. Just to ask Tim Tebow or Johnny Mansell. For Colin Kaepernick, there was yet another hurdle he had to overcome as a pro ball player. deeply entrenched attitudes about race and even the position of quarterback. Let's continue our conversation. Colin, I'm 15, 20 minutes older than you are.

So when I was growing up, black quarterbacks weren't around. I mean, Warren Moon came along, and it slowly changed. But it was exceedingly rare, even in college. And I wonder how that affected your psychology as a quarterback, how did that figure into things? The particular position that you play, the leader position on offense. So there's, for me, one of the mentalities that I have

is you have to break boundaries. And we saw instances of this happening, to your point, Warren Moon, Donovan McNabb, Randall Cunningham, Doug Williams. Mike Big, Doug Williams. We see flashes of this, and we see the success. but the abilities were always called into question of black quarterbacks, in part because the quarterback is viewed as essentially the CEO.

And the question is, well, should your CEO look like this? Do they have the capability? And there's always a question on the intelligence of black quarterbacks. we see that consistently show up. They'll get all the accolades on physical ability and athleticism and being gifted or being a monster or a beast. But when it comes to intellect,

it's never the same adjectives used for white quarterbacks. They're never described as a student of the game or a field general or a coach on the field. These are white descriptions. Yeah. Yeah. You'll get those for white quarterbacks. Black quarterbacks will not be described that way.

Historically have not been described that way. Even though the intellectual abilities are still there, they have the athletic abilities in addition. So you have, as you're developing at the Niners, you've got a political part of your head. You've got a football part of your head. And then you have this explosion in terms of your. your career in like out of seemingly out of nowhere i got to tell you as a pretty casual fan but oh my god who's this guy in san francisco and then the next year you're in the super bowl you had this really explosive at the cost of somebody else's injury and you appear and have these

games where you're throwing 250 300 400 yards in the air and running and extraordinary how explosive was your political development or radicalization calling what you will? What's happening in your mind as we're leading toward to 2016

that you're becoming in some way a different person as well as a different level athlete? Yeah, I look at both of those as preparation and putting the work in. the same way on the football side in 2012,

people were like, oh, you came out of nowhere. Like, your 10th start is in the Super Bowl. Like, how did this happen? Where did you come from? So 15 years and overnight sensation. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, no, this has been years and years of work and preparation in showing up as if I'm the starter,

even when I'm not in that position. And I think similarly on the, political side is putting in the work to make sure that I am prepared to be able to take the actions that I need to to be successful in that space. And that's everything from reading the literature we had talked about, from Malcolm to Baldwin, to Fanon, to Angela Davis, and some of the black radical and revolutionary tradition. But also, in doing that, I was auditing grandkids. graduate classes at Berkeley.

What were you taking? What were you reading? The one class that I remember specifically was a class around decolonization and looking it from a global perspective. And I was spending time on Berkeley's campuses. I was in these classes. I was doing my own research and studying. I was doing work directly in communities. and this is before ever taking a knee in 2016 in protesting. And again, I think it's similar in the sense that people are like, oh, well, this came out of nowhere. Like, how'd this happen?

It's like, no, this has been happening. Yeah. It just wasn't in your face or in the public eye because to me I feel like you have to do the work. And I think one of the pieces that ties back to this is, even in 2012 on that Super Bowl run, one of the pieces that came up as part of that going back into having a black quarterback

was there was an article written after my second or third start in taking over that, I believe it was David Whitley wrote an article that was like, the primary question was, do you want the CEO of your team to look like he just got paroled?

You're black with tattoos, And you don't fit the mold of... He wrote that. Yes. And that's part of where... In 2012, in Lee up to the Super Bowl, that's where Kaepernicking came from, which was a touchdown celebration.

Really, me saying, I love my blackness. I love my tattoos. Like, you're not going to try to make me feel like I shouldn't be in this position because of that. Why I think that's important is I was trying to push back on those narratives then. but I only had an understanding of it

from an individualistic perspective of, oh, you're directly attacking me. The later understanding is, no, you're not attacking me. You're attacking the idea of someone like me in this position. And you're trying to remove the opportunity and the pathway for other black quarterbacks to be in this position

by trying to denounce me in this position. And that goes back to like the systems level thinking, and think about it from a collective perspective as opposed to just an individual one. Why did you decide in 2016, I've been sitting on the bench for a couple of days, nobody seems to notice during the National Anthem, I'm going to take a knee,

which people would notice and did notice in the most various and sometimes hysterical ways. So tell me about why you made that decision and what you expected to come out of it. Yeah. So when I first started sitting in 2016, this was in the preseason too, right? This was in the preseason.

And at that point in time, we had seen a wave of killings, a continuation of wave of killings of black people. We saw this with Mario Woods in San Francisco. We saw it with Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge. We saw it with Philando Castile in Minnesota. and the conversation that was being had more broadly is we have to do something about this. And putting that in context with the work I have been doing on understanding systems,

when I walked out on the field and they asked us to rise for the Star-Spangled Banner, I had a realization of, well, why do I take pride in this? when historically this country is discriminated against black people we're seeing black people being killed by police with impunity and if we go further into the Star-Spangled Banner it talks specifically about no slaves shall escape essentially slavery and it was a moment of well why are we taking pride in this

We need to have a different pathway forward. We need to address this. We need to build safer communities. The actual gesture itself, the one that it reminded me most was John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968. I think it was Mexico City Olympic Games. They came in first and third in the 200 meter dash and then stood on the victory platform with bowed heads wearing black socks and gloves in a racial protest. Yeah. Was that in your head?

had that moment or something like it, why did you decide to kneel? So we started taking a knee after the third preseason game. And you say we? Yes. So I think it's an important context in this because the first three games, I've been sitting by myself. That guy identified by Steve Weish. And he asked me why I had been sitting. Steve Weiss is? He's a reporter for the NFL. And he asked me why after the game. We had a conversation, and that led to broader coverage around why I wasn't standing for the anthem. And on the back of that, we were going into our next game and down in San Diego. And this was our last preseason game, and Eric Reed, who was our first round draft pick, Louisiana, a safety.

He was also someone that I constantly competed with in our early. early morning workouts, but he was like, look, I'm from Baton Rouge. I care deeply about this as well. I want to join you and I want to be supportive in it. Would you be open to us taking a knee? Because they're saying you're distancing yourself from the team, because it's a way that we could be up front and center. There was a broad narrative around disrespect around the approach of protests.

which I think is always a distraction from the actual issue. Right. But it was a way that we can continue this. We're going to try to continue to grow and expand with that and make sure that it's very clear that the work that we are doing is trying to bring awareness to the issues directly in black communities. Were you disappointed that more teammates didn't do it along with you?

Yes. Were they scared? Yeah. What did they say to you? I mean, I have players that it came back and were like, oh, I talked to my agent about it or I talked to my family about it. We had players across the league. I remember one, which this is a little bit of a mind-blowing,

like playing this back is a little bit of a mind-blowing conversation. I had one player that came back and was like, my owner told me that I can't protest. My owner. And I, that was an unfathomable sentence to me. Anybody call you up? Owner, commissioner, saying cut it out. What kind of pressure did you get?

They wouldn't explicitly frame it that way. But it would be like, well, have you thought about doing something else? Have you thought about, I bet you that. It was always a passive-aggressive, like, trying to redirect, which is interesting because I think the part that stands out to me and really the NFL told on themselves in this situation is I wasn't protesting the NFL. Like there was no point in time that I was like, the NFL, you are the ones doing this. But their reaction was, oh, we have to make this stop. We're going to take an oppositional position. They align themselves with Donald Trump in the process.

Donald Trump, who, of course, was running for president that year. Running for president? And made you a campaign issue. Tell me about that. Yeah. And NFL owners did fundraisers for him, raised millions of dollars. and he had Robert Kraft lying on Air Force One with him.

Who owns the Patriots? Who owns the Patriots? He had Jerry Jones, who owns the Cowboys. There was a reported phone call that was like Trump saying this is a winning issue for me, essentially fall in line. Colin, I've got to ask you,

and remember, it is now 10 years after the fact, so maybe it's a little less fraught. Michael Jordan was once asked about why he wasn't more political. And he said, you know, Republicans buy sneakers too. Yeah. Which is a very different approach than Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, Tommy Smith, and a lot of NBA players too. Yeah.

Who, and I'm asking you to be specific, who let you down in the NFL? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, there were players in the NFL. that joined forces with the NFL in the Players Coalition. And those were efforts that were led by Malcolm Jenkins and Aquam Bolden and sold the protest out

or attempted to. Very real conversations that were had there. I mean, I would say largely NFL players I don't think collectively responded. I do think there was a missed opportunity there. Did you feel lonely in your efforts? No, because I had great people by my side. I mean, whether it's Eric Reed or Kenny Stills, Albert Wilson.

Any white players? No. Not one. Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady came out in support of me and saying that I shouldn't be blackballed and I should be on an NFL team. So there were support in that regard in very select instances, but more so around the topic of police killing black folks

and trying to address the systemic issues, very limited. My guest is Colin Kaepernick, former NFL quarterback, and this is the New Yorker Radio Hour with more to come. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been talking today with former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Kaepernick. In the years since he left the 49ers, he's been unable to play professional ball.

He says that the protest that he led, players kneeling during the national anthem, to draw attention to police killings of young black men, that cost him his football career. He writes about all of this in his new memoir, called the perilous fight. For years, Kaepernick maintained hope of staging a comeback, and there were tryouts for other NFL franchises, but ultimately no one in the league was willing to take a risk on him. And meanwhile, Kaepernick had to maintain his body

for the really unique physical punishment that comes with being an NFL player. We spoke recently about the toll the game can take on someone both internally and externally. Now it comes to a murkier part of the story that I've never understood, and I want you to explain it, and you do a good job in your book, but I want you to flesh it out if you would.

Yeah. Your career comes to an end, really. It comes screeching to an end. And that's always been mysterious to me. What happened? So after the 2016 season, the 49ers told me that they were going to cut me, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch.

Now, at this point, it was... Did they make clear that it was for athletic reasons or extra athletic reasons? they said they were looking to run a different style offense. I think it was a matter of, hey, we're going to get a mile of San Francisco. We have a new coaching staff, new GM.

This is how we're going to approach it. And they told me they were going to cut me. I didn't get a whole lot of explanation beyond that. Now, as part of that, they said they weren't going to cut me until after the new league year started, which means that free agency would have already kicked off, which means that other teams would have already had selections

as far as their quarterbacks and went out and got them. So they said, we're either going to cut you or you can opt out of your contract now. So I opted out of my contract so I could get a head start on free agency in looking for another team. They publicly did not disclose that until a later date, which that became a separate narrative of, oh, well, he wasn't in San Francisco

because he didn't want to be, which just wasn't the case. And John Lynch, later after that story, had already run rampant, came out and apologized for not addressing it. What followed on the back of that was no other team had given me a tryout.

And I had had had a very, visit with the Seattle Seahawks. They brought me in. They did not do a workout with me. Because they said, we already know you're a starter. What they asked me was everything about my political beliefs, the protests, and then ultimately said, you know what, we're not going to offer you to play on the Seahawks. I think what you're telling me is in the end, people thought, you know what let's we don't need this

this guy is it's too much bother we'll get our quarterback elsewhere and just am I getting that pretty much right as a resolution well it was

it wasn't even so much too much bother it was we know you're capable of playing in the NFL and the NFL prides itself on being a meritocracy like that

that is one of the narratives they push if you're the best, if you're good enough, you'll play. It's actually not true. Are you saying the teams were willing to suffer a less good quarterback in order to just avoid the political heartache that you might give them?

Absolutely. And I also think they overblew the thought around the impact that it would have because I think they only looked at from the perspective of white fans. The part that I think is undercovered is the massive support for the protests

and how that continued to grow. And one of the narratives that the NFL continued to try to push out because it benefited them saying, oh, we're not going to do this because they didn't want to align with supporting black communities was, oh, you're bad for business.

Like, you're going to hurt the value of our teams. You're going to hurt our ticket sales. You're going to hurt all of these things. Which got proven to be demonstrably false multiple times. One, because my jersey went to number one as far as a seller. Two, in 2018, we did a campaign called Dream Crazy with Nike. And on the back of that, Nike stock jumped approximately $6 billion because of the support from people. And, people and communities, saying, oh, this is a first time that a company and a corporation has stepped up and supported our communities in this way. Like, we want to make sure that we support that.

Right. So that narrative of it being problematic for them just was disingenuous and factually false. So this story really was a moment in time. And a moment in time, not only in what I think is the biggest pop culture business that we have, pro football now, but in the greater political world. Everybody knew about it, even non-football fans, and there are some. We're now in a moment. It's now 2026 where the WNBA is known almost as much for its cultural politics as it is for its basketball. You know, you see these very complicated things happening in the WNBA about trans issues and also action on the court between white players and black players. How do you look at the kind of culture war aspect of the WNBA and its racial ramifications?

What's going on there? I mean, to me, the WNBA, they have been at the forefront. of a lot of the work that has been happening across country. In relation to the protest, the WNBA, they were one of the first movers

in supporting, and player supporting. Supporting. Supporting the protest against police brutality and police killing black foes. And how I think about them

is the players within the WNBA, they have been at the forefront as far as athletes. and thinking about how they show up beyond just as players. And I think they've done that exceptionally well. And they've shown that time and time again, whether it's the protests, whether it's voting rights,

whether it's issues directly in their community. They're navigating some of the attempts at shock value around trans issues right now within the WMBA. But I definitely look at them as leaders overall in the space because of how they've continuously shown. showed up over time and the consistency that they've approached that with. Sometimes people, in terms of your protest, who are critics of it would say that's just wokeism. You know, that's woke politics.

But recently, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made a remark on television some Sundays ago that woke one was crazy. I'm sure you saw this play out. What did you think of that? I think it is incredibly important for us to think about the opportunities and environment that we're in currently came about because of the work that people have been doing on the ground for years. And I think the people who are doing work on the ground, I don't buy into woke one or this woke framing because that's not one that's come from the communities that are actually doing the work. To me, that's a political positioning that the right has used to try to say, hey, we don't want to support black causes or we don't want to support causes that aren't white supremacists or aren't benefiting white men. But this is AOC saying that. Yes.

But I also think it's my assumption, she has broader political positions. I think you can assume that. and I think some of that probably comes into where she thinks polling is, where she thinks base is, what she has to do to be able to accomplish that. And again, I say I think she has done phenomenal work,

but when it comes to this woke framing and trying to denounce the work that people have done for years that have created the environment and condition for a mom-dani to come in and be successful, Like, that's not something I'm going to denounce the work that people have done. Like, we have to embrace that because that's what's helped get us to this point. That's not say that doesn't grow and evolve and that doesn't have to happen as part of it. But I don't buy into the framework of accepting how right-wing politics is going to position this.

Colin, you come a week after some news came out about the NFL, about, CTE's head injuries that one in four NFL players will end up with one form or another of a CTE, brain damage essentially. And I wonder when you were playing, whether you felt that this was a dangerous thing that you've chosen. You could have been a baseball player. You could have been a lot of things. You're a straight-A student. Did you ever feel that sense of peril? As a football, as a football player, you know you're putting your physical well-being at risk every day. Like that, that's a known component of it. The part that became more, more prominent, and there was more awareness around, and studies started coming out, was on the CTE side and the impact that is having on players' brains.

To the point of that study, I would say I think that's very generous framing at 25%. Really? Because there were past studies. I believe there was the one that was done, that was 100 players. I believe there was one that didn't have CTE. That was that earlier study. And I believe that one was a kicker. You're saying that doesn't count. Not that doesn't count.

Kickers are critical part of the football team. But they're not having contact the same way the rest of football players are. When you watch it on TV from a distance, you hear euphemism is like, oh, he got dinged. Or, you know, he's going into the protocol, like he's going into some science experiment, which means he likely has a concussion.

Yep. You know, and you have these scenes every X times of everybody lining up and praying that their teammate is not paralyzed or dead. Tell me what it's like to play football. What is the pain level like? For real. Well, I think there's a few different pieces.

Like, one, you build a pain tolerance. Like, that's something that you grow over time. I think normally the first time you step on a football field, there is a shock to your body of like, oh, I just got rocked. Like, that did not feel great. And by the time you get to the NFL level, the general equation that people use is

it equates to approximately a 35, five mile an hour car crash, every collision. Every collision. Just slow that down for a second. Every time you're in a play, unless you're getting away with it, unless you get that pass off really quickly, you're in a 35 mile an hour car crash. And that's first down. Yeah. Then comes second.

And then you have over the course of a game, called 60 to 70 plays generally. And that's, you do that for. 16 straight weeks. That doesn't include preseason, that doesn't include postseason. Or practice. Now it's 17 weeks. And the people watching on TV think the helmets

and the shoulder pads, et cetera, somehow protect you. They don't seem to. I mean, they help. They definitely help. Yeah. But there's the pads help disperse some of the force. The interesting part with helmets is

they give you a false sense of, like, safety. And you see it even with little kids, like you put a helmet on and it's like, all right, the first thing they do is want to run their head into something. Yeah. That still exists when you get to the NFL. But what we're finding now with the studies that have been done is, no, every collision is shaking your brain. And every concussion is causing damage. And I think it's a newer factor, new discovery in the prominence as far as how it's shown up in the studies that have been done around it. But the part that I don't think is fully appreciate is the level of violence.

And we talk about contact sports, like generally. To me, basketball is a contact sport. Like, it's physical. They're playing hard. Like, there's contact there. Football is a collision sport. Like, there is a different level of violence and intentionality behind that. And even as there have been measures to try to make it safer,

you still have people that are 300 plus pounds, 250 plus pounds, running full speed, and trying to knock your head off. Like that is part of the intention. And I don't know if there's a safe way you actually do that. Like that's, we adapt for it,

you train for it, you try to prepare for it, but ultimately football, the chance of you getting injured is 100%. You're going to get hurt. Do you miss the game? Oh, of course. You do.

For all that, for all the pain, psychological, political, and physical, you miss the game. Yeah. Now, I don't miss the politics of the NFL. Yeah. But the game of football and going out and competing and being in the huddle with teammates, as brutal as it is, going through all of the training and preparation, and then going out there and trying to accomplish a goal together,

that's not something you can replace or replicate anywhere else. They say sometimes that athletes die twice. They die at a very young age when they leave the game that they're in. And then like the rest of us, their life comes soon.

Did you feel that? I don't look at it as dying twice. What I look at it is is for me, I have football taken away from me. I didn't get to leave on my terms. And I didn't get to leave because, oh, you're not good enough to play anymore. It was because of the causes I was supporting and the change I was trying to affect.

So that makes it a sour, that leaves a sour taste in your mouth. But if you could go back into the game today, somebody gave you a call from the Giants or the Jets or the Jets could certainly use you. And you thought you were up to it? Would you do it? Oh, we'd be suited up and on the field throwing a football. You would? Absolutely. Colin Kaepernick, thanks so much.

Thank you. Colin Kaepernick, his memoir, The Periless Fight, is available now, and the NFL season starts this week, which means it's not too late for the New York Jets to sign him. You can find the New Yorkers column by Louisa Thomas, the sporting scene every week at New Yorker.com. And you can subscribe to The New Yorker there as well, New Yorker.com.

I'm David Remnick. Thanks for joining us this week. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Pughey. Paul and Ursula Summer, with guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May,

David Gable, Erica Huang, Elliot Wright, and Alejandra Deccat. We had assistance this week from Pran Bandy. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.