Colin Kaepernick plans memoir about national anthem protest
Kaepernick said Malcolm X’s autobiography was a big influence for him
Colin Kaepernick is still without an NFL team months after his controversial showcase at an Atlanta-area high school but he revealed in an interview published Thursday he still maintains bigger plans.
Kaepernick, who since his departure from the San Francisco 49ers has become a polarizing social justice activist, revealed in a rare interview with USA Today he plans to start a publishing company and is planning to release his own memoir which does not have a title as of yet.
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“I learned early on that in fighting against systematic oppression, dehumanization and colonization, who controls the narrative shapes the reality of how the world views society,” the 32-year-old free agent told USA Today. “It controls who’s loved, who’s hated, who’s degraded and who’s celebrated.”
Kaepernick said he wanted to share his story about what led him to kneel during the national anthem at the start of the 2016 season, which created a firestorm that made its way to the upper echelon of the White House.
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“I’ve had a lot of questions surrounding what got me to the point of protesting,” Kaepernick said. “Why did I do it? Why did I do it at that moment? Why wasn’t it earlier in my career? A lot of questions surrounding what led me to that point. Which led me to wanting to share that story and give insight. So I think there’s a lot of interest around it, but time will tell when the book comes out.”
In addition to the memoir, he said he had a deal with Amazon’s Audible to release an audio version of the book and said he hopes to open the door for other black authors and creators in order for them to control their own stories.
“We wanted to be able to put the power back into the hands of the people that are telling the stories and the people that are writing the stories and creating them,” Kaepernick told USA Today. “We didn’t want to monopolize that and hold that to ourselves. It’s something that should be distributed to the people who are putting in the work to be able to tell their stories and tell them in a genuine and authentic way.”
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Kaepernick said Malcolm X’s autobiography was a big influence for him and that he gives the book to the members of his Know Your Right camp each year.
He told USA Today he hopes to share his insight in what led him to protest during the national anthem and tell the story the way he sees it.
“The manipulation, the colonization, the distortion of stories, narrative, history, has been done forever,” he said. “This is a way for me to be able to counteract that and begin to decolonize that and centralize the narrative of not only myself but other black and brown writers and authors.”
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Kaepernick added that he still wants to play in the NFL and doesn’t see himself veering off of that track with his venture into publishing.