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Colin Kaepernick tells NBC News the NFL is actively blackballing him while Jay-Z profits from the league\u2019s social justice partnership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Jay-Z<\/a>\u00a0said, \u201cWe\u2019ve moved past kneeling,\u201d but\u00a0Colin Kaepernick<\/a>\u00a0just made it clear the NFL still won\u2019t let him play ball.<\/p>\n In a rare sit-down with NBC News, the former 49ers quarterback laid out exactly why he\u2019s done with the league, and it\u2019s not about moving forward as some people claim.<\/p>\n Kaepernick told the network that the organization is \u201cactively blackballing me\u201d and has targeted other players who stood with him during the protests.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to support an organization that one is actively blackballing me, but two has targeted my brothers who\u2019ve been protesting as part of this as well. I watch college football,\u201d Kaepernick told NBC News reporter Rohan Nadkarni.<\/p>\n Join Us <\/p>\n Delivering news to inboxes since 1999. We break it. They take it. Get it first, straight from AllHipHop.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The contrast here is wild.<\/p>\n Jay-Z walked into an NFL boardroom in 2019 and announced his Roc Nation partnership, talking about how we needed to shift from symbolic gestures to real action.<\/p>\n He said we\u2019re \u201cpast kneeling\u201d and that it was time for something more concrete. The league ate that up.<\/p>\n They made him their entertainment and social justice strategist, gave him a seat at the table, and suddenly the narrative flipped from \u201cthe NFL is racist\u201d to \u201cthe NFL is evolving.\u201d<\/p>\n But Kaepernick\u2019s still locked out, and that\u2019s the part nobody wants to talk about.<\/p>\n When Kaepernick broke down what happened, he pointed to coaches like John Harbaugh who wanted to bring him in but got \u201cshut down from above.\u201d<\/p>\n He went to a Super Bowl, set records, and not a single team would even give him a workout. That\u2019s not a coincidence. That\u2019s coordination.<\/p>\n According to NBC News<\/a>, Kaepernick said the league\u2019s response to the George Floyd movement was \u201claughable\u201d and \u201cdisingenuous.\u201d<\/p>\n They threw money at causes, made statements, and then went back to business as usual. The NFL responded by saying the issues \u201cremain important\u201d and deserve \u201ccontinued attention,\u201d which is corporate speak for \u201cwe\u2019re not actually changing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Kaepernick\u2019s activism has evolved too, but not in the way Jay-Z meant it.<\/p>\n He\u2019s become more strategic about when he speaks, more intentional about which causes he supports. He voted in the last two presidential elections after saying he wouldn\u2019t vote back in 2016.<\/p>\n He credits fatherhood with shifting his perspective.<\/p>\n But none of that means he\u2019s moved past the core issue: the NFL colluded to keep him out, and the league\u2019s partnership with Jay-Z<\/a> was designed to make people forget that ever happened.<\/p>\n His memoir drops later this month, and you can bet it\u2019s going to address exactly how the system works to silence people who refuse to play along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\nAllHipHop\u2019s Daily News Service<\/h2>\n
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