Colin Kaepernick recently revealed the 2015 shooting of Mario Woods led to his kneeling during the national anthem in 2016. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback told his story to Paper Magazine, and he said that shooting caused him to start the Know Your Rights Camp which is described as a “traveling youth-empowerment initiative.”
“The discussion happened shortly after the execution of Mario Woods,” Kaepernick said as Woods was gunned down by five San Francisco police officers. None of the officers were charged and it left Kaepernick very angry. So that resulted in him starting KYRC with his girlfriend Nessa Diab.
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“If Colin wasn’t reviewing a playbook,” Nessa said, “he was reading a history book.”
The reason officers shot at Woods was the fact they considered him a stabbing suspect and he had a knife in his hand while walking on the sidewalk. The incident was one of the many that led to the Black Lives Matter Movement and while none of the officers were punished, Woods’ mom recently won a $400,000 settlement according to the San Francisco Examiner.
This interview by Kaepernick comes on the heels of the NFL announcing a partnership with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, which was an interesting move considering Jay-Z has been supporting Kaepernick from the beginning. When the announcement was made, Jay-Z-said he talked to Kaepernick about the move.
“I think that we forget that Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice, correct?” Jay said during the conference per Rolling Stone. “So in that case, this is a success; this is the next thing. ‘Cause there’s two parts of protesting. You go outside and you protest, and then the company or the individual says, ‘I hear you. What do we do next?’ So for me it was like, action, actionable item, what are we going to do with it? Everyone heard and we hear what you’re saying, and everybody knows I agree with what you’re saying. So what are we going to do? So we should, millions of millions of people, and all we get stuck on [is] Colin not having a job.”
The only issue with that is Kaepernick never talk to Jay-Z or the NFL about the partnership according to Nessa.
Kaepernick wants to return to NFL action, but it’s clear he’s going to stand up what he believes in until he can’t anymore.
