Colin Kaepernick: In His Own Words

Colin, it's so great to see you in full disclosure.

Colin was my client. I represented Colin in the case against the NFL. Colin and I have worked on various initiatives together, whether it's no your rights camp, the autopsy initiative. Within no your rights, and we've been involved in various endeavors together.

More importantly, Colin's one of my best friends in the world. And he's like family to me, I give you all that. And full disclosure going into this interview. So doing this interview with someone who has all of that background with me. I just want the audience to know all of that.

But Colin's out with the new book. It's called The Paralists Fight. Make sure you all order this book or buy this book. Now, it's out in stores. You can order it online.

It's supported, dependent book stores as well. Colin, I want to talk about this book, The Paralists Fight. And it's hard not to situate it in the current experience that we all are feeling in the United States.

“I think the psychological torture that Americans are experiencing,”

what you warned against when you took a knee, and when you were speaking out, and when you spoken out. And so I want to remind people, though,

that back in the first Trump regime,

you were one of the first people that Donald Trump targeted. A private citizen, you were out there, superstar, quarterback, brought a team to the Super Bowl, San Francisco 49ers, then Donald Trump got up there in Huntsville, Alabama, to get that son of a bitch off the field.

And that was one of the first times, if not the first time that we saw the office. I mean, he had been making social media posts down junior. There was a whole right-wing movement to cancel you. But that was one of the first times we saw

a president in a public speech like that. Go after a private citizen, go after an athlete. Let's just play the clip to remind people, and I want to talk about it. Let's play it.

“When you love to see one of these NFL owners,”

when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out, he's tired. (audience cheers) He's tired!

So column the book is the perilous fight. That's indeed perilous. That's the president of the United States saying that. That has ramifications and consequences that you've experienced.

Talk about that moment, and how you think it relates to this current moment where this is what this guy does now on a daily basis, it's here. Yeah, I mean, thinking back to that moment,

what we got was an initial insight into presidential overreach and targeting of private citizens.

And in many ways that seems like the first moment

that that was tested, whether or not people were gonna combat that or just accept it as it is. Now, the other part that we saw in conjunction with that is the corporate partners in part with the NFL

and the close relationship with Donald Trump and being okay with this and supporting it and helping him take that further.

“I think the part that's important for people to think”

about in this moment is we don't want governmental overreach into being able to impact private citizens' employment employment opportunities, private citizens' rights. There has to be a clear distinction there

and what we're seeing with the president, this administration is not only the willingness but the excitement to be able to target individual citizens. I think that sends a chilling message but is something that we collectively have to combat

and fight against. Now, one of the things you were warning against and you just touched on it there is that it's not just at the level of the presidency, it's at the level of the oligarchy

and one of the things that you were warning about back then as well was there's a power structure here of people who are owners, not just owners in the NFL, but ownership, right wing oligarchy, people who control the methods and the means of production

who are treating workers horribly and who have a very hateful view of labor that actually supports the enterprises that have made them rich and have viewed it as a source of exploitation. So when Donald Trump says those things

and when he says these things today, it's more than just ranting and ravings of a lunatic, which it is. They're also marching orders for an oligarchy and that was what you were warning about then as well

when you were telling NFL players and people within the culture, solidarity is important.

they're gonna pit us against each other. Talk to us about that. Yeah, we got to see the oligarchy operate in real time. Donald Trump, he had Robert Kraft, who's the owner of the New England Patriots,

flying on Air Force One with him. We got to see him operate. And there's a report of phone call between him and Jerry Jones where he says this is a winning issue for me.

“Essentially telling Jerry, you need to fall in line,”

which he abides by. We also see it with the fundraisers and events that NFL owners are out there doing, raising millions of dollars for him. And in many ways going out and kissing the ring

for those who don't have this background, believe Donald Trump previously sued the NFL when he was trying to start his own football league.

So there was always tension there,

but he was able to get them to step in and say, here's my position of power now, you have to kiss the ring if you want benefits. And we're seeing this play out, not just the NFL, but across corporate America.

We're seeing CEOs go into the White House, offering up gifts, making gestures, and capitulating to him. And essentially saying whatever you want us to do we're willing to do, even if it's counter to our interests

or our employees interests and our workforce interests. And being able to see that play out in real time, I don't think it's something that we can be complacent

“about, I think people need to be organizing against it.”

They need to be taken action against it. If not, we're setting precedent, where that just becomes okay and becomes the norm. - One of the things you talk about in the perilous fight is the people were and are behind you.

You had to rally the players and rally leaders and the community as well to be behind you, but there was also a playbook to try to attack that. And one of those tactics was trying to find people within the movement or people who are perceived

to be to work against it. And so one of the issues that arose was Jay Z. And how Jay Z was working with the NFL,

ultimately doing something that you would do.

And the very first thing that took place in a meeting was saying, we've moved beyond kneeling. We need to not take a knee. And we need to start focusing on another paradigm of change and it was the one that was kind of being forced fed

by ownership. And it was not the one that was being organically moved by the people and by the movement. And so people are often asking you, well, what's this whole thing with Jay Z?

And Jay Z performed at Yankee Stadium. And Jay Z said, you know, negative things about Colin in 2026, like why is Colin on Jay Z's mind all of the time?

“And I think it's important that people know the framework”

that one of the things that was taking place

was trying to find an individual who would be able to basically

say, we're done with kneeling. We're done with this. We're done with having this solemn protest that was gaining such a-- talk to that.

I mean, am I perceiving that right or what's going on? Yeah, well, we see the NFL owners explicitly call this out in their players' owners meeting that happened in 2017. And coming out of that meeting, we have reports

of Robert Kraft, again, the owner of the New England Patriot saying, you know, the elephant in the room is this kneeling and the protests. We need to address it. And then you have Terry Pagula, who is the owner of the Buffalo

Billis on the back of that coming out and saying, you know, we need a black face to help us end this. So we're hearing very explicitly from the NFL owners and that oligarchy class of we need a black face to help us subvert the protests, work counter to the people's

interests, and we're in search of that. They tried it first with the player's coalition. They tried it with me directly, trying to offer me a major deal to lead their social justice initiatives while they're actively blackballing me, which

to be clear that was rejected, what a laughable offer there. At the same time, we then see Jay Z step into that role

for is that black face to be able to subvert the protests.

“And what we really see is this alignment of classes.”

We see a billionaire class in the NFL owners. We see that aligned with Jay Z's interests personally, but working counter to the people's efforts and working counter to the people's goals. And again, all of them financially benefit from it.

But what is left with is the people on the ground having to deal with the realities of police still killing black people of the prison industrial complex, of not having the resources to be able to thrive in their communities. And we're seeing these efforts continue to ramp up.

And that was in Trump 1.0. We're seeing this now in Trump 2.0 and the alignment of interests across all of these different sectors. You know, one of the things that have gone under reported, there was a little bit of mentions of it back in 2018

is, you know, Trump was trying to make a deal with you. And we hear about Trump trying to do all of these deals right now. This deal, that, I'm going to do a deal, I'm going to do a deal. After he said get the son of a bitch off the field, like we showed shortly thereafter,

he was, you know, apparently working with like Kanye West and other people to try to bring you to the White House to do like a black summit or something that we're going to call it like that where they wanted you

to basically, you know, have him put his arm around you

or you put his arm around him in the Oval Office

“and be like, you know, he's, he's cool with the black community, right?”

Like he's, like he's, he's one of us. He's our guy and, and, and, and, you know, and you said not why you said, and I'm not doing that. Why would I do that? I'm not, I'm not going to do that. What are we talking? But that, so when we see him do that stuff now,

he would say get that son of a bitch off the field. But then he wanted to meet with you and he wanted to bring you into the Oval Office for this apprentice style, whom by a performative moment, and you were like, nah. Yeah, it, what I've learned over the years is there is going

to be a constant attempt to be able to co-op people who are trying to work for the benefit of the people. And what we saw in this moment was, you know, part of that conversation, what was relayed to me was the outreach that came from Van Jones for this.

And, you know, they wanted to have us come in. I don't know the details around it, because candidly, as soon as it came up, as, hey, here's the opportunity. It was immediately rejected. Again, this is after him going out publicly and trying

to target me in my employment. What, what it also speaks to, again, is we talk about this alignment of interest within this oligarchy. Him trying to garner support and put up a facade that he's working for black people, or trying to be

in the benefit of black people. History shows otherwise. There's a long standing history there. Whether it goes back to the real estate side, whether it goes back to the exonorated five,

those are not debated things, those are well documented. But again, it also ties this oligarchy and this clash struggle in here. We see the connection between Trump, connection to Van Jones, Jay-Z, Robert Kraft,

with the reform alliance.

And ultimately, what we see is on the other side

of that, you know, partens being handed out. And we're seeing those pay for play right now.

“And I think this alignment of interest that we're seeing”

and them trying to reach out to give the marketing and the facade and the perception, like, hey, all of the negative actions that we are taking that are counter to your interest, let us put on a good show and try to give you the visibility

and perception, like we're trying to do good for you, which actually is just not the case, and that has been proven time and time again. - Look, you fast forward to this past week and you have Michael Moore saying that Robert Kraft

called the other owners and said, can't let him play. You can't let him, you know, play in these stadiums and then he's like, I got kicked off the tour. And what he says, he says, Ed Sheeran called him up

and said, Robert Kraft said, you can't play at Gillette Stadium and told the other owners, you can't play at his stadium. And now he's like, I'm now been kicked off the tour.

that we're seeing now repeat over and over and over again

and it shouldn't just be a daily story.

“It shouldn't just be this happened to Macklemore,”

this day and this happened to someone the next day. I mean, you were profoundly warning that this is not the way that this should be happening and you were warning about it in 2017. He was saying, hello, this is what they're going to do

and calling people were saying, you're being hyperbolic, you know, that's just some lefty stuff. Like the lefty stuff, aren't we all supposed to be against like government intruding into our lives and blocking people?

Why is that a lefty thing? It's great, right? What it, the part that helped people appreciate and take away in this moment is what Robert Kraft and what they're saying by denying Macklemore the opportunity

to go out and perform what Ed Sheeran is, they are willing to collude. They are openly colluding and when we filed the grievance, it was like, well, the owners wouldn't do that.

“They, you know, everybody just wants to win within the NFL”

and the realization is no, they want to protect their interests, they want to protect their power, they want to protect their money and they also want people to know that if you take an action that they don't agree with,

they will come for you. And that was some of the warning coming out of the protest and some of the warning coming out of the grievance is that they will organize against you, which means that we collectively have to organize

to be able to protect our interests as well. And I hope this gives the space where people realize how significant this is and also gives a little bit of insight into the fact that while it may not touch you today,

at some point, it's gonna come knocking on your doorstep or someone you love's doorsstep and that's not the moment to be able to take action. We should be taking action actively right now. - It's perilous to go up against the power structure

and for those who even dabble with it, they find out that these people who control the methods and means of production wield it. And they're gonna do it, they can to protect it and they don't give a crap and you saw that.

But one of the things we're seeing now and I want to get your take on also, though, as a QB leadership, I think so much of what we're seeing in the debate and is through a gamified political lens.

Who's up this time, Democrats up, Republicans up, this person, I know and traveling with you, you hated that gamified political system. You did it, it was not your thing, you didn't wanna talk about it and I agree with you,

but that's just not my, and it's not because you don't care about the issues.

You were always telling me,

it's actually the politics distorts that these are human values and core principles that we need to be dealing with and one of them that I just think isn't talked about, it's just leadership.

It's just grown up adult behavior

“and as a QB, you have to be accountable to your team”

when you win games, it's great, but you're up, you're down. You have a good game, you have a bad game. You don't win every game. When you lose a game, you don't go, I won, I'm really the winner,

I'm really the winner that was unfair, I corrected just the rep to that and so much of this for me calling it why I stepped into this, I'm watching this behavior, I'm inspired by you, frankly, and what I'm observing

from the presidency, from the commander-in-chief, someone who's supposed to be the QB of the nation is loser behavior. loser behavior that you've seen on the field that someone like that wouldn't be in the locker room

with, you kicked that guy out of the locker room

in a second over there, and he's the person,

man, this is supposed to be going to unfair, the Democrats, the disson, the that, and how though the power structure has normalized this loser behavior, which has to me permeated the way the world views the United States

in a very bad way now. So I want you to just talk about that as you observe this behavior from Trump, the whining, the this, the that what's your reaction to just the behavior from a leadership perspective

as a QB as a captain? I have not seen the leader show up this way in whining, complaining, cry about so much. You know, one of the things that you were taught

you're gonna get more praise than you deserve,

“and when you lose, you're gonna get more of the blame”

that you deserve, and your job is to stay focused and when you win, you celebrate your teammates, you give them the praise, you redirect that to all of the work that they've put in

because that's ultimately why you're successful.

And then on the flip side, when you lose, you are supposed to take the brunt of that and be at the forefront and make sure that you're supporting your teammates as you go back to go out there

and continue to try to take these actions to go out there and win. I haven't seen the leader on the field or off the field. Approach things in such a way of constantly whining about that. I own your actions, own the losses,

say we're gonna move forward, we're gonna try to get better, but what it speaks to more broadly is the integrity of the position. And what we see right now is a lack of integrity.

And just being forthright with people

and trying to approach it with decency and to your point, we're seeing this show up more broadly across the spectrum where now we have followers in that regard approaching politics and leadership in the same way, which doesn't effectively get us anywhere.

It also doesn't lay a foundation where people are approaching conversations and approaching solving problems in a way that's effective.

“So to me, I think about it as you have to keep the problem,”

the problem and that being the focus and taking efforts towards actually solving that. And I think that's the issue is what we're seeing is leadership that is unwilling to take action to go out there and solve the problems

and more so it's just taking actions to their own benefit and their personal benefit and some of that oligarchies benefit. And all of the winding complaining become deterrence and distractions

from actually focusing on the issues. - The book is called The Paralist Fight. And it must have been a perilous moment for you when you saw at the beginning of this Trump regime

second term, a lot of football players out there

seem to have been fully embracing this horrific regime early on. They were doing the Trump dance, they were doing the YMCA Trump, whatever you want to call the people have different names

for whatever that is. And they were doing that in the end zone right there. I saw college players doing it. And you were thinking to yourself, what the hell is going on here now?

That seems to have fade. The crazy thing is that there was a moment and that moment's past and Trump has record low approval right now and we seem to have at least purged this spell amongst the people, we'll see, you know,

but I feel that's where we're heading. As people see, this was all the big fraud. This was all the big scam. Covering up that scene files, this and that and the other. But you had people doing the thing.

And I'm like, what the hell's going on here? What were you thinking when you saw that early on? Glad that stopped and now you're seeing the culture start to,

“I think, become a little more resilient to this.”

Get your take on that as well. But early on, you saw that, huh? Yeah, it. I think what we saw come out of that was people's willingness to just buy into the entertainment and hype.

If I like it was more of a movement around, can they get attention, will it help them go viral versus actually being foundational political beliefs? Or at least that's my hope. And maybe I'm being optimistic within that.

But that wave has since passed. At this point, I think people have seen Trump for who he is. They've seen the behavior, they've seen the lack of execution. They've seen him work detrimental or counter to their interest. And people are feeling that on the ground now,

and reality is setting in. And I think a lot of the people that thought they were going to get in handouts and text in the mail and get some personal benefits of it, have realized that's not the case that he is actually just looking out for himself.

And now with that reality setting in, I think a lot of them are left in a space of, well,

And now have to go back to the space of what is the next step for me.

I obviously can't approve of this now.

“I think there's probably a level of embarrassment that comes along with that.”

But now I think we're seeing that undercurrent in that wave of, you know, what all of the people that we're talking about, he is working counter to our interest. We do need to organize against this. It looks like there's a tremendous amount of corruption happening.

We actually need to rethink our position and show what differently. And hopefully we see that play out this fall and beyond. And I'm hoping it also returns to a space of people, people being just much more pragmatic in the approaches that they're taking in how they're thinking about issues

and trying to solve them as opposed to just buying into the hype that people are selling them. So what should they do, Colin? I mean, you know, you're a young player. You're a young black or brown player in this sport or that sport.

You see these power structures. You want to do something. You want to say something. You know in your heart when you go to sleep that this isn't right. You know the communities you grew up in and how your family was treated.

Heck, you probably still have family or extended family who's being pulled over by eyes or being racially profiled or any of these things. But now you're in the league or you're in a position where you're making money. And you're saying, what do I do? I saw what happened to Kaepernick.

He could have made $150 million or $200 million, you know, in his career.

And you know, and that didn't happen. You know, Colin stood up, you know, history has a kind place for Colin. And when people remember the sacrifice he made. But history doesn't buy me a Bentley. History doesn't buy me a mansion.

History doesn't pay the bills right now. And so what, what, what, what do that mean? You know, I'm sure this is whether they want to articulate it or not, and dilemma that lots of people in communities across this country are thinking about as well.

And let's, let's, let's go there and then we'll, and then I have another question about how that's probably starting earlier because of NIL and college.

But let's start with the first piece opening there.

Yeah, um, I have, I have had a lot of those conversations directly with players. And I think the piece that that comes to mind here is players need to be able to take collective action. Um, when, when you see an issue and you know it exists and when you want to go out and

“address it, you have to take action against that.”

Um, it, if you have integrity, if you are the person that you say you are, um, if you are a person that wants to work to the benefit of everyone collectively and not just your own self-interest, you should be taking action right now. Um, now you should organize around that because the part that got the ownership class does not want you to understand or fully appreciate, which is why they take targeted actions like the ones

they took against me, um, and in the past have taken, um, against others is they don't want you to realize the power that you collectively have. We'll just take the NFL as an example here. The NFL is approximately 70% black. If the players and the black players in the NFL collectively said,

we are not stepping on the field until you address this list of issues. And this could be within the NFL. It could be within the political side. You would see a or, uh, an ownership class collectively organized to solve that issue immediately, because it directly impacts their bottom line.

You as players are their product or the product on the field. Um, they want you to think that they're here, they're product. You are the product stepping on the field. Now being in that position gives you a tremendous amount of leverage, tremendous amount of power and control.

It just, it hasn't been seized.

“And for players, I think understanding this, that same message that they have tried to send”

down to players by by colluding and blackballing, um, myself and others,

no, we're, we're not going to let you wield that power against this.

“So I think there has to be this moment of taking action.”

I think there has to be a moment of organizing to make sure that, um, that, that ownership class is taking the actions that you actually want as players because you have the power to do so. Um, I think that also exists when we go down to the NFL side. We saw this, uh, I believe it was at Missouri. Um, we saw, uh, I believe it was the president there had spoken out,

taking actions that the players then agree with, the players boycotted, didn't step on the field. We saw that, um, we saw that president of the university very quickly removed. So when you start touching the financial structure and power structure, you will see them move and move quickly and move mountains to be able to resolve that, um, because they don't want that power to continue to be utilized by the players and by the working class.

“You know, with the NFL as well, you know, it has, I think this double edged sword in the one part.”

It's empowering getting paid, um, and rightfully so because there were institutions making billions of dollars off the back of athletes who were not getting compensated for it. Also, though, on the flip side, which we've seen, um, and perhaps flip sides not the right word, but on another consideration is, well, now you have people right out of high school who are getting lots of money, and that could make them subject to unscrupulous actors and their lives

and they're very young, um, and they may not have some of these life experiences to say, well, how do I contend with it? And it also puts them, though, in a money power structure right away, to start being pulled by these money interests by, uh, oligarchs, who start buying players and buying teams and treating it as a commodity, as property, as I'm going to make a super team and start finding high school students and start giving money

and treating it like that. And so what do you think about that? How do people build the resiliency to that, especially if they're coming out of high, I mean, you remember coming out of high school, you know, of being 17, 18 years old and all of a sudden, how do you deal with, you know, the head of a major, uh, a billionaire who's run all these things who's an alumni of university of

whatever who says, you know what? I'm going to give you $4 million a year, you know, but you got it,

“but you got to do this, this, and this, and you go $4 million a year, oh my gosh, how do you deal with that?”

Yeah, it, well, I'll say, it is a good problem for for players to have to navigate, one to be successful at that level that their talents are valued and how they show up is valued in that way. What it also makes me think of is as denial has progressed, we also need stronger infrastructure for our players to be able to have the right right supports in place, whether that is navigating negotiations of deals, whether that is the financial support on after they get those dollars,

making sure that they're handling that responsibility because you have, you have players that are 17, 18 years old that are walking into life changing money, and what can be generationally generational money for them, and if they have the right support and structures there, that says them up to be able to utilize that and benefit from that long term, to your point on navigating some of the oligarchy and the influences there, I think that's where the preparation for athletes

has to be much better, because I didn't have to really navigate that until I was in the NFL. 23, 24 years old, still is still young, but have more experience, and still is still difficult to navigate, because you don't truly learn people's interests and the game that they are playing and what they're

trying to accomplish, and many ways until you go through it multiple times, and ultimately probably

get burned in that process, and that's where the learning experience has come as far as how they approach it. So, I think a lot more education to be done, a lot more support to be put in place to make sure that as they're getting these dollars, they also aren't being exploited in the process.

is he brings these sports teams to the White House, and he uses them as propaganda press conferences,

and in the past, we've seen sports teams show up at the White House, but usually the president says non-political things, and hands them, thanks them, maybe gives them something for showing up to the White House, takes the photo, we're used to that, we've seen that before, that's not rare,

“we can debate that, that's what's happened. The difference here, though, is we'll see a team like”

Indiana, when the National Championship, and then they'll be there in front of Trump, and he'll be talking about his agenda, his propaganda, his hateful and venomous speech, and then you have the players behind him, you have coach-signetti behind him, and you know,

I want to zoom in on the Indiana one for a second, because, you know, I would watch college football,

and I would see coach-signetti of Indiana, as there's no non-stands disciplinary guy who said, I mold young boys into men, and this is how I teach them how to behave. I watched him standing next to Trump, Trump didn't even know who he was, Trump didn't even take the time to say, "This is signetti," you know, this is who the Trump's like, "Where's Sagnayati?" He said, "Noyati," you know, and then the guy was there in that moment, kind of laughing off all of the ridiculous,

hateful, demented kind of stuff that Trump said, and to me it was like, "Signetti, like, you know, you may be a great football coach or whatever, but in that moment right there, that's kind of your legacy is you standing next to him with the players who you've boasted about molding into men, but the behavior that we saw right there to me undercuts everything you taught and does generational damage to young men in a way that you have now contributed to the

problem, and it's like I look at the guy very differently right now. So I wonder what your take is on those moments. The biggest takeaway I have in those moments is, by going, you are showing that you support the actions in the behavior. Whether you explicitly say that or not or whether you try to approach it from, well, we're just going there to celebrate because it's been done in the past. By showing up, you are showing a level of alignment and agreement with where the administration

is going and what they're doing in the actions that they're taking, and you are also, in many ways, putting, in this instance, young men in college in the crosshairs of that of saying, "Oh, will you align with this now as well?" And they're going to have to go back and answer questions around that, and the flip side of that is if players are in the position, they say, "Well, I'm not going to go,

“well, are you going to pull their scholarship? Are they going to be targeted on the back end?”

Where are the repercussions that go along with that?" So you're putting players in a very difficult position, and for the players who don't agree with it, it's difficult to see a space where they win. They sit with their moral beliefs. They take actions say, "I'm not going, which likely leads to repercussions on the back end," or they show up and they end up in a position where it looks like they are co-signing what the administration is doing.

Colin, talk more about the perilous fight and grounding movements in the people,

because the people were always your focus. I was actually never about the politics at all,

I mean, because to me, when you fight for the people, the politics should find you, you shouldn't

“be finding the politics. And I think one of the problems that we have is when you're searching for”

you know, the person who's going to save you or this person, you're chasing egos and egos are going to let you down. And you know, the emphasis that you always had was listening. And so I think about your creation of Know Your Rights Camp, and I think about initiatives that you've done and Know Your Rights Camp, just behind the scenes. I mean, you quietly do the work. I mean, you're not out there doing big press events for these camps. I've been to them. I mean, you could do big press events

for the camps. They're very compelling events. But behind the scenes, quietly you throw these events across the country, where you're educating the youth, and you just do it. And you know, tell people you're really doing it, and you just go and do it. The only people you tell are the local community organizations that work with you to bring the kids to the camps and to get the educational resources. And so it's an interesting kind of paradigm that oftentimes you don't get

these things. So I don't know. Talk to us about that. It's an interesting dynamic that I found

fascinating knowing. Yeah. It's one of the things that I think goes back to some of just leadership styles and leadership approaches. For me, whether it was on the field or building movements and doing the work on the ground is it has to be grounded in you doing the work and taking action going out and telling people, hey, we're doing great things without just doing the work. It rings

“hollow and people eventually see through that. I think the part that's most important is to your”

point going out and doing work. It only makes sense to do it if it's actually solving and addressing issues for people. And the founding of Know Your Rights Camp was actually based upon the fact of how do we make sure that black and brown kids and black and brown communities make it home safe. And that was the initial founding principle of trying to address this issue of police killing black folks. Now as we're doing that work, obviously we uncovered so much more that we needed to address not just getting

gain our community home safe, but how do we allow them to thrive, whether that's financially technologically through education, through health. We built all of these other components of the camp.

And that continued to expand and grow that ultimately led to the autopsy initiative where we do

free-second autopsy that are independent for families who have lost someone within custody that is whether police, whether they're incarcerated, whether they're in ice detention centers, all spaces that we cover to give transparency because of the issues that we've seen with the lack of transparency within autopsy. This is also shown up with our legal defense initiative in 2020 protecting protesters, providing pro bono legal services, the COVID-19 relief fund,

directly distributing resources into communities. Again, based upon feedback that we're getting directly on the ground, community saying, this is what we need and this is the support that we need. And we would go out and just try to take action against that and continue to build the organization around it. So for us as a approach, we don't want to make up problems to solve. What we need to do is be phenomenal listeners in the process. In that listening, once we have

an understanding of what the issue is, then figuring out how we can go out and solve it,

“and then how are we able to scale that? So I think that becomes important as opposed to,”

hey, I hope to be this political figure and I hope people look at me a certain way. I people very quickly see through that. What stands the test the time is going out and taking actions that are to the benefit of people and doing that consistently. You know, what was fascinating to me about being on this journey with you. There's a lot of people would perceive you a certain way based on what Trump or Mago would say about you in their

sphere and in their echo chamber, but when they would need the autopsy initiative and would want just transparency because they had a loved one who was killed by police and they wanted answers, they were shocked that you took their autopsy. You took their request and they and you said,

I don't never even looked at what your political belief was. You look at what the color of your

skin was. You could be a white Mago Republican. You could be a black Republican. You could be a black Democrat. You could be a haspada. That's not what this is about. If you submit to this criteria

“and you want transparency, that's what we're trying to do. And I'm from a community where I've seen”

black and brown people killed in my communities. So that's why I'm raising attention, but just because disproportionately black and brown people are getting to don't think it's not going to come to you next. We're first. And so we need to be united as people. And so one of the things that I observed and talk about your experience here is you had Mago people who used the autopsy initiative who left with a very positive view of Colin Kaepernick and said, you know what?

They were great. They were transparent. They kept me surprised of what happened. They gave me the answers that I was looking for during the most tragic time in my life. Yeah, that was probably one of the

do have justice. To your point, we're seeing this disparate portion of the impact, black and brown

communities. And we see that basically across everything. But in this instance of trying to address

this issue of transparency within police killings around cause of death and part of what launched the autopsy initiative was some of your past work in Baker's field where we saw the sheriff was also the corner. So you have the same police department that has done the killing also ruling what the cause of death is. So there's an inherent conflict of interest within that. And in providing transparency, everyone should have that. And we have taken those actions. And we

to your point, we've seen this with Mago Republicans coming in using the program and being like,

this is just not what I expected from you. And to me, I hope it speaks to people in a sense of

“while we may have different political beliefs, I still believe you should have justice.”

If you have someone who is wrongfully killed, it doesn't matter if you're a Mago Republican to me, you should get justice. You should have transparency and clarity there. And that's how we approach the work that we're doing. We obviously have a focus on black and brown communities again because it disproportionately happens there. But the programs are open to everybody. We need people to understand what is happening. We need systems to change. We need institutions

to change. We need policy to change. And that starts by doing the work on the ground in this way. And the part that's been interesting is even beyond the autopsy initiative. This has shown up over the last 10 years. In a lot of areas that I didn't expect, a lot of Republicans and Mago

Republicans that previously were like, you know, when I when I first saw this test, you took,

like, I hated you. And I've seen the work that you've done over the years. I've had more conversations.

“I'm more informed and have more insight now. And man, I was wrong. And I think seeing people again,”

just the consistency of doing the work and trying to do it to the benefit of people. People are realizing that you know what a lot of the issues that directly affect the black community and black and brown communities. Actually, they touch me too in many ways. It just may not show up as significantly. And I think being able to get people to understand that this makes a better society, like that is our end goal. And we see it show up disproportionately in where the gaps are,

but being able to bridge those gaps and fill those gaps allows us all to collectively move forward in a much more effective way. Colin, even in the heart, heat of all of the Trump get the S.O.B. off the field, you know, during the litigation, during all of that, when you and I traveled around the country together, there may have only been one minor incident where somebody said, and actually they said it respectfully, they didn't like saying like, hey, they would they said,

hey, man, I appreciate what you're doing. I don't agree with it, but I appreciate it. And I remember standing next to you with that one, I remember where it was. It was in Texas. But other than that, overwhelmingly in all of these places, people, you know, that that was kind of the worst you got. And you and I would be in stadiums and people would cheer for, I mean, in the heart of it, where if you turned on the median narrative, you would have thought you're like the most hated guy in the

world, and what we went out into the real world in all of these cities, in Republican cities, in the reddest of the red cities, you were people were nice to you, and you were nice to them,

“and you would shake their hands and you would take photos with them. That's what we saw that.”

And that was a major realization for me. Talk to us about that. Yeah, I think it goes in place into like this facade. And a lot of the manipulation that was attempted through the media. As we went around the country, as we touched down and, you know, interact with people directly, a lot of the responses were very different. And it was consistently different. And I was saying many instances to my surprise, because I didn't know what to expect

level of response is something that that gives me hope in relation to where we can go as a

“country and where we go as a society. Because I think what is being pushed at the level of administration,”

and again, going back to this level of oligarchy, is a lot of division that actually on the ground, we're seeing people collectively say, yeah, we actually don't agree with what they're doing. And I think we're starting to feel this undercurrent that's connected to a lot of what we got to see over the last 10 years is people want to collectively do better. What they want to make sure that also doesn't happen is that they're not exploited. They aren't left out of doing better.

And the goal and intention is always, how do we advance? How do we make sure that we take one

action after another to get people to a better place? And I think that's the part that people realize and has showed up consistently. And I would say doing that with integrity as well is

“incredibly important. And I think when you do all of those things over time, people see that”

and they appreciate it and they respect it. And that's a lot of what the experience has been as we've gone across the country. And we want to continue to build upon that because that's how we think collectively as a society we should be moving. That's how we should be interacting with people. So I think we're seeing a lot different experience actually on the ground versus what is being pushed in other places. Column the book is called the perilous fight. So out now, I want

everybody to get their copy of it right now. I mean, if this interview, I know you and I have a copy if I want to get it. I want to get another copy and see if I miss something, you know, I want to get more copies of it. So everybody should definitely get their copy of this now. But before we go, Column, why, why now? You know, why, why, why released this book, you know, right now here it is September 2026. The world looks a lot different than it did when you began

to peacefully protest. You know, respectful way. You didn't request it. And it won't the media attention. It was hoisted upon you. Everything that's happened since then. You warned about a lot of these things that have all happened. I would tell people, maybe go back and listen to this, go back and listen to a few of these things that he was saying was going to happen because I mean, dude, you were warning about ice. You wrote a book about abolishing ice. And people

and people looked at you when you wrote this book five years ago. You talked about abolishing ice in the Biden administration. You're like, I'm telling you, this is what's coming. You know, what be very careful, you know, and we could spend a whole, you know, a whole podcast just talking about your book on where you focused on abolishing ice. And a lot of these government structures that have been turned against the people and why we need more people focused structures to

ensure safety and protection now. But we could do a whole other show on people like, let's do the next

“one. I have to save some material for another interview count. But why now? Why why this moment?”

Why are you ready to publish this memoir right now? To the point that you just brought up, we're in a moment right now where we have to be organizing, we have to be taking action. And what I hope with the memoir is I hope everybody goes and checks it out, gets a chance to go through it because I hope my experiences and some of what I had to navigate and the players that we had to navigate within this, whether it is Trump and the administration,

whether it's the NFL ownership class, whether it's their co-conspirators to try to co-op the movement. These all became pieces that were incredibly informative, as far as how we can actually move forward, how we have to navigate them and also where they have vulnerabilities. The areas that they want you to feel like you don't have power, but you have significant power and influence

to be able to take action and actually create change systemically. And ultimately what I hope

people walk away from the memoir with is we need you to have agency. We need you to be bold. We need you to take action and we need to do it now. Taking a approach of being passive doesn't get us to the goal of actually creating the change that we want. So I think the moment

of we are either going to redirect this ship towards a future that is actually built in beneficial

for everybody or we are going to be passive observers and watch the country go down the drain in a way that I don't think benefits anybody. So taking action now and be bold with it and be confident and I have a question for you. This is for me as much as much as the audience or I am learning and so here's my question for you though because there was a time where nobody wanted to talk to Colin Kaepernick, nobody wanted to be around you, no one wanted to do anything right at all.

Then there was a time when everybody wanted to be associated with Colin Kaepernick, you know and everybody wanted to do a deal with you and all of these structures wanted they wanted you to do this that and the other and then when Trump came back everybody who wanted to be with you now we are turning their back on you again and they said see you later we don't want this no diversity blah blah blah blah, when the pendulum swings back and they come back

“you've always been Colin Kaepernick and they've been blah which I think is one of the systemic”

problems that we have in our country. How do you deal with it? How do I deal with it? How do we together Colin and Patta we deal with? How do we deal with that when they're like all right we're here and we're like oh really we're healthy because you were in there when I knew how do we deal with it? Yeah watching the pendulum swing and people just capitulate is frustrating. What I will say there is collectively we have to understand the power of our dollar

and this is why boycotts are extremely effective. We're seeing this right now with target target the pendulum swung they had DEI policies in place the Trump administration comes in they capitulate they rolled that back and the responses were boycotting target collectively and we saw that impact their bottom line which spends a message to every other company out there if you're taking actions that are countered to the benefit of the people

everyone is going to hold you accountable and is going to impact your bottom line

“and I think that's the action and lever that we have to utilize most significantly”

there's other actions that we can take surrounding that but I think that becomes the immediate lever the other part that I would say is for all of the companies out there just know that everyone is watching your actions. Every person in every community is watching the actions that you take and those who are steadfast in their beliefs and their morals in the integrity and working to the benefit of people those are going to be the companies that

everyone backs the ones who who sway with the breeze and capitulate everyone is going to remember the positions that you are taking now and the convenience that you're taking within that approach to your own benefit that are countered to people's interests and when that pendulum swings back

and you want people to come support you and you try to position it is hey we're always with you

we just had to navigate this situation people aren't going to believe you and majority of people

“are not going to come back to you so I think it's important that collectively we're steadfast in”

sending that message because that's one of the key levers that we have to make sure that companies stay true to the mission and as we do that it sends a message to every other company out there. Well I think we said it all I think the people would like to hear more even there may be another and it may be around two or around three as well as two but you know it's a very special moment for me selfishly personally but it's been an honor to be able to share this with the people to

share our relationship you know with the people and you know Colin has someone who's been beyond inspirational in my life and it's an incredible honor to have been by his side for that part of history you know into the future and I think you all see here why Colin is really such an incredible person who walks the walk every day so the book is called the perilous fight five ten copies of it not even one by ten copies of it but I go take a look at it read it

and thanks Colin we really appreciate you. Thank you Ben and I will say it is always a pleasure

and for all of the listeners out there viewers out there I would not be here today

to support and fight for me and fight for other players and prior to that work fighting directly in

“communities and Ben just to be able to spend this time with you to see all of the success that you're”

having and continuing to fight for people and fighting for a better future something that makes me

incredibly proud except incredibly excited and grateful for all of the work that you have done

“for me personally and that you're doing for us collectively. Colin Capri the perilous fight”

in it together me you the mightest mighty all the people out there not just in this country but a broad fighting for freedom fighting for truth for empathy for love for a path forward.

“Thanks everybody this has been Ben Mycellus at the minus doctor or kids subscribe”

to get to seven million subscribers. Before you go our book WTF America is available for pre-order now

it's the story of how we got here and how we fight our way back to pre-order scan the QR code or click the link in the description let's do this. [Music]