Absolutely no one should be surprised that a media apologist for Colin Kaepernick would try to upstage the upcoming NFL championship by paying homage to the social justice warrior during Super Bowl week. Michael Fletcher, a senior writer for the ESPN blog The Undefeated, writes a glowing puff piece about how Kaepernick dominates every NFL conversation without actually speaking.
Practically kneeling at the shrine of Kaepernick (accepting Sports Illustrated's 2017 Muhammad Ali Legacy Award from Beyoncé in photo), Fletcher says neither Super Bowl quarterback, New England's Tom Brady or L.A.'s Jared Goff, "looms over the NFL" like the man who opted out of his San Francisco contract in 2016.
Fletcher concedes that Kaepernick is a "polarizing" figure, but adds the qualifier that his "activism exposed a massive divide between black and white football fans while raising uncomfortable questions about the racial dynamics underlying the nation’s most lucrative sports league, including the attitude of white team owners toward black players."
The Undefeated blog's poll has Kaepernick with an approval rating of 80 percent among African-Americans and 36 percent with whites. Seventy-seven percent of blacks and 59 percent of whites agree he is being penalized for his political views.
As an activist in New York, Kaepernick is a "cultural force whose example and sacrifice are celebrated by hip-hop artists, human rights groups and academic institutions alike."
Fletcher notes that Kaepernick largely remains silent behind the scenes while his closest friends rigorously defend him via social media. Fletcher fails to note that with all the media lefties constantly crowing about him, he doesn't need to speak up in his own defense.
A rare public appearance by Kaepernick, last October at Harvard University when he received the W.E.B. Dubois Medal, inspired Fletcher to write:
"Looking trim in a black Nehru jacket, Kaepernick watched with a slight smile as Harvard professor Cornel West stirred the capacity crowd with a fiery introduction that described Kaepernick as a great athlete, cultural influencer and human rights icon.
“When you look at my brother Colin, the first thing you ought to see is the love in him,” West said as the crowd burst into applause. 'Because in order to sacrifice what he’s had to sacrifice, he had to have John Coltrane-like love supreme all shot through him.'”
Despite his studied silence, Fletcher writes, Kaepernick’s presence in popular culture has only grown. He's got a $1 million book deal, and rappers are regularly referring to him. Also in the works is a comedy TV series based on his life growing up with his adoptive family in Turlock, California. Being the face of the "Just Do It" campaign is yielding a bonanza for Nike. Even the Super Bowl halftime show has been a political football kicked around over the Kaepernick controversy. While Brady and Goff are relegated to a puny little Super Bowl, Kaepernick is the luminary who overshadows it all.
Kaepernick has sued the NFL and accused owners of colluding to blackball him. His attorney, Mark Geragos, says his client's growing stature is backfiring on the NFL, which “used Kap as a cutout for the culture war ..."
One surprise appears in Fletcher's glorification of the football pariah. He admits that Kaepernick's play "had slipped substantially from his early years, when his dynamic combination of passing and running led the 49ers to the verge of a Super Bowl championship." But then the caveat: he is better than many active NFL passers and his touchdown-to-interception ratio beats that of Peyton Manning (in far fewer games).
Fletcher raves that apart from football, Kaepernick's iconic persona is soaring. He's raking in awards and truckloads of money, and he's so big now that if he ever plays football again it will be on his own terms.
