Colin Kaepernick said he has received death threats from a “couple of different avenues” over his on-going protest of the national anthem.
“To me, if something like that were to happen, you’ve proved my point and it’ll be loud and clear to everyone why it happened,” the San Francisco 49ers backup quarterback told CSN Bay Area when asked about the death threats on Tuesday. “And that would move this movement forward at a greater speed than what it is even now.”
Kaepernick has sat and knelt during the anthem to bring attention to injustices toward minorities in America and several NFL colleagues have supported the polarizing stance. He has received death threats, specifically mentioning social media.
“There’s a lot of racism disguised as patriotism in this country. And people don’t like to address that. And they don’t like to address what the root of this protest is,” Kaepernick said.
He continued: “And people want to take everything back to the flag, but that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking racial discrimination, inequalities and injustices that are happening across the nation.”
Kaepernick explained that he knew what he was getting into when he decided to skip the anthem.
“Granted, it’s not how I want it to happen, but that’s the realization of what could happen. I knew there were other things that came along with this when I first stood up and spoke about it. It’s not something I haven’t thought about.”