Former National Football League (NFL) star Colin Kaepernick has criticized capitalism while promoting a book he co-edited alongside two Marxist scholars.
Kaepernick, who has a reported $20 million net worth and lives in a California mansion, claimed that Black liberation is impossible under a capitalist system.
Professional sportsman who reportedly earned $43.79 million from the NFL, who then made millions more advertising sportswear, now blaming capitalism for racism. Can’t make this up. https://t.co/UotOdFz8Bw
— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) June 19, 2023
While speaking to the New Republic, the former NFL quarterback defended partnering with Robin D.G. Kelley and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor to edit the book, “Our History Has Always Been Contraband: In Defense of Black Studies.”
Kelley is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who describes himself as a “Marxist surrealist feminist.”
Taylor, a Marxist herself, teaches African American studies at Northwestern University and serves on the board of the International Socialist Review.
“I’ve long admired Keeanga and Robin’s work as well as their uncompromising political analysis and understanding that Black liberation simply isn’t possible under capitalism,” Kaepernick said when asked about working with “two of the most prominent black Marxists in the country.”
“I think the anthology makes this argument quite well, and I hope it challenges readers to see that racism is not white supremacy’s only ingredient. White supremacy persists in part because of its relationship with capitalism, heteropatriarchy, ableism, and so on,” Kaepernick added.
The book is comprised of essays by civil rights heroes such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Angela Davis, who argue that “systemic racism” is a part of the capitalist economic system.
Kaepernick, Kelley, and Taylor also wrote essays for the book, mainly featuring anti-capitalism authors.
The book’s release comes as Republicans, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), fight to ensure critical race theory is removed from public schools.
Kaepernick said, “Black history and, more generally, a critical engagement with U.S. history, threatens the white supremacist status quo,” adding that his new book is the kind DeSantis wants to “ban.”
“Any attempt to whitewash the past should actually be understood as a concrete step toward fascism and a desire to build a nation-state where power is concentrated in the hands of a self-anointed (read: white) few,” Kaepernick added.
The book, which claims “Black Studies is a crucial tool in fighting back against a white supremacist political agenda,” is available for free as an ebook.
