What Does the Ali Family Think About Kaepernick in Gq
"If I was walking down the highway with a quarter in my pocket and a briefcase full of truth, I'd be then happy." – Muhammad Ali, Sports Illustrated, Feb. 19, 1968
Colin Kaepernick fabricated his truth known when he first decided not to represent the national canticle. He had a lot of football left to play and a lot more money to make when he made his determination. It was late August, 2016. People who were bearding in life had become famous in death. Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Alton Sterling. Freddie Grey. They were tragic symbols of a society that had taken a terribly incorrect turn. Equally the anthem played ahead of the 49ers' preseason game against the Texans, Kaepernick, San Francisco's 28-year-old quarterback at the time, quietly took a seat on the demote.
It took two weeks for anyone from the media to ask him about it. Kaepernick explained that he was making a statement nigh inequality and social justice, most the ways this country "oppresses black people and people of color."
"To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to wait the other way," he added. "There are bodies in the street," he said then, "and people getting paid exit and getting away with murder."
In the last sixteen months, Kaepernick's truth has been twisted, distorted and used for political gain. It has cost him at least a year of his NFL career and the income that should have come with information technology. Simply even so, it is his truth. He has not wavered from it. He does not regret speaking it. He has caused millions of people to examine information technology. And, quietly, he has donated virtually a one thousand thousand dollars to support it.
For all those reasons—for his steadfastness in the fight for social justice, for his adherence to his beliefs no matter the toll—Colin Kaepernick is the recipient of the 2017 Sports Illustrated Muhammad Ali Legacy Accolade. Each year SI and the Ali family unit honour a figure who embodies the ideals of sportsmanship, leadership and philanthropy and has used sports as a platform for changing the world. "I am proud to be able to present this to Colin for his passionate defence of social justice and ceremonious rights for all people," says Lonnie Ali, Muhammad's widow. "Like Muhammad, Colin is a human who stands on his convictions with confidence and courage, undaunted past the personal sacrifices he has had to make to have his bulletin heard. And he has used his celebrity and philanthropy to the benefit of some of our about vulnerable customs members."
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Previous Legacy winners—including Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jim Brown, Jack Nicklaus and Magic Johnson—were deserving. Merely no winner has been more fitting than Kaepernick. Ali lost more than iii years of his career for his refusal to serve in the military machine in opposition to the Vietnam War. Kaepernick has lost one year, so far, for his pursuit of social justice.
When Kaepernick first protested during the national anthem, he could not have envisioned the size and elapsing of the ensuing firestorm. But he knew there would exist fallout. So much has inverse in America since the summertime of 2016, and and so many words have been used to draw Kaepernick. Simply his words from his first caption remain his truth:
"This is not something that I am going to run past anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up upward for people that are oppressed. ... If they take football abroad, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right."
New York Urban center Council members accept a genu on the steps of City Hall after Donald Trump condemned the NFL players who cull to kneel.
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Kaepernick kept his job for a season earlier existence blackballed past the NFL—and yes, he has been blackballed. This should exist obvious by now. Scott Tolzien, Cody Kessler, Tom Savage and Matt Cassel have thrown passes in the league this year, nevertheless nobody has tried to sign Kaepernick, who is 5th in NFL history in touchdown-to-interception ratio. Kaepernick has been called a lark, which is laughable— his autobus last year, Chip Kelly, says at that place was "zero distraction," and his 49ers teammates said the same. Most NFL players would rather exist "distracted" past Kaepernick than try to tackle the guy who but intercepted Brock Osweiler.
Kaepernick has paid a price beyond missing games and losing paychecks. He has been dilapidated past critics who don't want to sympathise him. Some say Kaepernick hates America; he says he is trying to make it amend. Others say he hates the armed forces, just on Sept. ane, 2016, every bit the then-San Diego Chargers played a tribute to the military on the stadium videoboard, Kaepernick applauded.
Kaepernick has listened to the President of the United States take credit for his unemployment. He has seen others falsely claim that he has disappointed the white parents who raised him. He has heard people discredit him because he wore socks that depicted pigs in police force hats and a T-shirt with Fidel Castro's motion picture on it. (He has said the socks were just meant to represent "rogue cops" and that while he supports Castro's investment in education, "I never said I back up the oppressive things he [Castro] did.")
Nobody claims Kaepernick is perfect. Reasonable, woke people can exist upset that he did not vote in the 2016 ballot. Only the Ali Legacy Award does not honor perfection, and the criticisms of Kaepernick are misguided in 1 key way: They brand this story a referendum on Kaepernick. It was never supposed to be virtually him. It is about Tamir Rice and the earth's highest incarceration charge per unit and a country that devalues education and slides likewise hands into violence.
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Kaepernick is not Ali. He is quieter and non every bit naturally endearing. Ali was a showman who loved entertaining reporters. Kaepernick does non care for attention and prefers non to practise interviews. But they both sacrificed for the greater skilful at a time when many Americans could non see it was a greater good.
When Ali was drafted into the military in 1967 and refused to report, much of the country disapproved. Ali explained his refusal by saying: "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam after and so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated similar dogs and denied simple human rights?"
That seems reasonable at present, knowing what we do about the civil rights motility and the Vietnam War. But at the time, 1 prominent American said: "The tragedy to me is, Cassius has made millions of dollars off of the American public, and at present he'south not willing to prove his appreciation to a land that'due south giving him, in my view, a fantastic opportunity."
That sounds a lot similar what people have said about Kaepernick. The man who said it about Ali was Jackie Robinson.
Time ultimately shined a softer light on Ali. For the last 40 years of his life, Ali was arguably the most popular athlete in American history. But in the late 1960s, he was deeply unpopular and his time to come was uncertain.
Ali was 25 when he was banned from boxing and 28 when he returned to the sport. Boxing historians sometimes wonder what he would have done in those prime number years. But Ali did not await at information technology that way. Instead of focusing on the piece of his career that he lost, he talked about what he had gained: a sense of self, and of purpose, greater than he could ever find in the ring. He risked prison time. He did not know if he would ever exist allowed to fight again. But he knew he was clinging to his truth. As Ali after toldSI's George Plimpton: "Every human wonders what he is going to do when he is put on the chopping cake, when he's going to be tested."
Anytime, America may well exist a amend place because of Colin Kaepernick. This is hard to run across at present— history is not meant to exist analyzed in existent time. Just we are having conversations we need to take, and this should eventually lead to changes we demand to brand. Police force officers, politicians and citizens can work together to create a safer, fairer, more ceremonious guild. Kaepernick did not want to sacrifice his football career for this. But he did information technology anyway. It is a rare person who gives upward what he loves in exchange for what he believes.
Source: https://www.si.com/sportsperson/2017/11/30/colin-kaepernick-muhammad-ali-legacy-award
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