TheQuartering [6/20/2023]
Former NFL quarterback Colin Kapernick says it’s time for the United States to forgo capitalism, despite accumulating a $40 million net worth and owning a $5.4 million dollar mansion in Las Vegas, all at the hands of America’s capitalist economic system.
Kaepernick, who turned himself into a civil rights activist after being booted from the NFL for poor performance, insisted that “black liberation” is not possible under capitalism while he promoted his new book which was co-edited by two famed Marxists, Daily Mail reports.
When asked by The New Republic about his experience working alongside “two of the most prominent black Marxists in the country,” Kaepernick said, “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.”
“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 explained, who became known for boycotting the National Anthem during football games by means of kneeling.
According to Daily Mail, Kaepernick’s book features a collection of essays authored by notable civil rights activists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Angela Davis who explain in their pieces that “systemic racism is built into the capitalist economic system.” The book is predominately written by anti-capitalist authors.
Kaepernick, who has been a pivotal voice in the Marxist Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, slammed Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in the interview and said that his book “is the kind of book 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,” he said.
According to Daily Mail, Kelley describes himself as a “Marxist surrealist feminist” and is a professor of history at UCLA, while Taylor teaches African American studies at Northwestern University and is on the board of the International Socialist Review.