Colin Kaepernick
People are dying in vain because this country isn't holding their end of the bargain up as far as, you know, giving freedom and justice and liberty to everybody.Collection: Freedom
People don't realize what's really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for: freedom, liberty and justice for all.Collection: Freedom
This stand wasn't because I feel like I'm being put down in any kind of way. This is because I'm seeing things happen to people that don't have a voice: people that don't have a platform to talk and have their voices heard and affect change. So I'm in the position where I can do that, and I'm going to do that for people that can't.Collection: Change
If you're going to do something, you're going to do it to be the best.Collection: Best
Most people don't want to change. They're comfortable and set in their ways. But in order to change, you have to be able to agitate people at times. And I think that's something that's very necessary for us to improve as a country.Collection: Change
I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.
We have a lot of people that are oppressed. We have a lot of people that aren't treated equally, aren't given equal opportunities. Police brutality is a huge thing that needs to be addressed. There are a lot of issues that need to be talked about, need to be brought to life, and we need to fix those.
To me, tattoos are a way of people being able to express themselves and have other people look at them and get a little insight into who they are, without ever even saying a word to them.
My parents told me from the time I can remember that, 'Yeah, you're adopted. But this is your family.' I can remember my mom, she tells me this story: when I was little, I was looking at her, and I was like, 'Why isn't my skin the same color as yours?' She was like, 'Oh, you're adopted, but I wish I had pretty brown skin like you.'
I'm going to speak the truth when I'm asked about it.
Sometimes, when things are going really well, I feel like I've already seen things - it's the flashback feeling in a good way. Like I'm watching a rerun, because I've studied this defense and know what comes next. Now, that is a good feeling, when your mind is working fast because you've studied, and you realize, 'I've seen this before.'
All my tattoos, they've been thought out, thought over, been a work in progress for at least a year before I've got them. So I'm not walking into a tattoo shop, picking tattoos off a wall. It's something that means something to me. It's something that I believe in.
I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country. And they fight for freedom, they fight for the people, they fight for liberty and justice, for everyone.
I've had times where one of my roommates was moving out of the house in college, and because we were the only black people in that neighborhood, the cops got called, and we had guns drawn on us. Came in the house, without knocking, guns drawn on my teammates and roommates. So I have experienced this.
I'll never take the easy way out.
Nobody cares if you're black, white, straight, gay, Christian, Jewish, whatever it may be. When you step on that field, you're a member, in my case, the 49ers. That's your job, your occupation.
I don't want people to think you have to look a certain way or be a certain mold to be able to be a quarterback.
There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality.
If I got a football scholarship, I was going to be a football player.
Every time I step on the field, I step on the field to make plays.
I'm going to continue to stand with the people that are being oppressed.
I don't believe in pressure. The pressure is not being prepared for what you want to do.
Once you're on the field, you're playing. You're not worried about anything other than doing your job to help your team.
To me, when people say, 'Oh, you're a freak athlete,' it's bittersweet. It's a huge compliment to say, 'O.K., you have physical abilities that are kind of above and beyond.' But at the same time, I feel like it diminishes the mental side of the game.
I was not going to let people tell me what I'm capable of.
People can talk all they want; that doesn't affect how I go about my business.
The biggest thing is I watch myself: What I need to improve on, what I can do different.
I'd say that, 99 percent of the time at Nevada, I knew what the coverage was and where I was probably going before the ball was snapped. It makes it very easy when I only had to read one person and know that I was going from here to here, and if not, I'm checking it down.
I do want to be a representative of the African community, and I want to hold myself and dress myself in a way that reflects that. I want black kids to see me and think, 'Okay, he's carrying himself as a black man, and that's how a black man should carry himself.'
I don't look at film that closely about my mechanics of where's my elbow at.
I realize that men and women of the military go out and sacrifice their lives and put their selves in harm's way for my freedom of speech and my freedoms in this country, and my freedom to take a seat or take a knee, so I have the utmost respect for them, and I think what I did was taken out of context and spun a different way.
I think that's something that's hard for this country to address, is what the real issues are and coming to the point where we can admit that these are issues. Once we admit that, we can deal with it, we can fix them, and we can make this country and these communities a better place.
The SFPD has had a lot of issues, and I think one of the issues that needs to be addressed is the racist text messages that have been passed back and forth between PD members, not only talking about the community, but also talking about colleagues that work in the same department as them.
I'm here to play football.
Whatever the offense dictates to allow me doing what I or this offense needs to do to win games, I'm going to do it.
I'll always be a fan of coach Harbaugh. Not too sure about Michigan.
I'm going out to play, and to play to win.
In the heat of the battle, it's always different than when you go back and look at it on film.
You have full-field view when you're watching the film. Eye in the sky, it's a lot easier to look at it that way than when you're back behind center.
You have to take care of the ball to win football games.
Mental health, for me, is doing everything I can to help this team win. Sitting around not doing anything isn't something I've been too big on since I was young.
I have great respect for the religion. I know a lot of people that are Muslim and are phenomenal people.
It was just something - I didn't agree with what the flag was representing at this time, and you know, if you look at the original picture where people addressed it, I was trying to sit behind the coolers and out of the way, 'cause I didn't want to interrupt anybody else's right to stand and hold attention to the flag.
A lot of them have families to feed, and I think it's a tragic situation where players aren't comfortable speaking what's on their mind or what's right because they're afraid of consequences that come along with it. That's not an ideal environment for anybody.
The support I've gotten from my teammates has been great.
We have a presidential candidate who's deleted emails and done things illegally and is a presidential candidate. That doesn't make sense to me, because if that was any other person, you'd be in prison. So what is this country really standing for?
Jim Tomsula is going to be great coach for us. Players' coach. Always around the guys. Someone that's willing to listen to what the players say and has their intake.
If you work hard and perform well, it doesn't matter whether you're 20 or 40. People are going to follow, and you can go in there and run the show.
I'm still trying to improve. Everything I can do to improve every part of my game - I'm going to do it.
I refuse to take shortcuts.