Colin Kaepernick posted a tweet on Friday that seems to be a response to Jay-Z’s partnership with the NFL.
The NFL and Jay-Z announced a partnership on August 13 through Jay-Z’s Roc Nation company. The announcement said “a major component of the partnership will be to nurture and strengthen community through football and music, including through the NFL’s Inspire Change initiative.”
Friday morning, the NFL announced they would be selling Inspire Change apparel and releasing “Songs of the Season” that would help fund and support the Inspire Change program.
And there it is….Jay Z at work:
NFL to Launch Inspire Change Apparel and Songs of the Season Through Its Social Justice Platform Inspire ChangeMeek Mill, Meghan Trainor and Rapsody Named Inspire Change Advocates pic.twitter.com/ewu01DCvri
— Clarence Hill Jr (@clarencehilljr) August 30, 2019
Opponents to Jay-Z’s partnership with the NFL saw this as another sign that the music and business mogul had “sold out” and was only looking to enrich himself and the league.
Kaepernick seemed to address the matter with a tweet he posted Friday afternoon. The tweet included a photo of a passage from a book:
Reading always gives me clarity.
“What [they] seek is not an end to oppression, but the transfer of the oppressive apparatus into their own hands. “
Robert L. Allen, Black Awakening in Capitalist America (1969) pic.twitter.com/Yztn8pAnUi
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) August 30, 2019
Applied in the context of Jay-Z’s partnership with the NFL, Kaepernick seems to be saying that Jay-Z and those working with him are only lining their pockets and not helping those in ghettos. Further, the passage seems to suggest there is an organized effort by an entire class (the black middle class) to keep other blacks in ghettos. That’s one heck of an accusation to think the black middle class or black intelligentsia is working in concert to keep other black people down.
Kaepernick seems to be against anyone working with the NFL to help communities and improve social justice.
What’s also odd is how some lash out at the NFL and Jay-Z for selling apparel to help spread their activism mission, but those same people have no problem with Kaepernick selling his own merchandise and pairing with Nike to do the same.
The KAEPERNICK ICON TEE. Black on Black. 3M Reflective. Available now. Link in bio and https://t.co/xr8M9wiOiq #kaepernickicontee #justdoit
: @foot_candles pic.twitter.com/qtQrDcO9cG— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) October 25, 2018
