Donald Trump Brags About Giving to Charity. Colin Kaepernick Actually Does It.

By. BRANDON ELLINGTON PATTERSON

As the NFL season rolls on, so too does the debate over players protesting during the National Anthem and the criticism of former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the man who set the protests in motion. Things came to a head late last month, when President Donald Trump declared at a rally that NFL owners should fire “[those] son of a bitch” players who kneel for the anthem—a move Trump claims is disrespectful to veterans who, he says, fought to defend the flag.


Among the charges that conservative critics have levied against Kaepernick—who began sitting or kneeling for the anthem last August to protest police violence against black people—is that he’s not doing much off the field to improve the lives of the people he claims to be advocating for. In fact, while Kaepernick’s community activism hasn’t received nearly as much attention as his on-field protests, he’s been plenty active.

Just this week, Kaepernick visited a high school in Harlem to speak to students about social activism. He has also used his social media platform to help raise money for victims of the various hurricanes. Before that, he sponsored a series of Know Your Rights camps wherein young people, mainly black and Hispanic, learn about their legal rights during interactions with the police. And he’s put up a good chunk of change, too: Since October, through his Colin Kaepernick Foundation, the QB has dispensed $900,000—of a $1 million target—to dozens of nonprofits in Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. Last month, the NFL Players’ Association honored the quarterback with an award for his community outreach.

The grant recipients I spoke with told me Kaepernick’s money has helped them do a lot of good. Take the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, one of four organizations that received a $25,000 Kaepernick donation in January. The check arrived not long before our freshly minted president began signing executive orders to ramp up immigration enforcement. Executive director Angelica Salas told me the money helped the group revive its rapid-response network (which had been dormant for several years) just in time for one of the administration’s first big sweeps.



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