09/22/2026
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Colin Kaepernick says there was a reason he spent years refusing to publicly defend himself—even when he believed the story being told about him was wrong. In a new interview with Nessa Diab surrounding his memoir The Perilous Fight, Kaepernick explained that when the media credited former Green Beret Nate Boyer with influencing the decision to kneel, he and Eric Reid chose not to publicly fight over who deserved credit. Kaepernick says Reid actually proposed kneeling, but correcting the narrative risked turning the conversation into a personal dispute instead of keeping attention on police brutality and systemic oppression. Nearly a decade later, he’s finally explaining why staying focused on the cause sometimes meant letting people misunderstand him. Do you think he made the right decision by staying quiet?