By Darren Sweeney, fox8.com
San Franciscos 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has ignited a new controversy. He told reporters he didn’t vote in the presidential election.
“I’ve been very disconnected from the systematic oppression as a whole. So, for me, it’s another face that’s going to be the face of that system of oppression. And to me, it didn’t really matter who went in there. The system still remains intact that oppresses people of color,” Kaepernick said when asked about the election.
Kaepernick became famous far beyond the world of football when during the 2016 preseason he began sitting — then later kneeling — during the US national anthem, saying he didn’t want to “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith went on a rant about Kaepernick’s failure to vote.
“For him not to vote…as far as I’m concerned, everything he said meant absolutely nothing!”
– @stephenasmith on Colin Kaepernick pic.twitter.com/gShvVfVoAt
— First Take (@FirstTake) November 9, 2016
“As far as I’m concerned, Colin Kaepernick is absolutely irrelevant,” Smith said on the sports network’s “First Take.”
“I don’t want to see him again. I don’t want to hear from him again. I don’t want to hear a damn word about anything that he has to say about our nation, the issues that we have, racial injustices, needing change, etc., etc. He comes across as a flaming hypocrite as far as i’m concerned,” Smith said. “Everything he said meant absolutely nothing!”
Listen to Smith’s entire rant in the above video.
