Former NFL players Ryan Clark and Colin Kaepernick recently sat down together to complain that the league was somehow “just like slavery,” even though they both gained nationwide fame and became multi-millionaires thanks to pro football.
Clark is reportedly worth about $12 million, and he earned $23.59 million while playing for teams such as the Giants and Steelers. And Kaepernick reportedly has a net worth of as much as $60 million after playing for the San Francisco 49ers and then moving on to his role as a professional activist. Kaepernick also earned about $59 million while in the NFL.
The pair met to record their thoughts — along with fellow former NFL player Eric Reid — on the NFL and today’s America as part of a media campaign for Kaepernick’s latest biographical book, released this month.
Kaepernick, of course, was a mediocre football player, but became more famous for protesting against our military, flag, and national history with his 2016 protests against the national anthem during his last year in the NFL. His protests launched him into his radical race-based activism.
Kaepernick has likened the NFL to slavery before and, in 2021, insisted that the league acts like “slave masters” in how they treat NFL prospects during the Draft. And now, to push his new book, Kaepernick and Clark are once again claiming that the NFL treats players like “slaves.”
Clark raised the accusation in the video with Kaepernick by noting that young players aren’t necessarily aware they are being treated like chattel to be bought and sold.
“When you’re there,” Clark said, “and, you know, they’re taking pictures of you in your tights and those different things, you’re trying to put your best foot forward, but you can’t step back from it and realize it may have been something else.”
“When did you truly start to have the realization that, ‘hey, this does, on this sense remind me of the slave trade’?” Clark continued.
“When you get to the point that it’s like, ‘Yeah, strip down to your drawers,’” Kaepernick replied. “It’s like, ‘Well, why do I need to do this?’”
“But also, I mean, I guess this is what I have to do, and everyone is doing it, like, all right, this is part of the process,” he continued. “Now, there, at some point in time there’s conversations with players at a high level of, like, you know, why, why do we have to do that?”
“You have a high-level sense of, like, you now, it feels like it’s a meat market,” he griped. “But at that point in time I didn’t have the historical perspective to be able to tie those together in such a parallel.”
“Now, one of the things I think is important in the conversation — and this is, this is always the, like, framework that people use — like, when you’re getting ready to make millions of dollars, how could you make that comparison?” he added. “And while the compensation may be different, and that dynamic is different, that doesn’t mean the process isn’t the same. And the intention behind the process isn’t the same. And, for me, looking at it in retrospect, is, this becomes a way to be able to condition players to be obedient as part of this process. Like, do what your told to do, show up how you’re supposed to show up, and if you do it well, we’ll pay you well.”
Of course, this dope just explained civilized society, not “slavery.” That is how life works. You do your job with respect for your employer and your fellow employees, you follow the orderly rules, and you succeed in the process while being paid your salary to do so – and in Kaepernick’s case, a hundred times more than the average American worker makes.
That’s not “slavery.” That’s life. Slavery, on the other hand, is force and involuntary servitude. No NFL player or prospect is forced to make a bid to play professional football. Furthermore, the NFL is a five- to ten-year job. Not a lifetime in chains.
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