Several athletes have publicly denounced Colin Kaepernick for opting to sit down in protest during the national anthem. But arguably one of the smartest athletes in sports history, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, has now come down on Kaepernick's side.
The NBA's all-time leading scorer, former U.S. cultural ambassador, best-selling author, activist, and all-around badass wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post on Tuesday defending Kaepernick. Abdul-Jabbar also offered some context to the controversy by providing an expansive definition of patriotism.
Abdul-Jabbar continued his defense of Kaepernick by detailing the 49ers quarterback's form of patriotism. The basketball legend used Kaepernick's own words from his press conference last weekend.
The NBA Hall of Famer placed Kaepernick's stance in the context of other athletes' controversial political actions in the service of racial justice, including Muhammad Ali's refusal to be drafted in 1967—an action which cost him both his heavyweight title and years of the prime of his fighting career. Abdul-Jabbar also mentioned U.S. Olympic athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their black-gloved fists in protest of the treatment of people of color after receiving their medals in the 1968 Olympics.
"What should horrify Americans is not Kaepernick’s choice to remain seated during the national anthem," he wrote, "but that nearly 50 years after Ali was banned from boxing for his stance and Tommie Smith and John Carlos’s raised fists caused public ostracization and numerous death threats, we still need to call attention to the same racial inequities."
You can read the rest of Abdul-Jabbar's editorial here.