Colin Kaepernick just reached a settlement agreement with the NFL

Embattled former NFL quarterback and civil rights activist Colin Kaepernick has finally ended his lawsuit against the NFL, putting an end to his accusations of collusion between the league and the racist owners who control it to keep him from playing.

Kaepernick provoked a national controversy when he and his comrade Eric Reid began to kneel during the pre-game National Anthem in protest of police brutality and systematic racism in the United States.

The case was set to proceed to arbitration next month, but both parties agreed to a confidential settlement at the last minute. This conveniently keeps the depositions of numerous Trump-supporting team owners like Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and openly racist Houston Texans owner Bob McNair secret. Yahoo! Sports wrote:

While sources declined to offer specifics for the decision, Yahoo Sports was told on prior occasions that Kaepernick and Reid would only settle the complaint if a lucrative financial agreement was reached between the players and the NFL.

The agreement comes on the doorstep of the final hearing in the Kaepernick case, which was set to take place before arbitrator Stephen Burbank this month. Kaepernick had alleged the league conspired to keep him out after he began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016.

Kaepernick and co-plaintiff Reid were teammates on the San Francisco 49ers when the quarterback began his protests in 2017.

The cornerback, who wrote a poignant op-ed in the New York Times about protesting police brutality, did find an NFL job a few weeks into the last season. Reid signed a 3-year, $22 million contract extension with the Carolina Panthers this week, according to ESPN, while Kaepernick has remained unemployed.

Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest got elevated into a national political issue by Donald Trump because he needed race-bait to throw to his political base during an Alabama rally in the run-up to a special election for the US Senate.

Media outrage and the Trump administration’s desire to inflame the racists in his base and distract opponents kept his war against Kaepernick’s peaceful protests in the headlines for months.

NFL owners didn’t do themselves or their players any favors by reacting to the entire morass by siding with Donald Trump until players and their union set the teams straight about whom to support in a dispute with a racist lunatic and athletes, many of whom are African-American.

The ultimate irony of Donald Trump and the NFL’s misguided war on peaceful protests is that they gave more attention to Colin Kaepernick’s issue of police brutality than he could’ve possibly dreamed of getting without their public machinations against him.

Sadly for the sport of football, the NFL took a big hit by backing down to Trump, while Colin Kaepernick prospered as Nike’s spokesman in one of the most successful sports marketing campaigns in recent history.

Now, the National Football League will pay a huge financial price to Kaepernick for freezing out a quarterback who starred in a Super Bowl just because he protested the statistically proven injustices in the way that police officers use force against minority communities in America.

Here is Colin Kaepernick’s lawyers’ official statement about the settlement:

Grant Stern

Editor at Large

is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also a mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition, and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here: