text: This nice liberal colorblind piece ignores the political realities of how the powerful favor some opinions over others. Kaepernick seems to be a victim not of having and expressing an opinion IN GENERAL - he's specifically a victim of racism. I venture to guess that had he chose to break some rule in order to make some standard nationalistic "patriotic" statement I'm sure he'd held up as a hero who deserves a leadership position not only on his team but in the NFL.