Episode 182 - Colin Kaepernick

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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Colin Kaepernick (0:54)

Super excited to see Colin Kapernick coming out with his new book. Happy to see him in Atlanta. I'm with Kap all the way.

SPEAKER_4 (1:20)

So now to the proper program, right? So let's get for real. In conversation tonight, we have, of course, Deante, Kyle, A social impact, every person who has leveraged his piercing insights, his authentic engagement and his platform, the Eggs and Grits Podcast, to speak truth to power, to push activism through callouts and self-reflection, and to be unapologetically himself, where there are chorus calls for us to be everything other than that. Can we celebrate brother Kyle and have him come out first?

Deante' Kyle (2:06)

What's happening? How y'all doing, Black people? How we feeling?

SPEAKER_4 (2:12)

And next, to anchor this conversation of the perilous fight, we have author, activist, and iconoclast for what brother John Lewis calls the work of good trouble. Please welcome Mr. Colin Kapernick.

Deante' Kyle (2:47)

What's up, man?

Colin Kaepernick (2:49)

Yo, how you doing, brother?

Deante' Kyle (2:51)

Trying to stay busy like you, man.

Colin Kaepernick (2:54)

I know you're running.

Deante' Kyle (2:55)

Yeah.

Colin Kaepernick (2:56)

I know you're running.

Deante' Kyle (2:57)

How you feeling?

Colin Kaepernick (2:58)

I'm good. I'm good. Excited for this.

Deante' Kyle (3:00)

Yeah, I am too, man. When I got to college, I already had like a press stuff. Y'all know I'm going on tour. Shameless plug. But...

Colin Kaepernick (3:09)

Make sure you support the tour.

Deante' Kyle (3:11)

Yo, make some noise for that.

It was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, tour, yeah, whatever. But when I got the call, I was like, oh, I'm there, without a doubt.

Colin Kaepernick (3:24)

Oh, that's love. That's love. And you know, we big fans.

We big fans of the work you do.

Deante' Kyle (3:30)

I appreciate it, man.

I did want to ask, though, like, it's been 10 years, and then this is all cultivating to this moment. So over the last week or two, we've seen you in numerous places being asked numerous questions. And I just want to know, like, how you're dealing with it all.

Colin Kaepernick (3:51)

I'm doing good. It's, we're running. Not a lot of sleep happening right now. But it's been great, because we've been able to be on the ground with people, talking with them, engaging with them. And ultimately, what I hope comes out of this is people feel inspired to go out and take action.

We are in a moment right now, sitting here in 2026, that we are in many ways at a crossroads as a country.

We are either going to continue to devolve to where we have been previously historically, or we're going to take action to build the future we actually want. And I hope this is something that gets people motivated and activated to go out there and take the action to build that future.

SPEAKER_2 (4:37)

Make some noise for that.

Deante' Kyle (4:44)

The last 10 years, it comes with a lot of adversity, and I can't imagine how hard it is to stay silent when people are always constantly giving you so much to defend. How does it feel to actually be able to tell it all and use your voice to address it all in this moment?

Colin Kaepernick (5:05)

It is great to be in the space to be able to give people the truth of everything that has happened.

Oftentimes, over the last 10 years, I felt like I was in this position of, do I respond how I personally want to and go directly at people?

Or do I just keep the focus on the movement and on the issues we're trying to address and make sure we continue to move forward in that way? And we tried to do everything we could to just stay focused on the issue and stay relentless. Even then, even when there were a lot of lies, a lot of misinformation put out there, people planting stories. And ultimately, the belief was on the tail end of this, people will see the work that has been done. And hopefully, they judge myself, Eric Reed, other people that have been doing this work on the actions that we took over that 10 years. And now being in a space to be able to share some of the insights of what we've had to navigate. I'm happy to be able to address those things now.