Activist-athlete Colin Kaepernick on Friday called out the system that allowed for the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse on all charges in the shooting deaths of two unarmed men and the wounding of a third.
The verdict “further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed,†Kaepernick tweeted Friday.
“We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist,†wrote the former San Francisco 49s quarterback, who was forced out of the NFL after taking a knee before games to protest racism and police brutality.
The day he shot three people, Rittenhouse, then 17, had traveled from Illinois with an AR-15-style rifle to a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, against the police shooting of Black resident Jacob Blake.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) expressed a similar perspective to Kapernick’s about who is protected in America. “What we are witnessing is a system functioning as designed and protecting those it was designed for,†she tweeted.
Outspoken former ESPN personality Jemele Hill also called out white supremacy’s role in the Rittenhouse verdict.
