This attempt to drown out Kaepernick’s voice by shouting unfounded personal insults has been going on since he first took a knee during the national anthem in 2016. But really it’s how conservative America has always treated African American athletes who speak out, whether it’s Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Tommie Smith, John Carlos, or any of the others. It’s the equivalent of sticking fingers in their ears while shouting, “Nyah, nyah, nyah, I can’t hear you.”…

Neither the focus on his tweet nor the NFL pretense of his tryout are really about Colin Kaepernick, the man or the player. They are about all the other athletes who conservatives are trying to preemptively silence. NBA superstars like LeBron James and Steph Curry are impervious to this kind of treatment, in part because the NBA didn’t campaign to blackball them. Fox News, Breitbart, and the other mouthpieces of entitlement and walling-off-the-truth can’t touch them. But other players, especially young ones working their way up through the ranks, may be stifled by the example of Kaepernick left to twist in the wind of no-change.