Colin Kaepernick speaks out on forthcoming memoir: 'Fighting against systematic oppression, dehumanization, and colonization'

Former NFL player-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick has written a memoir, and as you can imagine, it seems like it's going to be chock-full of activism anecdotes.

What are the details?

Kapernick told USA Today Sports that he is set to launch his memoir through his newly formed company, Kaepernick Publishing.

"I learned early on that in fighting against systematic oppression, dehumanization and colonization, who controls the narrative shapes the reality of how the world views society," Kaepernick said during a Tuesday interview with USA Today. “It controls who's loved, who's hated, who's degraded and who's celebrated."

Kaepernick, 32, will also touch upon how he still has a passion for football despite years of focus on social justice work.

He has remained unsigned in the NFL since the end of the 2016 season when he helped to usher in the controversial practice of kneeling during the playing of the national anthem.

“I've had a lot of questions surrounding what got me to the point of protesting," he revealed, in the USA Today story. "Why did I do it? Why did I do it at that moment? Why wasn't it earlier in my career? A lot of questions surrounding what led me to that point. Which led me to wanting to share that story and give insight. So I think there's a lot of interest around it, but time will tell when the book comes out."

Kaepernick added that he has high aspirations for the book and hopes it will be a best-seller, and he says it was important for him to create a safe space for black and brown voices to be heard in an unfiltered manner.

“It's not just my control over stories," Kaepernick told the outlet. “We wanted to be able to put the power back into the hands of the people that are telling the stories and the people that are writing the stories and creating them. We didn't want to monopolize that and hold that to ourselves. It's something that should be distributed to the people who are putting in the work to be able to tell their stories and tell them in a genuine and authentic way."

Kaepernick added that black literature has always been an interest.

"'The Autobiography of Malcolm X' was a book that changed my life, so much that every Know Your Rights camp that we have, we give the book to all of the youth that attend," he explained. "And black literature was something that was key to developing my own thoughts and ideas of how to navigate the spaces that I enter. So I not only wanted to give insight into what led me to protest through my memoir, I wanted to make sure I was able to retain the ownership over my story in the process."

The former NFL player said that he came to a realization that presenting stories is of utmost importance.

"The manipulation, the colonization, the distortion of stories, narrative, history, has been done forever," he reasoned in the USA Today report. "This is a way for me to be able to counteract that and begin to decolonize that and centralize the narrative of not only myself but other black and brown writers and authors."

What else?

USA Today reported that his company — which has partnered with Audible — will release an audiobook of the book, as well as books from other authors. But because he is making a foray into publishing, it doesn't mean he's lost interest in the game that brought him to the spotlight.

"My desire to play football is still there," Kaepernick insisted. "I still train five days a week. I'm ready to go, I'm ready for a phone call, tryout, workout at any point in time. I'm still waiting on the owners and their partners to stop running from this situation. So I hope I get a call this offseason. I'll be looking forward to it."