This week, Amnesty International awarded Colin Kaepernick its top human rights award for his public opposition to racial injustice, the Ambassador of Conscience award. Kaepernick used his acceptance speech, which can be seen in the video below, to, again, speak out against police brutality and systemic oppression against people of color across the globe. He used the opportunity to invite all of us to join him as he continues to cultivate a critical consciousness around issues of race and policing in this country (and continues without a job in the NFL), and he appealed to one of our most basic human instincts in this invitation: love.
He began his speech by stating, “People sometimes forget that love is at the root of our resistance.” Throughout the speech, he talked about his love for his teammates who knelt with him, his love for his people, and the collective love of black and brown people that has allowed them to survive through and within systems of collective hate. He talked about the love of oneself as resistance.
This speech is a reminder to all of us to tap into that which drives us, and to continue the work of resistance—to exclusion, injustice, inequity, oppression—in the spirit of love and in the spirit of collective good. How can we be ambassadors of conscience in our own lives? How can we turn our love for ourselves, our friends, our neighbors, and even strangers, into resistance?
See the video below and let us know what inspires and motivates you.
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