Protests evolving

That was a year ago, and in the time since, “Kaepernicking” has come to look starkly different: high school and college athletes have knelt during the national anthem, and so have WNBA players, a soccer star and a gold-medal swimmer.

NBA players locked arms before games, NFL players raised fists, and representatives on the grass roots level of American sports followed the lead of the complicated man in the 49ers uniform: high school cheerleaders in Nebraska, a college marching band in North Carolina, a volleyball team in Massachusetts.

Last month a rapper issued support of Kaepernick during a nationally televised awards show, and after the quarterback opted out of his 49ers contract in March, President Trump suggested Kaepernick wouldn’t join a new team because franchises were afraid of “getting a nasty tweet” from the president.

It is, in the image-conscious NFL, more straightforward than that.

“No one wants the nonsense or the [B.S.] . . . It’s not collusion, it’s common sense,” the NFL owner said, going on to credit Kaepernick on one front. “The thing that he’s done probably more effectively than any team community relations staff or owner or coach could do for other players is [point out] that they do have the ability to affect the national dialogue.”

Though Kaepernick has given life to a movement, he has not always done it gracefully. Last year he wore socks featuring cartoon pigs wearing police uniforms, and he was criticized for wearing a T-shirt picturing Fidel Castro, the former Cuban dictator, during a postgame news conference. He was heavily criticized in November after revealing that, despite his