Opinions
Activism, the black athlete and supporting LGBT equality
Ali’s legacy and why Kaepernick’s critics are wrong

Why do we praise Muhammad Ali, yet criticize Colin Kaepernick? (Photo by Mike Morbeck; courtesy Flickr)
Why do so many African-American professional athletes today view Muhammad Ali as a hero, but fall short of even trying to live by the same code of ethics that made him a hero? Ali became a hero because he was never silent. He said things he knew would make people uncomfortable, even angry, but that he believed would help bring about awareness and change. Ali was, as a result, a controversial figure during his life. He angered countless people with his message and many people hated him. It was only later that Ali was recognized for his impact on our country.
I remember that once as a boy I heard Ali call himself “pretty” on TV. This was before Beyoncé made big booties sexy, before girls were pumping their lips full of fillers. This was the 1970s. “Black” features were not considered pretty. I remember how powerful it was to see a man who looked like me categorize himself that way. I was nine years old, and I have never forgotten that moment. It was a small moment, but one that empowered me to feel good about myself. That is the power we possess as professional athletes: We have a platform to speak, and a way to give voice to so many voices that remain unheard. We have the ability, and I believe, the responsibility, to serve as a voice that will empower and engage others. But that platform, and the power it gives us, is an opportunity too many of us ignore.
When I started writing this piece, my intention was to draw attention to Black athletes who admire Ali for his activism, but remain silent as injustices continue to reveal the persistent inequity in this country. More specifically, I wanted to center that discussion on the fact that African-American heterosexual males have remained noticeably absent in the fight for equal rights for the LGBTQ community, being that we are all too familiar with what it feels like to be a disenfranchised and discriminated against minority. Before I finished the piece, however, I saw San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sit down for the national anthem — and I saw America stand up in protest. When asked why he didn’t stand, Kaepernick said he was “not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.”
The way Kaepernick took a stand was exactly the type of activism I wanted to see among today’s Black athletes, but before I had time to applaud him, the media crucified him. Worse yet, it wasn’t just the mainstream media that was speaking out. Even fellow Black athletes were speaking out against him. It was bad enough that so many Black athletes were willing to be silent and let others stand up for our people, but now some were actually chastising him for standing up for us. Kaepernick wanted dialogue, but instead he got told that he had crossed a line. He wanted to spark conversation, but instead he was told to be quiet. In fact, he was told to be grateful.
Ironically, one of the criticisms of Kaepernick came in the form of an argument that Kaepernick was not in a position to stand up for Black people because he was not Black. Forgetting about the fact that Kaepernick is in fact half Black, that position itself is nonsensical. If he were white, would it be wrong for him to stand up for Black people? Does that mean that white people cannot defend the rights of Blacks or other minority groups? That straight people cannot defend the rights of the LGBTQ community? Historically, no minority group has ever gained the equal rights they sought without the support of the majority.
And it’s true that Kaepernick does not necessarily feel the impact of racism or injustice day to day ⎯ he is not part of the disenfranchised Black community he is fighting to protect. The Civil Rights leaders of the 1950s, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, were standing up for their own rights along with the rights of the Black community ⎯ King couldn’t sit at the front of the bus either. Kaepernick is educated, and has a multi-million dollar contract as a quarterback in the NFL. But in my mind that makes his action even more powerful, not less. His silent protest was not driven by self-interest. He chose to speak for those who don’t have a voice. As he put it, “This country stands for freedom, liberty, justice for all ⎯ and it’s not happening for all right now.” That was reason enough for him to take action, despite any repercussion he might face. That is what makes him a leader.
So why are so few athletes willing to stand up — or, in Kaepernick’s case, sit down? Many people do not realize that if a player has made it to the NFL, he has been playing since he was a child. From that time, he has been systematically trained to aspire to be in the NFL. Once a player makes it to the league, his impulse is, one, to fall in line, to do nothing that might jeopardize his team, a sacred brotherhood. Two, not to do anything to jeopardize his salary or endorsements. More than half of the players in the NFL come from poverty. For more than half the players in the league, football is the only way they see to take care of themselves and their families.
But the impulse and pressure to fall in line is what keeps so many players from standing up the way Kaepernick has — and keeps so many players silent when they could be voices of change. The unfortunate truth is that their fears are not unfounded. Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall, who has chosen to take a knee for the anthem in light of Kaepernick’s protest, has already lost two endorsements as a result of his actions. While too many of us still sit on the sidelines in the fight for justice, I am heartened that Kaepernick’s activism has begun to gain momentum: more athletes take a knee, raise their firsts, link arms in support of him and his message. Even 49ers owner Jed York came out in full support of Kaepernick. Despite sacrificing two endorsements, Marshall remains steadfast in his commitment to the protest, and the conversation he hopes it will inspire.
I would love to see this momentum continue to build and have more professional Black athletes stand up publically for the larger Black community. But what I would also love to see is that activism stretch beyond the reach of our own people and begin to try to help yet another marginalized group, the LGBTQ community.
There is an unmistakable power balance in this country, and we all know who wields that power. That being said, within the other groups that comprise our nation, there does exist a hierarchy of power. That hierarchy is what gave Kaepernick the opportunity to stand up for his beliefs in a way that a lot of other Black men never could. It is also what allowed the entire football team and the entire student body at University of Missouri to stand up for Michael Sam, and allow him to live his life openly as a gay man (which, by the way allowed him to play the best season of his entire collegiate career). And, two years later allowed the Missouri football team to stand together as a team against the racial discrimination that was occurring on their campus and boycott playing a single game until they got a public apology from the president of the university. Regardless of our race, as athletes, we do in fact wield power. The power to raise our voices for change is in our hands, but I see so much silence.
The LGBTQ community is another minority community in our country that is still fighting to be truly equal under the laws of our nation. And while I am by no means saying that the Black fight for equality is over, what I am saying is that there are many Black people in this country, such as professional athletes, that do in fact have a tremendous platform with which they can show support for the LBGTQ community. We have power to not only help ourselves, but to help another group who seeks fairness and equity.
If more professional athletes stood up for the LGBTQ community the same way Muhammad Ali and Colin Kaepernick did and the way others are beginning to do, think of the impact and the power that would have on the LGBTQ community and their fight for equality. Think about what would happen if two of my favorite athletes ⎯ Michael Jordan and LeBron James — went to Nike and said they wanted to film a PSA because they had a family member or close friend who is gay and wanted to publicly show their support. Because let’s face it, we all have at least one family member or close friend that is a part of the LGBTQ community. But instead we allow ourselves to be told by the corporations what we can and cannot do. Why can’t we realize that we have just as much if not more power than the students at University of Missouri? If we stand together on the right side of history, then the power is ours. We need to be on the front line of history, not wait until it is cool to be in support of something that is not allowing friends and family members to feel safe and live their life to fullest.
In our community there is still a widespread fear that being an advocate for, or even just an ally of the LGBTQ community will call into question our own sexuality or masculinity as straight Black men. The base level of this fear is straight forward (albeit based on a false assumption) that supporting the LGBTQ community will lead people to think that we are gay or less of a man. As a result, many of us would rather say nothing than do something that would lead others to have that perception of us. There is also a financial fear associated with being a straight ally. That fear being that if people think that we are homosexual or an ally to the LGBTQ community, it will have a detrimental effect our brand, and in turn, our wallet.
I also want to address the argument that religious people cannot support the LGBTQ community due to the teachings of the Bible. First of all, I would like to remind all of my Black brothers and sisters that it was not too long ago that people used verses from the Bible to back up arguments to keep slavery legal. We, as African Americans cannot in good faith use the same teachings that were used to oppress us to suppress the rights of another group of people. Second, I would love someone to tell me when the laws in the Bible got ranked. In other words, what divine power came down and told us that the teachings that prohibit homosexuality are more important than the teachings that tell us to “love your neighbor as yourself?”
We must begin to the dispel the ideas held by so many straight Black men that being an ally to the LGBTQ community will hurt them in some way. In order to do this, there are two major revelations to which these athletes must come. The first is that the stereotypes they grew up hearing are antiquated and untrue. We must all be a part of eliminating these stereotypes, and we can do that simply by letting our words and our actions defy them. The second is that becoming a straight ally for the LGBTQ community will actually broaden their brand and appeal. The LGBTQ community accounts for more than $9 billion of buying power in this country. When Michael Sam came out as a gay man, his jersey shot straight to the No. 2 most purchased NFL jersey in the country. When Steve Jobs died, Tim Cook took over as CEO of Apple, and has subsequently come out as a gay man. We all still walk around with our iPhones tight in our clutches, but how many of us stop to think about the fact that the company that makes them — one of the most powerful companies in the country — is run by an openly gay man?
Muhammad Ali has, in the wake of his death, been mourned and celebrated in the media as an athlete who transcended sport and became an icon of activism and social justice. However, the same people who praise Ali for his activism and commitment to social justice can, almost in the same breath, condemn Colin Kaepernick for attempting to use his platform as an athlete to do the same. Ali paved the way for athletes like Kaepernick to speak out. If we celebrate Ali for creating the path, then how can we disapprove of athletes like Kaepernick for walking it?
It is time Black athletes realize our power and responsibility to bring change in America — and it is time for America to stop fearing what the change will look like. We must say and do the things that will spark conversation about important issues that we face because conversation is the first step toward resolution.
If we cannot speak about the issues, how can we hope to resolve them? More specifically, we, as heterosexual Black men with a voice need to get on the right side of history in the fight for LGBTQ equality. It is our responsibility to stand up for the underdog, the discriminated against, because we have been and still are discriminated against. We must stand up for communities other than our own just as we want others to stand up for us. We must be upstanders and not bystanders, we must stand up and use our voice for change, acknowledging that no group of human beings deserves to be treated as inferior.
We must applaud Kaeperrnick for his actions by acknowledging that great leaders have the strength and conviction to never mistake the easy choice for the right one. But applauding him is not enough. We must accept that once we identify a great leader such as him, we must have enough of our own strength and conviction to follow him.
Sean James is executive director of Sports & Entertainment for Hotaling Group Insurance Services and a former NFL player.
Commentary
Defunding LGBTQ groups is a warning sign for democracy
Global movement since January 2025 has lost more than $125 million in funding
In over 60 countries, same-sex relations are criminal. In many more, LGBTIQ people are discriminated against, harassed, or even persecuted. Yet, in most parts of the world, if you are an LGBTIQ person, there is an organization quietly working to keep people like you safe: a lawyer fighting an arrest, a shelter offering refuge from violence, a hotline answering a midnight call. Many of those organizations have now lost so much funding that they may be forced to close.
One year ago this week, the U.S. government froze foreign assistance to organizations working on human rights, democracy, and development worldwide. The effects were immediate. For LGBTIQ communities, the impact has been severe and far-reaching.
For 35 years, Outright International has helped build and sustain the global movement for the rights of LGBTIQ people, working with local partners in more than 75 countries. Many of those partners are now facing sudden closure.
Since January 2025, more than $125 million has been stripped from efforts advancing the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer people globally. That figure represents at least 30 percent of yearly international funding for this work. Organizations that ran emergency shelters, legal defense programs, and HIV prevention services have been forced to close or drastically scale back operations. At Outright alone, we lost funding for 120 grants across nearly 50 countries. We estimate that, without intervention, 20 to 25 percent of our grantee partners risk shutting down entirely.
But this is not only a story about one community. It is a story about how authoritarianism works, and what it costs when we fail to recognize the pattern.
The playbook is not subtle
Researchers at Outright and partners across human rights and democracy movements have documented the same sequence playing out across sectors worldwide: governments defund organizations before passing restrictive legislation, eliminating the groups most likely to document abuses before abuses occur.
In December, CIVICUS downgraded its assessment of U.S. civic freedoms from “narrowed” to “obstructed,” citing what it called a “rapid authoritarian shift.” The message was unmistakable: independent organizations that hold power to account are under growing pressure, in the United States and around the world.
And the effects have cascaded globally. When one of the world’s largest funders of democracy support and human rights work withdraws, it doesn’t just leave a funding gap. It sends a signal to authoritarians everywhere: the coast is clear.
The timing is not coincidental. In the super election year of 2024, 85 percent of countries with national elections featured anti-LGBTIQ rhetoric in campaigns. Across the 15 countries we tracked, governments proposed or enacted laws restricting gender-affirming care, rolling back legal gender recognition, and censoring LGBTIQ expression. The defunding often came first. Governments know that if they can starve the movement, there will be no one left to document what comes next.
Why US readers should care
It may be tempting to see this as a distant crisis, especially at a moment when LGBTIQ rights in the United States are under real pressure. But this story is closer to home than it appears. American funding decisions often help determine whether organizations protecting LGBTIQ people abroad can keep their doors open. And when independent organizations are weakened, no matter where they are, the consequences do not stay contained. The same political networks driving anti-LGBTIQ legislation in the United States share strategies and resources with movements abroad. Global repression and domestic rollback are not separate stories. They are the same story, unfolding in different places.
LGBTIQ organizations are often the first target, but never the last
Why target LGBTIQ communities first? Because we are politically easier to isolate. The same playbook — foreign funding restrictions, bureaucratic harassment, banking access denial — is now being deployed against environmental groups, independent media, women’s rights organizations, and election monitors. When one part of our community is silenced, all of us become more vulnerable. What happens to us is a preview of what happens to everyone.
This is not speculation. It is documented history. In Hungary, the government restricted foreign funding for civil society before passing its “anti-LGBTQ propaganda” law. In Russia, “foreign agent” designations preceded the criminalization of LGBTIQ identity. In Uganda, funding restrictions on human rights organizations came before the Anti-Homosexuality Act. The pattern repeats because it works.
And yet, even as these attacks intensify, victories continue. In 2025, Saint Lucia struck down a colonial-era law criminalizing consensual same-sex intimacy after a decade of regional planning and coalition-building. Courts in India, Japan, and Hong Kong upheld trans people’s rights. Budapest Pride became the largest in Hungarian history — and one of the country’s biggest public demonstrations — despite a government ban. In Thailand, years of patient advocacy culminated in marriage equality becoming law in 2025, the first such victory in Southeast Asia.
These wins happened because our movement built the capacity to survive hostility. Legal defense funds. Documented evidence. Regional coalitions. Emergency response networks. The organizations behind these victories are precisely the ones now facing drastic funding cuts and even closure.
What we are doing and what we need
On Jan. 20, 2026, Outright International publicly launched Funding Our Freedom, a $10 million emergency campaign running through June 30, 2026. We have already secured over $5 million in pledges from more than 150 donors. But the gap remains enormous.
The campaign supports two priorities that must move together. Half of the funds go directly to frontline LGBTIQ organizations facing sudden shortfalls: keeping staff paid, maintaining safe spaces, securing legal support, and continuing essential services. The other half supports Outright’s global work: documenting abuses, training activists, and advocating for LGBTIQ inclusion at the United Nations and other international forums. This is how LGBTIQ people remain seen, heard, and defended, even when governments attempt to erase them.
We structured Funding Our Freedom this way because frontline support without protection is fragile, and global advocacy without frontline truth is hollow. Both must survive.
Funding Our Freedom is not charity. It is how we keep the global LGBTIQ movement alive when governments try to erase it.
A call to those who believe in equality and democracy
If you are part of the LGBTIQ community, this moment is personal. Whether you give, share this work, host a small fundraiser, or bring others into the effort, you become part of what keeps our global community connected and protected.
If you are an ally or simply someone who believes in fairness, free expression, and accountable government, this fight is yours too. The defunding of LGBTIQ organizations is not an isolated decision. It is a test case. If it succeeds, the same tactics will be used against every group that challenges power and defends vulnerable people.
We are not asking for sympathy. We are asking for commitment. The organizations now being forced to close are the ones that document abuses, provide legal defense, support people in crisis, and show up when no one else will. If they disappear, we lose more than services. We lose the ability to know what is happening and to respond.
Authoritarians understand this. That is why they target us first.
The question is whether the rest of us understand it in time.
Maria Sjödin is the executive director of Outright International, where they has worked for over two decades advocating for LGBTIQ human rights worldwide. Learn more at outrightinternational.org/funding-our-freedom.
Opinions
ICE agents murder another American citizen in Minneapolis
Trump and his Cabinet are the real ‘domestic terrorists’
ICE agents murdered another American citizen on the streets of Minneapolis. His murder is both caused, and condoned, by the evil felon in the White House, and his incompetent, and equally evil, Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristie Noem. She, the woman who thought nothing of killing her dog, now apparently thinks nothing of killing American citizens. The most recent murder, condoned by both of them, occurred on Jan. 24 and was that of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen.
His grieving parents released a statement, “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand, and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.”
All this occurred amid heightened tensions in the city following recent clashes over federal immigration actions. The chaos in Minneapolis is clearly caused by the federal agents. We have also been told by the Minneapolis police that Pretti had no criminal record beyond minor traffic violations and held a valid Minnesota permit to carry a concealed weapon. His family said they had never seen him carry it.
The chaos in Minneapolis was heightened after an ICE agent murdered Renee Good, while she was in her car. The agent who shot her was clearly seen in videos to be in no danger. “An autopsy commissioned by the family this month, found that she suffered three clear gunshot wounds, including one to her head, lawyers for her family said Wednesday. One of the injuries was to Good’s left forearm, the lawyers said in a statement, while another gunshot struck her right breast without piercing major organs. Neither of those wounds was immediately life-threatening, the attorneys said. A third shot entered the left side of Good’s head near the temple and exited on the right side, according to the statement, and she also appeared to have sustained a graze wound.”
After both these murders, the felon and his lapdog, Noem, claimed the murders were appropriate as both victims were ‘domestic terrorists.’ In both cases they told Minnesota law enforcement they could not participate in the investigation. Clearly, they don’t want real investigations. It has become crystal clear, the felon in the White House considers anyone who disagrees with him, or his policies, a ‘domestic terrorist’. I, and so many others, consider the felon, and his personal Goebbels, Stephen Miller, along with Noem, and others in his Cabinet, to be the real ‘domestic terrorists.’
In my lifetime, I have never seen a president declare war on American citizens, but that is what this president is doing. He is sending federal agents, including the National Guard, into cities across the nation, to fight with, and threaten to curb, the legal actions of American citizens. He is a clear danger to our democracy, and is being assisted by the Republicans in Congress, and the Supreme Court. They are all guilty of enabling his vicious attacks on all of us.
When Renee Good and Alex Pretti were gunned down, we all suffered. We were all attacked, when they were attacked. None of us can feel safe if during a legal demonstration, we can be murdered, and no one will step forward to stop it from happening. We live in a country where our Secretary of Health and Human Services, RFK Jr., is literally killing children by saying they shouldn’t be vaccinated against diseases that can be prevented with a vaccine and by ending research into Alzheimer’s, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. This is the government of the felon, and his campaign against our own people.
Every person in a minority, or group who has ever been discriminated against, is at risk while the felon is in the White House. Whether you are a woman, Black, Asian, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, or LGBTQ, you are being threatened by this administration, your rights, and even your life, are being threatened. We must all stand together, and work to stop him, or as the poem, “First They Came,” attributed to Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, will prove to be true. There are many versions of the poem and just put your group in any of the paragraphs, and you will clearly understand its meaning. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum quotes the following text as one of the many poetic versions:
First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.
Authoritarianism does not announce its arrival. It’s too cowardly for that. It advances quietly, at the margins, testing how much fear and cruelty a community will tolerate and what bystanders will allow to happen to fellow human beings. History shows that queer folks, especially trans people, are often targeted first. That targeting is not incidental. It is intentional.
Defending queer rights is not a niche concern. It is a test of democratic health. A society that allows one group to be targeted will not stop there. Those who come for queer people in the morning are the same that go for educators, journalists, voters, and civil institutions in the afternoon. This is not speculation. It is a well-worn pattern.
Around the world, LGBTQ+ communities are under coordinated attack. In Russia, the so-called “international LGBTQ movement” has been labeled extremist, legally equating queer identity with terrorism. We are seeing distinct echoes of that foreign influence here at home. Elsewhere, governments criminalize queer existence, erase trans people from public life, or force people into silence through intimidation. The sequence is familiar: dehumanizing rhetoric, restrictive policy, and eventually open endorsements of violence. When these warning signs are ignored, repression accelerates.
It would be comforting to believe this is distant or abstract. It is not. In the United States, LGBTQ+ people, including trans people, have sought asylum abroad because they no longer feel safe in our own communities. When our neighbors must leave to feel safe, we have failed our community.
Experts at the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention have warned that trans communities in the United States face serious and escalating danger. Their analysis is grounded in history. Genocide is not only mass killing. It is the systematic destruction of a group’s ability to exist safely and openly. Legal erasure, public demonization, exclusion from institutions, and tolerated harassment are all early stages of that process. History is clear. The time to act is before harm becomes irreversible.
Democratic backsliding rarely arrives with fanfare. It comes through school board votes, bureaucratic rules, elected leaders’ inaction, and symbolic reversals that seem small until they accumulate. This is how erosion takes hold.
In Salisbury, Md., my hometown, that erosion has become visible. The city halted the flying of Pride flags during Pride month and removed our downtown rainbow crosswalk. These were not neutral administrative choices. They sent a clear message to queer residents that their visibility and belonging are unwelcome.
When a community removes symbols that affirm dignity and safety, when books reflecting queer realities are pulled from schools and libraries, when children are excluded from participating in life simply because they are different, it creates harm. It teaches that difference is dangerous. And when politicians and people in positions of responsibility fail to protect trans kids, real harm follows: mental health crises, isolation, and even lives lost.
Pride flags, rainbow crosswalks, inclusive curricula, and supportive policies are not merely symbolic. They communicate that everyone belongs and that discrimination will not be tolerated. Removing them isolates queer people and emboldens those who see community as an exclusive club rather than a shared responsibility.
Queer liberation is not separate from the liberation of the broader community. It is inseparable from it. Living openly as queer challenges systems built on fear, rigid roles, and enforced conformity. When queer people gain ground, everyone gains ground. Each victory for queer liberation strengthens democracy itself.
This is how we know progress is possible. Every time a Pride flag stays flying. Every time a crosswalk remains painted. Every time a local ordinance protects gender identity. Every time a school affirms a student’s dignity. These are not small wins. Liberation grows through accumulation.
National politics can feel chaotic and overwhelming. Federal institutions are slow, complex, and distant. But democratic defense does not begin there. It begins locally, when neighbors show up to town halls, demand accountability, and refuse to let bigotry shape policy. It does not take extraordinary power to protect a city council chamber or a school board meeting. It takes people willing to stand up. It takes bystanders willing to step in.
This is the moment to act. Silence enables erosion. Action creates momentum. The question is not whether change is possible. It is whether you are willing to claim it.
Queer liberation is your liberation. When we defend the most targeted among us, we defend the future we all share. Every Pride flag flown, every rainbow crosswalk returned, every book left on the shelf, and every policy that affirms dignity sends a message far beyond town limits. It tells the world that democracy is being defended here.
Local victories are global victories. And every one of them matters.
Will Fries. is a Maryland communications strategist with experience in multiple major presidential campaigns.
