Friday the Daily Mail reported that Colin Kaepernick donated $25,000 to a Chicago area group called Assata’s Daughters.

Kaepernick, who is well known for his protests against police during the national anthem as a former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, made the donation as part of his pledge to donate $100,000 a month for 10 months to ‘organizations working in oppressed communities’…

Kaepernick’s foundation specified that $2,500 of the donation would go to Cop Watch, a program that trains volunteers to follow and video police officers.

Another $15,000 is earmarked for ‘teen workshops’.

Assata’s Daughters is named for convicted murderer Joanne Chesimard aka Assata Shakur. The group’s website lists free programs they offer including one for elementary school girls:

Through our Akerele program, we introduce young girls, ages 4-12 to Assata Shakur and her revolutionary politic and love of Black people. Akerele participate in workshops that teach them about power and oppression, and help them understand their role in a long history of Black freedom fighting. We also provide opportunities and support to help them tap into their skills as leaders and future organizers in the larger movement for Black liberation.

As I wrote in July, Assata Shakur was a member of the violent Black Liberation Army who was convicted of the murder of a police officer. Here’s a description of her crime from the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists (she is the first woman to make the list):

On May 2, 1973, Chesimard, who was part of a revolutionary extremist organization known as the Black Liberation Army, and two accomplices were stopped for a motor vehicle violation on the New Jersey Turnpike by two troopers with the New Jersey State Police. At the time, Chesimard was wanted for her involvement in several felonies, including bank robbery. Chesimard and her accomplices opened fire on the troopers. One trooper was wounded and the other was shot and killed execution-style at point-blank range. Chesimard fled the scene, but was subsequently apprehended. One of her accomplices was killed in the shoot-out and the other was also apprehended and remains in jail.

In 1977, Chesimard was found guilty of first degree murder, assault and battery of a police officer, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault with intent to kill, illegal possession of a weapon, and armed robbery. She was sentenced to life in prison. On November 2, 1979, Chesimard escaped from prison and lived underground before being located in Cuba in 1984. She is thought to currently still be living in Cuba.

Some have argued that Chesimard was wrongly convicted, but even if that were true there’s no denying that she was part of an organization, the Black Liberation Army, whose goal was a violent revolution, the murder of police officers, and bank robbery (to fund the revolution). From the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence:

The group made its violent debut in June 1971 with a machine-gun attack on two New York policemen guarding the Manhattan district attorney’s apartment. Two days later, two police officers were shot to death while on patrol in Harlem. In a letter delivered to local media, the BLA announced that “the armed goons of this racist government will again meet the guns of oppressed Third World Peoples as long as they occupy our community and murder our brothers and sisters in the name of American law and order.”

Throughout is existence, the BLA framed its violent attacks on police as a legitimate response to the forces of colonial occupation in the nation’s ghettos. As Shakur declared, “[o]ur backs are against the wall [and] now more than ever we need an army to defend ourselves and fight for our liberation.” During the next three years, the BLA wounded or murdered policemen in New York, New Haven, Philadelphia, Atlanta and St. Louis. The BLA’s area of operations extended as far as San Francisco. In August 1971, members carried out a string of bank robberies, attempted to murder a policeman, and mounted a nine-person attack on a precinct house that left a police officer dead.

Assata Shakur is a domestic terrorist and a convicted murderer. The fact that groups of young children are being indoctrinated to admire her and her politics is disturbing. The fact that Colin Kaepernick supports this should tell you something about where his protest of the national anthem is coming from.

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