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Eric Reid calls out 49ers for supporting Blackout Tuesday but not Colin Kaepernick

By Josh Hill

SANTA CLARA, CA - OCTOBER 02: (L-R) Eli Harold #58, Colin Kaepernick #7 and Eric Reid #35 of the San Francisco 49ers kneel on the sideline during the National Anthem prior to the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium on October 2, 2016 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
SANTA CLARA, CA - OCTOBER 02: (L-R) Eli Harold #58, Colin Kaepernick #7 and Eric Reid #35 of the San Francisco 49ers kneel on the sideline during the National Anthem prior to the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Levi's Stadium on October 2, 2016 in Santa Clara, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images) /
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The San Francisco 49ers tweeted in support of Blackout Tuesday but didn’t think about their involvement in the issue. 

Don’t pose as supporting a movement you could have been supporting from the start.

That’s Eric Reid’s message to the San Francisco 49ers and the NFL as a whole after the league participated in the Blackout Tuesday digital protest. The protest, which involved tweeting out a blank black image, was meant to show support for ending racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of yet another death of an unarmed black man at the hands of a police officer.

Optically supporting the Black Live Matter movement and actually supporting it has been something everyone is keeping an eye out for. Lea Michele was called out for showing support online which prompted her Glee co-stars to bring to light horror stories from the set that painted a very different picture.

A similar thing happened to the San Francisco 49ers on Tuesday. The team joined Blackout Tuesday to show support for Black Lives Matter and to fight racial injustice, something that former Niners safety Eric Reid found extremely hypocritical.

Why is Eric Reid calling out the San Francisco 49ers on Twitter?

Reid’s frustration stems from the first seismic wave of the current movement, one that happened in San Francisco. Colin Kaepernick was certainly not the first activist to call attention to police brutality and its disproportional effect on the black community, but his protest caused the biggest stir.

It was also met, in the eyes of many, with failed support from the NFL. The ‘blackball’ that Reid refers to is the belief that the NFL blacklisted Kaepernick to keep him out of the league, dubbing his protests a distraction.

Kapernick was left to mostly fend for himself when the attacks on his peaceful National Anthem protest began. It wasn’t until President Donald Trump attacked NFL owners that teams decided to take one single week to unite in protest. At that point, however, the protests were more about rich billionaire owners pushing back against being called out than it what Kaepernick was initially protesting.

In the bruhaha about Trump attacking the NFL as a whole, the original point was drowned out and eventually went away altogether.

Reid calling out the 49ers — and by extension, the NFL — stems from there being no real support when things were peaceful. The league had an opportunity to use its position of extreme authority and power, particularly among the white conservative crowd, to support Kaepernick and influence change.

That didn’t happen, and four years later Reid is pointing out that the 49ers tweeting in support of something they had ground-floor access to support feels incredibly empty and tone-deaf.

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