Colin Kaepernick just compared Jay-Z to a slave trader – from a book deal worth more than most Americans earn in a lifetime.
Adam Carolla had one question about the man running this particular hustle.
What Carolla asked next is the one thing nobody in sports media will put on television.
The Race Hustle Nobody Is Allowed to Question
Kaepernick has a new memoir out, The Perilous Fight, released on September 15.
He's been on every platform that will have him – comparing the NFL to slave masters, comparing Jay-Z to an African chieftain who sold his own people into bondage, and generally reminding America that he is the most persecuted man in professional sports history.
A man who earned $19 million a year.
https://twitter.com/AdamCarollaShow/status/2102806987104993357?s=20
A man raised by two loving white parents in Turlock, California.
On his podcast this week, Carolla didn't pretend not to notice the obvious.
"You don't present as black," Carolla told his audience. "The reason you have a 26-foot Afro now is you're trying to present as black."
He's right.
And nobody in mainstream media will say it.
What Adam Carolla Actually Said
Carolla wasn't just making a joke.
He was making an argument – the same argument anyone paying attention has been making for years.
Kaepernick is the son of a white birth mother who gave him up for adoption and was raised by white parents.
Early photographs show a young man who Carolla joked looked more Middle Eastern than black – "like a Syrian cab driver," he said.
Then the kneeling started.
Then the Netflix deal came.
Then the afro grew.
And suddenly Colin Kaepernick – a man who grew up in a white household in a white suburb – became the voice of black oppression in America.
Carolla connected it directly to what Democrats have done with race politics for decades.
He named Barack Obama – raised by his white mother and white grandparents in Hawaii – who identified exclusively as black.
He named Kamala Harris – raised by her Indian mother while her Jamaican father was out of the picture – who identified as black the moment it was politically useful.
"What about momma?" Carolla asked. "I thought we were empowering women here."
The pattern is real.
The Logical Trap Kaepernick Built for Himself
If America is so irredeemably racist – if being black is the one identity that guarantees oppression, exclusion, and suffering – then why is Colin Kaepernick working this hard to be black?
He had a choice.
He could have leaned into his white heritage.
He could have identified as mixed-race.
He could have been the athlete who transcended labels.
Instead, he grew the afro, signed the Nike deal, wrote the manifesto, and pocketed millions telling America it hates black people.
"Why are you bending yourself into pretzels being black, if that's the one we don't like?" Carolla asked.
There's no good answer.
Because Carolla just exposed the core lie of the entire race grievance industry.
The Slave Master Comparison From a Man With a Nike Deal
The Perilous Fight dropped last week to the kind of media coverage reserved for prophets.
Kaepernick compared Jay-Z's NFL partnership to African leaders who sold their own people into slavery – the implication being that any black man who does business with the NFL is a traitor to his race.
He described growing up in a white household as a kind of daily ordeal that shaped every moment of his life.
A man whose collusion lawsuit against the NFL settled for somewhere between $5 and $10 million.
A man the ACLU just gave an award to in July – because of course they did.
The most oppressed multi-millionaire in American history is back on your television, and he brought a book.
What's Actually Happening Here
Identity is a commodity.
Kaepernick figured this out in 2016 and has been monetizing it ever since.
The bigger the afro, the bigger the brand.
The louder the oppression claims, the larger the book advance.
The more he performs the identity he strategically cultivated, the more the corporate checks clear.
Carolla called it what it is – a hustle.
Building a media empire on the back of grievances while cashing checks from Nike and Hachette is not activism.
It's a business model.
The left will spend this week calling Carolla a racist for saying it.
They won't answer the question he actually asked.
Sources:
- Warner Todd Huston, "Adam Carolla Accuses 'Race Hustler' Colin Kaepernick of Growing '26 Foot Afro' to Seem More Black," Breitbart, September 22, 2026.
- Paul Kasabian, "Colin Kaepernick's New Book Gets Release Date, 10 Years After Taking Knee During USA National Anthem," Bleacher Report, April 7, 2026.
- Clay Travis, "Colin Kaepernick's Martyrdom Is Over," Fox News.