Colin Kaepernick is helping black and brown communities disproportionately affected by the global pandemic. The former NFL player donated $100,000 to launch the Know Your Rights Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund, he announced on Thursday (April 16).
The fund will provide food, shelter, personal protective equipment (PPE), support incarcerated populations, educate communities, and more. The campaign has so far raised over $155,000 and counting.
“Black and brown communities are being disproportionally devastated by COVID-19 because of hundreds of years of structural racism,” Kaepernick said in a video announcing the relief fund. “That’s why we’ve established the ‘Know Your Rights’ Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund to help address these issues.”
Structural racism makes Black & Brown ppl more likely to die from #COVID19. @kaepernick7 launched the Know Your Rights Camp COVID-19 Relief Fund to directly impact the disproportionate effect #coronavirus is having on our communities. #WeGotUs 🖤✊🏾 Donate: https://t.co/drZYeE3a3O pic.twitter.com/vZwsu38nro
— Know Your Rights Camp (@yourrightscamp) April 16, 2020
The Know Your Rights website also outlines states like Louisiana, Chicago, and New York, where and black and brown resident are being unevenly affected by the pandemic.
“Time and again, a state or country releases racial data. Time and again, those numbers reveal a sizeable racial disparity,” said Ibram X. Kendi, Founder and Executive Director of the Antiracist Research Policy Center in a statement on the Know Your Rights website. “Time and again, black Americans are overrepresented among the infected and dead. America’s newest infection seems to be mating with America’s original infection, reproducing not life, but death.”