Actress and left-wing activist Jane Fonda poured praise on former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick Sunday night at the ACLU of Southern California’s annual Bill of Rights Dinner.
Fonda, who was set to accept the liberty, justice & equality award at the glitzy event, took the stage and said: ‘Colin, You Are Woke!’
Kaepernick became the face of what many football fans considered an anti-American demonstration when he began to take a knee during the playing of the National Anthem before the start of NFL games last year. Kaepernick hasn’t found a football job since, committing himself to various social justice campaigns.
“We all have an obligation no matter the risk, and regardless of reward, to stand up for our fellow men and women who are being oppressed with the understanding that human rights cannot be compromised,” Kaepernick said Sunday, while accepting the night’s courageous advocate award.
Fonda, of course, became the face of opposition to the Vietnam War in 1972 when she visit to North Vietnam at the height of the war, earning the nickname “Hanoi Jane” and infamously denounced American soldiers as “war criminals.”
In October, the actress said, “I don’t regret going to Vietnam.”
“The United States was bombing the dikes in North Vietnam — earthen dikes in the Red River Delta. If the dikes had given way, according to Henry Kissinger, somewhere around 2 million people could have died of famine and drowning,” Fonda said on BBC’s Hardtalk. “And we were bombing, and it wasn’t being talked about. And I thought, ‘I’m a celebrity. Maybe if I go, and I bring back evidence.’ And it did stop two months after I got back, so I’m proud that I went. It changed my life all for the good.”
During the same Hardtalk appearance, the Grace and Frankie star said she agreed with the NFL players’ protest during the National Anthem and said she would not only kneel on one knee but on both knees.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter: @jeromeehudson
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