Like many, perhaps most, Americans, I had never heard of the professional football quarterback Colin Kaepernick until he became better known for kneeling before games than for throwing passes during games.

The kneeling, of course, was done when his teammates were standing for the National Anthem, and Kaepernick explained that his defiant gesture was intended as an act of solidarity with the nascent Black Lives Matter movement. Since then, he has extended his purview: In interviews and declarations on social media, Kaepernick has explained that he is not just angry about abuse of police power—the ostensible rationale for Black Lives Matter—but about America in general, an idea and society which seems to fall short of his standards. He has not been reticent about his opinions, and some of his gestures aimed at the police—wearing socks adorned with pigs, for example—have been provocative, to say the least.