Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s publishing company is slated to release a biography of an activist who praised Osama bin Laden and Mao Zedong.
The children’s book, titled “The Bridges Yuri Built: How Yuri Kochiyama Marched Across Movements,” details her life as an activist as written by her great-granddaughter Kai Naima Williams. Kochiyama was one of the thousands of Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, and spent her life speaking out against what she saw as racial injustice and pursuing civil rights causes before she died in 2014. Among her victories was the signing of the Civil Liberties Act by President Ronald Reagan, which approved $20,000 in reparations to Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II.
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Some 10 years before she died, Kochiyama gave an interview that revealed her disdain for the U.S. government and admiration for infamous leaders. When asked about her idols, she responded: “I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire. To me, he is in the category of Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, Fidel Castro, all leaders that I admire.
“Besides being strong leaders who brought consciousness to their people, they all had severe dislike for the U.S. government and those who held power in the U.S. I think all of them felt the U.S. government and its spokesmen were all arrogant, racist, hypocritical, self-righteous, and power-hungry,” Kochiyama said roughly two years after the 9/11. “And today, when I think what the U.S. military is doing, brazenly bombing country after country, to take oil resources, bringing about coups, assassinating leaders of other countries, and pitting neighbor nations against each other, and demonizing anyone who disagrees with U.S. policy, and detaining and deporting countless immigrants from all over the world, I thank Islam for bin Laden.
“America’s greed, aggressiveness, and self-righteous arrogance must be stopped,” Kochiyama went on. “War and weaponry must be abolished.
“Through imaginative writing and vibrant illustrations by Anastasia Magloire Williams, THE BRIDGES YURI BUILT is sure to inspire young readers to embrace Yuri’s unwavering belief that together we can build a bridge to a better world,” Kaepernick Publishing wrote in its description of the book.
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This comes over a year after Kaepernick released his own children’s book on race titled “I Color Myself Different.” At the time, the former quarterback published the book with Scholastic Publishing in a multi-book deal. His own publishing company was established in 2019.
“The Bridges Yuri Built” is slated to be released on April 2 of next year.
