Not only that - if Kaepernick's goal was to bring attention to the issue of police unfairly treating black people in the country he's done it. Perhaps not just by himself but the way he's done it matters because it's been so controversial for other people. You don't protest something while adhering to other people's schedules or staying out of things that people don't want politicized (sports has an extremely long history of being politicized at one point or another) because that's the f*cking point. You want to draw attention to your issue and sometimes you do that by making people uncomfortable and forcing them to face something that perhaps they don't want to.
Still, I don't know that I agree with the way he's done it but it's definitely been effective. And while Trump has briefly hijacked the focus of the protest he's also brought in damn near every player in the NFL and the NBA - you've got a lot of people out there that don't give two shits about politics but whom dearly love sports.