The Patriot Post® · Thoughts on Netflix's 'Colin in Black & White'

Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback known famously for kneeling in 2016 during the national anthem at the start of games in protest of police brutality and racial inequality, has a six-part series titled “Colin in Black and White,” which debuted on October 29 on Netflix. The three hours of edited content produced by Ava Duvernay summed up his life and manhood as that of a deeply troubled man who not only suffers from a terrible identity crisis but seems to have found more defects in his blackness and being raised by his white adoptive parents than triumphs.

In the first episode of the series, the biracial football player-turned-activist equated playing for the NFL to slavery and summed up Black culture to be about wearing cornrows, sporting afros, eating southern fried food, and dressing a certain way. The series insinuates that Kaepernick felt more comfortable in environments that were dysfunctional and filled with scents of fried chicken than that of his own home. An odd message from someone who was raised by two loving parents since he was five weeks old, is vegan, and concerns himself with his biceps. A man who is the product of a family who saw to it that he was raised in a loving home but maintained a 4.0 GPA and would provide him with all the access that would afford him the many opportunities that led to his success.

I don’t know if it is his own selfish entitlement for fame and grievances with the NFL that would be reason for why Kaepernick continues to use the platform he’s been given so poorly, or if the guy is just too dense and ignorant to really understand Black life the way he thinks he does. Our Black ancestors had no choice. Colin has been given plenty of choices thanks to Rick and Teresa Kaepernick.

For the past five years, Colin has done nothing but whine about his horrible life as a misunderstood biracial millionaire rather than utilize the space he’s been given to advocate for the important role that fathers play in the lives of their children. That fathers not only influence who we are inside, but also who we go on to become. That healthy families must be the standard we seek to ensure that children aren’t abandoned and are worthy of love and a chance at life.

When you are fully self-aware and fully understand what it takes to be a success, you don’t center your identity around microaggressions.