Photo Courtesy of Vogue
“Colin in Black and White” is a limited Netflix series directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ava Duvernay and narrated by activist and former NFL star Colin Kaepernick. The series is a lens through Kaepernick’s eyes as he faced the harsh reality of constant racism and microaggressions, which led him to become the political activist he is today.
In the show, Kaepernick’s story begins as an eighth grader eager to play for the junior varsity football team, and it ends when he is a senior in high school driving away to college. Throughout the series, Kaepernick portrays his white parents as being supportive of his dreams to become a football player. However, they are simultaneously shown as being willfully ignorant to all the problems and racism he faces being a biracial teen.
Wanting to look like all-star basketball player Allen Iverson, Kaepernick took it upon himself to get cornrows like his idol. However, when he attended practices and games for baseball, his coaches deemed it unprofessional and demanded for them to be removed. Instead of listening to Kaepernick and trying to understand his form of expression, his mother said he looked like a “thug.” Throughout the series, the history of the word “thug” is explained, and it is shown how racist the word really is.
Kaepernick mentioned many important Black figures to educate the audience on the history of Black culture regarding sports, music, the arts and literature. He also spoke about civil rights activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., W.E.B. Dubois and Ida. B Wells. When speaking about some of these historical figures, Kaepernick refers to them as “some of the good ones,” referring to who white people deem acceptable in society. He then proceeds to read a quote by Langston Hughes: “Sweet and docile, meek, humble and kind, Beware the day, they change their mind.”
During Kaepernick’s youth, it is shown time after time how his adoptive parents ignored the racist remarks people made toward him. One example is when he was stopped by a police officer who was always very kind to his parents. Even though he was going the speed limit, the police officer asked if his parents were safe, insinuating that Kaepernick was putting them in danger. His parents then proceeded to make light of the situation and did not address the severity of what just happened. The show also puts emphasis on the countless times Kaepernick dealt with racism from people working in the hotels he stayed in when attending baseball tournaments. At the time, he never said a word about it.
A controversial scene in the beginning of the first episode shows Kaepernick comparing the NFL draft to slave auctions. This frustrated many viewers because it can be seen as degrading to people who were actually enslaved and faced the horrors of it every day. On the other hand, people see it as demeaning toward NFL players who have trained and worked so hard to be able to play professionally. The most common comparison is “How can a slave be compared to someone making millions of dollars?”
Although there are mixed feelings from viewers toward “Colin in Black and White”, it is clear what the intention was and what message comes across. “Some people will say the system is broken. I’m here to tell you it was intentionally built this way,” Kaepernick says when discussing systemic racism. Kaepernick mentioned in the show that Black people can only progress with the “white man’s stamp of approval.” The biggest corporations are run by white men and there is no doubt that some of those people make it more difficult for Black people because of the history that has caused prejudice against them.
