Colin Kaepernick’s fingerprints all over his Netflix limited series
This isn’t about the 2016 NFL preseason when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick set off a firestorm with his silent protest during the national anthem. It’s not about the fallout that has led to five years and counting of him not getting an offer from an NFL team.
This is about a mixedrace teen from Wisconsin who was adopted by a white family as an infant and transplanted to Turlock, California, at 4, and how he came to terms with straddling worlds of white and Black. It’s also about so much more.
The notoriously pressshy athlete and activist rarely grants interviews but agreed to answer questions via email about his new Netflix limited series, “Colin in Black & White,” now streaming. “I had important goals I wanted to achieve in telling this part of my story,” Kaepernick wrote. “I wanted to create a scripted series around my high school years that addressed race and racism head-on.”
Its six episodes, co-created with Emmy winner Ava DuVernay, focus on teenage Colin (Jaden Michael), a three-sport star, as he comes to terms with his Blackness and struggles to be accepted as a quarterback.
But as will surprise no one who has followed Kaepernick, who risked his career by kneeling during the pregame playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” to protest the ongoing mistreatment of Black Americans, “Colin in Black & White” is anything but apolitical: The biographical narrative is accompanied by cinematically supple historical interludes narrated by Kaepernick and directed
by DuVernay.
The stories from Kaepernick’s youth related in the series shaped his perspective: the racist mistreatment he suffered at hotels when his high school baseball team was on the road; navigating his loving parents’ expectations; and even his first experiences with Black hairstyling.
Kaepernick acknowledges he kept a tight grip on his story. “As a co-creator and executive producer, I was involved in all aspects of the show — from its creation, to its script, to the casting decisions, format and final cuts. The format and structure of the show became critically important because one of my goals was to tell a great story without ambiguity as to the messaging behind it.”
DuVernay describes Kaepernick’s involvement as “creating sculpture together with every fingerprint.”
The show follows young Colin’s emerging obsession with playing quarterback. As a teen, Kaepernick had scholarship offers to play baseball; the series depicts his unshakable passion for football. “There is a passion and camaraderie in football and a leadership role as quarterback that I love,” he says. “Football
also provided me a safe space where I was able to be in a community that looked more like me (the NFL is about 70% Black), identified the way I do and was culturally connected to who I am. Baseball didn’t provide me with any of these things.”
That drive makes Kaepernick’s current lack of employment all the more plangent. He has been out of the game for five years, but like young Colin in the show, refuses to give up. “The fire you see in the series has always been there and will always be there. I am still up at 5 a.m., training five, six days a week, making sure I’m prepared to take a team to a Super Bowl again.”
But “Colin in Black & White” is not — or not only — the story of a kid who wants to play quarterback.
“I want Black and brown communities, particularly youth, to know we will face racism, we will face white supremacy, we will face oppressive systems, but we have the power to overcome them and the power to change them,” Kaepernick says of his hopes for the series. “I want them to know we don’t have to accept the status quo, and ultimately, I want them to be their full selves and to stand firmly in their full power.”