Colin’s Fetish
A privileged struggle for a ‘black identity’
IF you look hard enough for the flaws in people, you’ll find whatever you’re seeking — and if you’re being paid to look for them, you’ll generate even more results to increase your reward.
The race-grievance-industrial complex for years has sought out possible negative racially motivated incidents to line the pockets of activists and so-called nonprofit organizations. But when the racism supply runs low, it’ll sell the public “imitation racism”: similar ingredients but not the same flavor.
Former NFL player and present-day Racism Inc. investor Colin Kaepernick continues to maximize his profits by cashing in on his name with a new graphic novel-memoir, “Change the Game,” where he implies his white adoptive parents were loving but perpetuated racism during his childhood.
“I know my parents loved me, but there were still very problematic things that I went through,” Kaepernick told CBS Chicago.
“It was important to show that, no, this can happen in your own home, and how we move forward collectively while addressing the racism that is being perpetuated.”
One of the supposed racially egregious scenarios Kaepernick bemoans from his childhood and depicts in the graphic novel involves his parents not wanting him to style his hair in cornrows; he alleges they claimed it was an “unprofessional” hairstyle and made him look like a “thug.”
The battle over his hairstyle was important to him as it was a way for him to embrace his blackness and pay homage to basketball player Allen Iverson, who famously wore cornrows throughout his basketball career.
Another dubious microaggression scene featured in the comic is an encounter with a family friend wearing a hat with a Confederate flag as he had a cordial conversation with the Kaepernicks; the flag’s appearance made Colin uncomfortable as it symbolized slavery and racism.
In his CBS interview, Kaepernick highlighted that despite his talents and attention from major-league-baseball interests, he chose to follow his heart toward the gridiron: “There were a lot more black people in football. I was like, ‘Oh, I found some community here.’ ”
Kaepernick looked hard into his past to drudge up the most insignificant portions of his childhood to create the implication his adoptive parents were either racists themselves or comfortable with racism to make the public digest more of his flavored brand of imitation racism. His grievances surrounding the most mundane events in his childhood only prove he is unable to see how privileged he actually is — as most people would love to have their biggest childhood complaint be that their parents didn’t like their hairstyle selection.
This comic book does, however, illustrate something that many refuse to acknowledge about Kaepernick: He fetishizes black people.
His perception of blackness is purely based on aesthetics and narratives, and because he didn’t grow up around many black people, he’s desperate to be around them and transform into this black-American caricature.
In scenes from his Netflix series “Colin in Black & White,” he would dress like a 1960s black revolutionary, with a fully picked-out afro and fist in the air. I remember seeing this and thinking to myself, “Why is he dressed like this? No one dresses like this.” It’s because to him, being black is performative, stereotypical and oppressive.
He needs to manufacture oppression from ambiguous microaggression moments throughout his relatively privileged upbringing because, to him, if he hasn’t been racially oppressed, he can’t truly be black. But when Kaepernick cries racism when it isn’t apt, he makes it more difficult for other black people who have experienced racism to be believed.
He may be able to get away with appearing as a rebranded Black Panther Party character and talk about the horrors of chattel slavery against “his people,” but he’s appropriating blackAmerican history and culture much like Rachel Dolezal does because Kaepernick isn’t necessarily of black-American descent.
Kaepernick is biracial with a white biological mother and an African biological father of Ghanaian, Ivorian and Nigerian descent he knows next to nothing about. This distinction matters because Kaepernick gets to use his notoriety and economic privilege to act as a mouthpiece for black Americans who descended from slaves while not actually being one himself.
Validating Kaepernick’s black revolutionary cosplay fetish only helps to reaffirm who he’s been dying to become since his youth, and his so-called activism distracts us from noticing his increasing net worth.
Kaepernick is an upper-class wolf masquerading as an aggrieved victim — and my, what big teeth he has.
Adam B. Coleman is the author of “Black Victim to Black Victor” and founder of Wrong Speak Publishing. Substack: adambcoleman.substack.com.