What do you think of when you hear the name “Colin Kaepernick?” Do you think of what he can do with a pigskin? Down-the-wire plays and rushing yards as a college and professional quarterback? Do you think of his activism? Him standing up against police brutality and racial inequality? How his pre-game moments as a San Francisco 49er became the catalyst to athletes, public figures, and fans kneeling to the U.S. national anthem at games around the world?
No matter what comes to mind or what has inhabited the conversation surrounding the former NFL player, Kaepernick wants you to know the truth—from the beginning, the way beginning. Netflix’s Colin in Black and White places audiences at the start of the Kap’s brushes with racial identity and finding his voice amongst sports communities. It also demonstrates his emergence as a multi-sport phenom, and the hard work it took to make it to the top of his game.
With the help of director Ava DuVernay, the athlete’s biopical series revisits himself as a biracial teenager growing up in California with White adoptive parents. In these formative years, Kaepernick dominates football games and baseball tournaments as a passionate high school quarterback and pitcher. He experiences the joys of black culture along the way—getting braided down in the barbershop, jamming to tunes in the car, and everything Allen Iverson. But everyday interactions with sports officials, traffic cops, and other professionals prove to Kap that he is unlike his friends, teammates, and family.
Actor Jaden Michael (The Get Down) takes on Kapernick in his boyhood, and Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds) and Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) play his mother and father. Kaepernick narrates.
All six episodes are now streaming on Netflix. Check out the trailer below.