Colin Kaepernick's Limited Series 'Colin in Black & White' Now Streaming on Netflix

By Brian Jones

Colin Kaepernick has officially launched his limited series. On Friday, Colin in Black & White began streaming on Netflix. and it takes look at Kaepernick's life as a teenager before he became an NFL star and activist. There are six episodes included in the series with each lasting around 30 minutes.

"Colin in Black & White, a bold new dramatic limited series that chronicles Kaepernick's coming of age story, tackling the obstacles of race, class and culture as the Black adopted child of a white family," the synopsis states. "Colin in Black & White stars Jaden Michael as Young Colin before reaching the highest levels of American football as an NFL quarterback and becoming a cultural icon and activist; Nick Offerman and Mary-Louise Parker as his well-meaning parents Rick and Teresa; and Colin Kaepernick himself, who appears as the present-day narrator of his own story, guiding viewers through a robust and colorfully presented array of historical and contemporary contextual moments."

Kaepernick and Ava DuVernay are executive producers of the series. When speaking to Yahoo, DuVernay said it was Kaepernick who approached her about creating a series about him. "I wasn't [originally] sure that this was something that appealed to me," she says. "I wasn't sure that it would be something that I could make into a piece that would appeal to other people until I started to hear the stories. He started to tell me the stories of his high school years. I had no idea that he was a Black adopted child of two white, well-meaning, loving parents who lived in an all-white town and who didn't quite know how to raise him as a Black kid."

Kaepernick grabbed national headlines when he began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016 to protest racial injustice and police brutality. He was a member of the San Francisco 49ers at the time and was not with the team after the 2016 season as he opted out of his contract. He has not signed with an NFL team since but recently told Ebony he's ready to return to the league. 

"Absolutely. 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," Kaepernick said. "That's not something I will ever let go of, regardless of the actions of 32 teams and their partners to deny me employment. The same way I was persistent in high school is the same way I'm gonna be persistent here  

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