‘Colin in Black and White,’ Netflix’s Kaepernick Coming-of-Age Series, Is Provocative but Messy: TV Review
Former NFL quarterback turned professional lightning rod Colin Kaepernick has a story uniquely well-suited to being adapted for a deep-pocketed prestige streamer like Netflix. Rather than fade into obscurity in the five years since he was last invited to join an NFL franchise, Kaepernick has become an even more potent (and still unlikely) symbol of America’s roots-deep racial injustice. Especially since not much has changed — these days, county school boards are routinely harangued about critical race theory thanks to the same white fragility that fueled a backlash against Kaepernick’s silent, kneeling protests back in 2016.
Kaepernick’s saga sounds like an ingredient list for a spicy, topical docuseries to join what feels like a new golden age of sports documentaries. But Kaepernick wanted to tell his story as a scripted drama focused on the formative high school years when his athletic evolution dovetailed with the awakening of his Black identity. The result, “Colin in Black and White,” is a provocative, ambitious, and frequently messy execution of Kaepernick’s already unexpected pitch. As developed by Kaepernick, co-creator Ava DuVernay, and showrunner Michael Starrbury, “Colin” is at once a coming-of-age tale, an anti-racism polemic, and a flipbook of Black history memes.
