Mixed Race Studies

What Colin Kaepernick’s Protest Looks Like to a Black 49ers Fan

The New York Times
2016-08-31

Gerald Harris, President and Managing Director
The Quantum Planning Group, San Francisco, California

Colin Kaepernick Credit Ben Margot/Associated Press

San Francisco — Why are we, as sports fans, continually surprised when one of our heroes turns out to be a real person, with real feelings who is living in the same world we also live in? And when that athlete is black, why does white America respond with anger, as if the hero has broken some kind of sacred rule or understood deal? That deal seems to be, “You just go out and win games, collect your check, and if we really like you, you can retire and sell us stuff in TV commercials.”

Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback for San Francisco, the city I love and pay a lot to live in, is the latest in a long line of black athletes who have decided to be real people with real concerns about the black community. This tends to happen when issues become so pressing that they break the heart of the athlete and pierce a wall they might choose to stay behind.

It was the Vietnam War for Muhammad Ali, the civil rights movement for countless others. For Kaepernick, it is the way black and brown people, just like him, are treated in the United States. He felt he could no longer stand for the national anthem at the beginning of 49ers games. In an interview published Saturday, he said, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”…

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Colin Kaepernick’s True Sin

The Atlantic
2016-08-30

Adam Serwer, Senior Editor

The San Francisco quarterback has been attacked for refusing to stand for the Star Spangled Banner—and for daring to criticize the system in which he thrived.

It was in early childhood when W.E.B. Du Bois––scholar, activist, and black radical––first noticed The Veil that separated him from his white classmates in the mostly white town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He and his classmates were exchanging “visiting cards,” invitations to visit one another’s homes, when a white girl refused his.

“Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows,” Du Bois wrote in his acclaimed essay collection, The Souls of Black Folk. “That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads.”

Du Bois’s upbringing as a black child was, in some ways blessed, particularly for the time. He received a good education, he had white teachers who believed in his potential. Yet despite growing up in a white town, far from the bloody, violent turmoil of the post-emancipation South, he learned from childhood that he was different, that a wall yet lay between himself and the other white children. We cannot know who Du Bois might have been had he been raised in a mostly black town or gone to a mostly black school. What we do know is that growing up around white people, with opportunities other blacks did not have, did not make white supremacy invisible to him––on the contrary,the intimacy of his early relationships with whites helped shape who he was.

Ever since 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick declared that he would refuse to stand for the national anthem, to refuse “to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” particularly in the form of police brutality, he has drawn personal and bitter responses accusing him of disrespecting the country, police officers, and military service members. Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for president campaigning on a slogan implying America has ceased to be great and whose broadsides against “political correctness” delight his fans, urged Kaepernick to leave the country for expressing the incorrect political views…

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Jones: Kaepernick, Lochte cases are as different as black and white

The Philadelphia Inquirer
2016-08-30

Solomon Jones

SAN FRANCISCO 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick sits down during the national anthem to protest America’s treatment of people of color, and he is accused of being a traitor to his country.

Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte is facing criminal charges in Brazil for falsely reporting he was robbed at gunpoint, and, while he lost several endorsements as a result, he ultimately was rewarded with a stint on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars.”

Both men are accomplished athletes. Kaepernick appeared in Super Bowl XLVII. Lochte is a 12-time Olympic medalist.

But Lochte is white, Kaepernick is black, and when black men stand up against American oppression, the fears of the white establishment arise. Fears that a single man seated on a bench is the forerunner to violent rebellion; that an athlete with the gall to think for himself is a danger to the order of things…

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Rodney Harrison sorry for saying Colin Kaepernick is ‘not black’

ESPN
2016-08-29

Former NFL player and current NBC analyst Rodney Harrison has apologized on Twitter after criticizing Colin Kaepernick and his refusal to stand for the national anthem while suggesting that the San Francisco 49ers quarterback is not black and doesn’t truly understand racism.

In an interview with iHeartRadio, Harrison said Tuesday that Kaepernick has the right to stand for what he believes, but he “has to understand there might be consequences and might be backlash to what he’s saying.”

“I tell you this, I’m a black man. And Colin Kaepernick — he’s not black,” Harrison said. “He cannot understand what I face and what other young black men and black people face, or people of color face, on an every single [day] basis. When you walk in a grocery store, and you might have $2,000 or $3,000 in your pocket and you go up into a Foot Locker and they’re looking at you like you about to steal something.

“You know, I don’t think he faces those type of things that we face on a daily basis.”

Kaepernick, the biological child of a white mother and black father, was adopted and raised by white parents. He has been outspoken on his Twitter account on civil rights issues and in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Harrison took to Twitter later Tuesday to apologize for the remarks, saying he “never even knew [Kaepernick] was mixed.”…

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What Colin Kaepernick’s National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America

Rolling Stone
2016-08-29

Morgan Jerkins

When black athletes choose to point their aggression towards larger, systematic inequalities, there’s always backlash

The role of the famous black athlete has been a polarizing one for as long as sports have dominated American headlines, going all the way back a century to when Jack Johnson beat white boxer Jim Jeffries in 1910. During Johnson’s time, he was regarded as a “bad nigger,” not only because he was articulate and handsome, but also because he beat his white rivals. It was a direct representation of black masculinity as a threat to white supremacy. In recent times, however, this kind of resistance has evolved. From track and field medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists as a Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics to WNBA players wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, black athletes are expanding their sportsmanship into political activism.

Last Friday, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the National Anthem during a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers. By Saturday morning, what should have been a meaningless football game was dominating the national news…

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Mr Colin Kaepernick: The Look

The Journal
Mr Porter (London/New York)
Issue 237, 2015-10-07

Andrew Corsello

Photography by Mr Blair Getz Mezibov; Styling by Mr Dan May, Style Director

The San Francisco 49ers quarterback on bucking expectations, riding out the haters and how he does it all with a healthy dose of style

It’s a heck of a day to meet up with Mr Colin Kaepernick, the outlandishly gifted quarterback and a man who many in the San Francisco Bay Area hoped would bring a Super Bowl win to the city. The reason? Just recently (the last Sunday in September), he turned in a performance that was – how to say it politely – the ugliest outing of his career, a 40-point beat-down at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals. Still, he is a gentleman – a man who on most days is as elegant off the field as he is on it – who greets me warmly and willingly talks about, um… style. Even though this will undoubtedly set off the “talking heads” on AM sports radio.

To him, style is not simply about clothing. It is about how one faces the world – good day or bad. Or as he puts it: “From a young age, my dad, being a businessman, constantly talked to me about carrying myself in a certain way and treating people with respect. And I think that’s something that’s carried over throughout my life. It’s how I deal with certain situations.”…

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Colin Kaepernick explains why he sat during national anthem

NFL News
National Football League
2016-08-27

Steve Wyche, NFL Media Reporter

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has willingly immersed himself into controversy by refusing to stand for the playing of the national anthem in protest of what he deems are wrongdoings against African Americans and minorities in the United States.

His latest refusal to stand for the anthem — he has done this in at least one other preseason game — came before the 49ers’ preseason loss to Green Bay at Levi’s Stadium on Friday night.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

The 49ers issued a statement about Kaepernick’s decision: “The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”

By taking a stand for civil rights, Kaepernick, 28, joins other athletes, like the NBA’s Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and several WNBA players in using their platform and status to raise awareness to issues affecting minorities in the U.S…

…Kaepernick said that he has thought about going public with his feelings for a while but that “I felt that I needed to understand the situation better.”

He said that he has discussed his feelings with his family and, after months of witnessing some of the civil unrest in the U.S., decided to be more active and involved in rights for black people. Kaepernick, who is biracial, was adopted and raised by white parents and siblings.

Kaepernick’s Twitter feed is filled with civil rights messages…

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Colin Kaepernick Protests National Anthem Over Treatment of Minorities

ABC News
2016-08-27

Michael Edison Hayden

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem during a preseason game Friday out of protest against America’s treatment of “black people and people of color.”

Kaepernick told NFL media he made his own decision to protest the playing of the anthem during the game against the Green Bay Packers, saying he felt an obligation to stand with “people that are oppressed.”

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” he said. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Kaepernick, a five-year veteran, broke into the NFL in 2012, a year he led the 49ers to the Super Bowl.

“I am not looking for approval,” he added. “I have to stand up for people that are oppressed.”…

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Seahawks’ Russell Wilson Controversy Shows Dangers of Racial Authenticity Tests

The American Prospect
2014-11-01

Kevin Cokley, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology; Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies
University of Texas, Austin

The ‘are you black enough?’ question is perilously close to the racist one-drop rule of yore—whether called by blacks or whites.

Whether Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is “black enough” is beside the point. The real issue is why we are still talking about racial authenticity at all.

“My feeling on this—and it’s backed up by several interviews with Seahawks players—is that some of the black players think Wilson isn’t black enough,” Mike Freeman writes at Bleacher Report, reporting on tensions between just-traded teammate Percy Harvin and Wilson, including a locker room reportedly divided into pro/con camps.

“This is an issue that extends outside of football, into African-American society—though it’s gotten better recently,” Freeman writes. “Well-spoken blacks are seen by some other blacks as not completely black. Some of this is at play.”

The “Am I Black Enough?” racial authenticity card is a recurring theme in the lives of black athletes in particular, and black people in general. Concerns about racial authenticity are always present, especially for those who are biracial or somewhat more racially ambiguous as Wilson, with his light skin tone and curly hair, is believed to be…

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UCLA receiver Thomas Duarte proud of biracial heritage

Los Angeles Daily News
2013-11-25

Jack Wang, Staff Reporter

The smell hits him three or four blocks away.

Thomas Duarte is coming back from a run around his Orange County neighborhood, and the day is hot enough that the windows of his house have been cracked open.

What that smell actually was, though, depended on the day.

“We always had tamales around,” said the UCLA receiver. “That was probably my favorite. Coming around wintertime, that’s pretty much what I think about when it comes to food around the house.”

Ordinary by itself, but consider some of the other Duarte household favorites: teriyaki chicken, fried rice, sushi. The platter tends to be diverse when you’re the son of a Mexican-American father and a Japanese-American mother.

When Duarte was about five years old, his father Tim brought home a whole, freshly caught albacore that a friend had just fished from the pier. As he cut thin slices on the kitchen counter, Thomas approached eagerly. He ate a piece and loved it.

“If that’s not in the blood, I don’t know what is,” Tim said…

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