Colin Kaepernick: White supremacy can’t be reformed

Colin Kaepernick, 34, is one of the sports stars who were disappointed following the acquittal of Kyle Howard Rittenhouse, 18, of Antioch, Illinois, United States. The latter shot Gaige Paul Grosskreutz, 27, of West Allis, Wisconsin, USA, Anthony Michael Huber, then 26, of Kenosha, Wisconsin and Joseph Donald Rosenbaum, then 37, of Waco, Texas, USA during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Kenosha on August 25, 2020.

Rittenhouse was charged with one count of first-degree reckless homicide, two counts of first-degree intentional homicide and two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment. On November 19, 2021, he was found not guilty on all counts.

Minutes after Rittenhouse was acquitted, Kaepernick took to Twitter to share his reaction. The civil rights activist and former football quarterback blamed white supremacy but did not mention the teenager’s name.

Like Kaepernick, football quarterback Robert Griffin III, 31, was also disappointed. On November 10, 2021, National Basketball Association player LeBron James, 36, took to Twitter to mock Rittenhouse when the teenager sobbed while he was on the witness stand at his murder trial.

We just witnessed a system built on white supremacy validate the terroristic acts of a white supremacist.

This only further validates the need to abolish our current system. White supremacy cannot be reformed.

— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) November 19, 2021

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From 2011 to 2016, Kaepernick was a National Football League player. He was a San Francisco 49ers quarterback.

Leading up to the 2016 NFL season, Kaepernick took to social media to protest against the fatal police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, the police shooting of Charles Kinsey and the acquittal of police in the death of Freddie Gray. Instead of standing, Kaepernick kneeled during the U.S. national anthem in the San Francisco 49ers’ fourth and final 2016 preseason game.

Kaepernick was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a Ghanaian-Nigerian-Ivorian father and a white mother named Heidi Russo. The father, whose identity is unknown, separated from Russo before Kaepernick was born.

When Kaepernick was 5 weeks old, he was adopted by a white couple named Rick Kaepernick and Teresa Kaepernick. Colin started playing football in 1995.

The six-episode limited series titled “Colin in Black & White” is about Colin’s teenage years. He and Ava DuVernay created the series, which premiered on October 29, 2021 on Netflix.