Colin Kaepernick Compares the NFL Draft Combine to a Slave Auction

*deep, heavy, Negro spiritual sigh*

I have yet to catch the new Netflix series Colin in Black and White, which explores the formative years of exiled NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick in order to provide context into how he became the iconic figure he is today. But I think we all knew that it would make waves upon its release, and to the surprise of absolutely no one, it’s immediately done exactly that.

In one particular scene that has drawn the internet’s ire, Kap compares the NFL Draft combine—of which he underwent prior to becoming the No. 36 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft—to a slavery auction. That’s not exactly the greatest way to endear yourself to a professional sports organization that made you a multimillionaire, but when that same organization then gives you the permanent boot for having the audacity to protest and speak out against state-sanctioned, racialized violence being carried out by the police, it’s safe to say that you probably don’t give a shit anyway.

“What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic,” Kaepernick says while NFL hopefuls reenact football drills behind him. “Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod, and examine you, searching for any defect that might affect your performance. No boundary respected, no dignity left intact.”

Those same players then transition from the football field to an auction block, where every one of them stands before their white masters in shackles.

I’ve never been particularly fond of this analogy, especially considering that playing sports is an entirely voluntary act. But I also believe that NFL players reserve the right to express their dismay with the power dynamic between athletes and the organizations they play for however they deem fit—although it’s not like Kap is breaking new ground here.

Former defensive end Michael Bennett made similar remarks about the NCAA (“Everybody gets paid but the people making the product. In some countries, we call that slavery!”) and the NFL when we compared the plight of NFL players to that of Dred Scott, who was unsuccessful in suing for his own freedom in the landmark court case Dred Scott v. Sandford.

But assertions of this magnitude hit different coming from Kap, as evidenced by the visceral reaction coming from people like former NFL player and Fox News sock puppet Jack Brewer, whose crowning achievement in life is deeming Donald Trump “the first Black president.”

“This new Colin Kaepernick doctrine that’s penetrating the minds and hearts of so many of our underserved Black kids across America is the single largest threat to Black men in the United States of America,” Brewer said on Monday. “Because right now folks are thinking that they’re victims and they’re living in the most prosperous, the most opportunity of any country in the world.

“Think about the movement that this guy started, the opportunity that he had that he could actually come and promote positivity to young Black men. Telling them how great this country is. He doesn’t have that spirit in him. He has an evil, anti-American spirit and it’s sick and disgusting. One more thing. That even Netflix, someone that big and popular would even put something out like that, to penetrate the mind of these kids should be illegal.”

Sounds about white, but unfortunately, that imbecilic rhetoric actually came from a Black man.

Since I’ve never played professional sports a day in my life, I don’t have a dog in this fight. That being said, I do find it odd that despite his exile and very pointed comments about the league, Kap has always insisted that he hopes to one day resume his NFL career.

“The fire you see in [Colin in Black and White] has always been there and will always be there,” he recently told the Los Angeles Times. “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.”

My hope is that he one day gets his wish, but he also has to understand that by comparing the NFL Draft combine to a slavery auction, he isn’t exactly doing himself any favors.