Kaepernick Insults 'Fresh Prince' Character Carlton Banks, Fails to Mention Key 'Sellout' Episode That Aired When He Was 6
Colin Kaepernick is being raked over the coals for framing some of America’s most beloved TV stars as failing to be suitably irritating.
During the Netflix fawn-a-thon “Colin in Black and White,” the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback vents his spleen at the TV character Carlton Banks from “The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air” and Steve Urkel from “Family Matters.”
“Over the years, there have been some very popular TV shows starring black people,” Kaepernick said during the series, according to The Daily Wire. “These shows share archetypal black characters, including social outcasts who assimilate or conform, like Carlton Banks or Steve Urkel. White people love these dudes. Everything from the way they dress, the way they talk, even the way they dance. It’s all so [non]threatening.”
“These characters have come to be known by the term ‘acceptable negro,’” Kaepernick added. “The acceptable negro is a black character who inhabits white characteristics, who makes white people feel comfortable. The acceptable negro is a white man’s creation.”
“Thing is, white people don’t get to decide who’s acceptable to us,” he added, according to WTRF-TV.
“You don’t speak for the rest of us”
Colin Kaepernick says beloved black sitcom characters like Carlton Banks from Fresh Prince Of Bel Air are actually a sign of racism… an “acceptable negro” for white viewers.
I say @Kaepernick7 needs to go back and watch the series again: pic.twitter.com/hZq6rYW8bs
— G Fam (@GFAM2021) November 5, 2021
Christopher Tremoglie, writing an Op-Ed for the Washington Examiner, tried to offer a counterpoint of truth.
“How disappointing it must be for Kaepernick to realize that Carlton Banks, one of the most beloved fictional characters on television in the 1990s, was very popular with the nonwhite television creators who put him on the screen. That includes Benny Medina, who originally came up with the idea for the show, and legendary producer Quincy Jones,” he wrote.
“Perhaps even more ironic is that there was an episode of ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ that tackled the very same bigotry about Carlton Banks that Kaepernick is displaying today,” he wrote, noting that in a 1993 episode of the show, Banks had been accused of acting too white.
Re the Kaepernick “acceptable negro” clip: https://t.co/5XIE7Y0GLP
— Raymond McCue ?⚤?⚣? (@RayMcCue) November 2, 2021
“You think I’m a sellout. Why, because I live in a big house or dress a certain way?” Banks said in the show, Tremoglie wrote.
“Being black isn’t what I’m trying to be, it’s what I am. I’m running the same race and jumping the same hurdles you are, so why are you tripping me up? You said we need to stick together, but you don’t even know what that means. If you ask me, you’re the real sellout,” the character said.
It appears that Colin Kaepernick is saying that if too many white people like you, you aren’t black.
Another divisive message from his Netflix special. pic.twitter.com/xc1epynBvT
— Mythinformed MKE (@MythinformedMKE) November 1, 2021
“Kaepernick has proven himself to be an extremist black supremacist whose beliefs have no place in 21st century America,” Tremoglie wrote, adding that “Kaepernick attacks a show that upheld core family values and highlighted empowered and successful black Americans.”
Others also chided Kaepernick for deciding which television characters should be acceptable.
“It is amazing how dumb of a person Colin Kaepernick is, and he’s the perfect example of how identity politics can rot the brain,” David Hookstead opined for the Daily Caller.
“No normal person looks at Carlton and Urkel and thinks they’re symbols of the ‘acceptable negro’ created for the enjoyment of white people. We look at them and laugh because our brains aren’t decayed to the point we’re at war with everything,” he wrote.
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