Wassim Banihashemi

ENG 111

Nov 17. 2021

Essay #3 Draft

Black and White

Growing up without an address has its effects on people. Colin Kaepernick just at five weeks old was given up for adoption. His address then changed once he was with his new family. He is now an American civil rights activist and used to also be a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers for six seasons.

Kapernick tells his story of how address affected his life. His mother abandoned him at 5 weeks old and he ended up with a white family in a rich neighborhood. You can see the social impact address has on Kapernick, he enjoys and feels like himself in the neighborhood that is considered low income and section eight housing. The low income and section eight housing made Kapernick feel more at home because of the black cultural and the way it was expressed in the community. You can also see how during his time, it didn’t matter what part of the country you went to try out, if you were black – you would never get picked. The people who live in Turlock, Ca consider NorthEast part of the city to be the safest. In the NorthEast part of the city Kapernick did not feel at home, was uneasy, and did not fit in due to the population being all white. He was unable to express the black cultural as he would in the community of others like him.

Turlock, CA is mainly a town of white people with a small section of colored people. You can see the character become alive while entering and being around the colored neighborhood. The street and main road that Kapernicks family was driving on daily had an officer there; his dad passed the officer everyday speeding the officer never pulled him over. While Kapernick was practicing driving with his white parents, the officer was more aggressive and racial profiling him. In Turlock, CA they had barely any police and they police they had were all white officers. In the section eight and low income community they had white and black officers, and more was around posted in the neighborhoods. When Kapernick drove the first time they pulled him over and put a gun on him. “St. Louis, still the most segregated cities in America, was, Gordon argues, the product of racial restrictions and failed city policies that isolated and marginalized St. Louis’s black community.”(Mask page 197)

Being on a team has its own problems that Kaepernick was facing. Schools are sectioned out by the different addresses and zip codes. States such as California divides up the areas and they are supposed to have one low-income neighborhood per each high-income neighborhood. In the communities and zip codes where there are more white people and less low-income housing, they have nicer things and communities are cleaner. In the low income communities they are not as clean and do not have nice things in their communities. Due to less funds going into those communities and the whites always donating and funding their own cities. “Segregation meant that African Americans often live in their own neighborhoods” (Mask pp 193) Due to the power struggle the white folks have they have divided up zip codes so that certain neighborhoods solely have all white people. Schools then success and favor the typical front page of the magazine white man. Kapernick was struggling as not many people in his school was colored and he was getting picked on, not noticed, and not given opportunities. It doesn’t have to be an address for you to get picked, if your black and note white you won’t get chosen to be on the team.

Kaepernick is a multisport athletic man has his pick of baseball scholarship offers but really wants to play football. He also wants to be like the other kids and have a “normal life” with popularity, friends, and a date. This movie tells a story by dawning awareness of differences in a town that a white friend calls “Whitey Whiteville”, by showing that different parts of the town and different addresses can affect your upbringing. Whether you live in the North, East, South or West of any city or state, there will always be a community better than another community that you may feel more at home in.  

Work Cited:

DuVernay, Ava, director. Colin in Black & White. Documentary/Show, 2021. Mask, Deirdre. The Address Book. St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 2020. 

P, James. NY Times , 27 Oct. 2021, Accessed 15 Nov. 2021.