Brooklyn author Anastasia Higginbotham’s new children’s book, Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness, makes use of a controversial figure in its theme of battling racism: Colin Kaepernick.
Higginbotham, who is white, has even made a cardboard cutout of the former NFL quarterback — taking a knee, of course — for her readings/presentations to to children. “Colin Kaepernick kneels for justice; he kneels for an end to police brutality; he kneels for equity in education and economic justice,” Higginbotham reads to a small group of kids. “So I’m going to kneel next to him as I read.”
She acknowledges that using Kaepernick will offend some, but “there was no way to do this book well or do it justice by going soft.”