The kindness of strangers.
A young fan of Colin Kaepernick in Washington DC got the surprise of his life when he walked into a GameStop when two strangers offered to buy him an Xbox.
Jaden Watts, just 10-years-old, was wearing an NFL jersey with Kaepernick’s name on the back when he met Washington Redskins running backs Keith Marshall and Rob Kelley.
Marshall and Kelley had overheard Jaden asking about the price of the Xbox One, which he said he planned to save up for. So impressed were they by the fact that he was wearing the name Kaepernick – in tribute to the former San Francisco 49ers star whose protest against police brutality has taken on a life of its own in recent weeks – that they offered to buy him the console.
Jaden ran into his grandmother Saundra, who was getting her make-up done nearby, to tell her that two strangers had offered to buy him the gift.
“He’s jumping up and down, saying, ‘Nana! Nana! Nana! These two guys want to buy me an Xbox. You’ve got to come right now,’ ” Watts recalled in a phone interview with the Washington Post.
She was immediately suspicious and went to confront the two gentlemen, fearing that they were up to no good.
“The first thing I’m thinking is there’s some pedophile trying to buy my grandson an Xbox,” she said. “So I’m like, I’m going to bust up in there and bust his bubble.”
She soon realised she was in the company of two NFL stars.
“I was cool with it,” Kelley said. “I wish someone would’ve done something like that for me when I was growing up. His family is probably able to do whatever they want, but everybody is not able to have the stuff that we have the luxury of having. … To make an impact on somebody, I have no problem with it.”
Jaden later explained why he had worn Kaepernick’s name on his 49ers shirt.
“He risked getting fired, which was a big thing. I wouldn’t even do that, but he did, and I really like him for standing out. I don’t know if people agree with it, but he just doesn’t care what people say and that’s inspired me and probably inspired other people.”
“Jaden flew on cloud nine to the car,” his grandmother added. “The next morning, he woke up and looked at me and said, ‘Nana, I had a dream that I was in a GameStop and two Redskins players bought me an Xbox.’ I said, ‘That wasn’t a dream, you dodo, that really happened.’ It was un-be-lievable. Unbelievable. He’s just such a good kid and it was just such a blessing. It was just so wonderful, the experience of a lifetime.”
A man named Joey Snapp was nearby and told the story.
