Colin Kaepernick settled his collusion case against the NFL last week. According to reports, the payout is somewhere in the $60 to $80 million range. Add that to his multi-million dollar Nike ad campaign, and it’s clear that martyrdom has been a lucrative gig for the former quarterback. So lucrative, in fact, that he won’t return to professional football for less than $20 million. Beggars can’t be choosers, they used to say. Just one of many old nuggets of wisdom that’s been turned on its head in our upside down world. Kaepernick has turned victimhood into a business. And business is good.
His case may shed some light on the Jussie Smollett situation. As it becomes more and more inescapably clear (though it was pretty obvious from the beginning, we should note) that the “hate crime attack” against Smollett was an elaborate and poorly staged hoax, people may wonder why a guy with a cushy job on a network television show would risk it all on such an idiotic ploy. The people confused on this point have not been paying very close attention. As Kaepernick demonstrates, victimhood pays. We have elevated victimhood to a desirable status. Our children are raised to crave it, envy it, seek it. The great paradox of modern American culture is this: victimhood equals power.
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