Whitlock: Jussie Smollett is a victim of the systemic racism maintained by white liberals

Jussie Smollett destroyed his career and reputation trying to live up to a racist expectation of “blackness.” It’s the same mistake former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick made.

Popular culture’s puppet masters — academia, Big Tech’s social media apps, the executives running the TV, movie, music, and sports industries, and the political left — have established victimhood as the highest form of blackness. Attaining victim status is the primary expectation placed on American black men.

Meeting this expectation is especially important for mixed-race, wealthy celebrities. In the culture created by the left, victimhood is their rite of passage into the fraternity of blackness.

As much as I despise Smollett for the 2019 racial hoax he staged in Chicago, the alleged crime that currently has him on trial, my disdain for the culture that baited him into the act far exceeds my disgust for Smollett.