Underneath the Vick-Kaepernick Dust-Up: Black Respectability Politics

On Monday, former NFL quarterback Michael Vick appeared on FS1’s Speak for Yourself, and when asked about any advice he could give to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who still has not signed with a new team, Vick said, “First thing we’ve got to get Colin to do is cut his hair” if he wants a team to sign him.

To no one’s surprise, Twitter lambasted Vick left and right. And on Tuesday, Kaepernick tweeted the definition of Stockholm Syndrome (it “appears when an abused victim develops a kind of respect and empathy towards their abuser,” reads the beginning of Kaepernick’s tweet), obviously taking a...read more.