Taraji P. Henson and Jussie Smollett on “Empire”. (Via Fox)
On Tuesday (January 29th 2019), according to early reports, actor Jussie Smollett was coming out of a restaurant in Chicago at two in the morning when two men in MAGA hats beat him up. They poured a chemical on him, believed to be bleach, and wrapped a rope around his neck. They called him “faggot” and “nigger” and shouted “MAGA country”.
Smollett was hospitalized for broken ribs. He is now in good condition.
Jussie Smollett plays a gay character on the television show “Empire” (2015- ) – pictured above – and is openly gay himself. He is Jurnee Smollett-Bell’s brother.
If this can happen to him, someone as rich and famous and kind as he is, then it can happen to anyone Black or queer. Or Muslim or Mexican. Or anyone not straight, White, and Christian all at the same time. What Jesus would do, apparently. And President Trump is driving it. That was made clear by the MAGA cry and MAGA hats – the red hats that say “Make America Great Again”, the ones Trump supporters wear and chant things like “Build the wall!”, meaning his wall between the US and Mexico.
The NAACP:
“The rise in hate crimes is directly linked to President Donald J. Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric. It is dangerous for any society to allow a tone of divisiveness and hatred to dominate the political discourse. As this rhetoric continues to bleed into our everyday lives, dangerous behavior will continue to place many law abiding individuals at risk.”
President Trump is, like it or not, the moral leader of the nation. There is not even someone like Martin Luther King Jr to offset him.
The Chicago police: Despite the rope, the N-word, the MAGA hats and MAGA cry, the police called it a “possible racially-charged assault and battery”. Not “racist”, but “racially-charged”. What in the world would it take for them to call it racist? They are, though, treating it as a hate crime.
The rope: In the early 1900s thousands of Black people in the US were lynched. A rope around the neck and being hanged from a tree was the common way of doing it. Thus Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit” (1939). In 2019 lynching has yet to be outlawed nationwide, and not for want of trying. Lynching is not as common as it once was, but killer cops have pretty much picked up where White mobs left off.
MAGA hats: Just like last week, in the wake of the video showing boys from Covington Catholic High School wearing MAGA hats and mocking a Native American elder, those in authority want to downplay the racism of the MAGA hat.
Last week when actress Alyssa Milano tweeted this:
“The red MAGA hat is the new white hood.”
Rich Lowry, editor of the right-wing National Review, replied:
“Which would be close to an apt analogy if people donned MAGA hats to carry out hideously violent crimes against African-Americans and other people uncongenial to them.”
Well, they do.
– Abagond, 2019.
Update (February 20th): After rumours have been flying that Smollett faked the hate crime, the Chicago police today announced that, “Jussie Smollett is now officially classified as a suspect in a criminal investigation by Chicago Police for filing a false police report (Class 4 felony).” Smollett denies it. The FBI is investigating. BBC.
Update (March 26th): The prosecutor dropped the charges against Smollett in exchange for community service and giving up the $10,000 he posted for bail. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police are furious. They believe Smollett staged his own hate crime, the reason given for arresting him.
Update (December 9th 2021): Smollett was found guilty of five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct for lying to police about the attack. He flatly denies it was a hoax. He could go to prison, but might just get probation.
Update (March 13th 2022): Smollett was sentenced to 150 days (five months) in prison, in addition to fines, probation and so on. That is excessive for a non-violent or non-drug crime. The very same judge gave a White defendant found guilty of domestic violence no prison time at all, just probation. Smollett, after the sentence was announced, said repeatedly that he is not suicidal – presumably fearing that he will be found dead in prison. He still maintains his innocence in no uncertain terms. He does seem to have been railroaded – hardly uncommon for Black defendants, though it rarely makes the news.
See also:
- Empire
- The term “racially tinged”
- MAGA hat
- N-word
- lynching
- killer cops
- Donald Trump – written in 2015, but he has not changed much
551
Abagond 
This is all so deeply disturbing. I know that Jussie has already been released from the hospital and I read where he still plans on making a pre-scheduled performance this weekend. I wish him a full recovery, though. Not just from his physical wounds, but from the psychological and emotional wounds this attack undoubtedly left. That kind of trauma doesn’t just leave a person once the bodily scars are healed. I’m concerned about him taking the time he needs to process this and nurture his spirit away from work and away from all of the press surrounding his attack.
I’m also troubled by the idea of people donning MAGA hats walking around in temperatures colder than those found in Antarctica ready with a noose and a chemical to attack someone. Were they looking for Jussie, specifically? Or were they perhaps planning harm for one of Chicago’s 80,000 homeless people? Maybe they were on the hunt for a late-night worker trudging home after a long shift? Who else is out after 2a in those conditions? It’s the not knowing that disturbs me as much as the actual assault.
I hope authorities arrest the individuals who attacked him, soon. Whether they were known to him or whether they were strangers with more nefarious plans, these people need to be stopped. I almost hope the attack is related to someone he knows personally. As terrible as that sounds, something awful happened to Jussie and I’d hope it’s contained to a singular attack with a personal motive and not one that thugs just randomly planned to do to complete strangers.
I also wish people would stop separating his Blackness from his gayness. He is both. The way it’s reported by some, it seems they want to highlight one and downplay the other. Jussie isn’t a split personality, he is Black and Gay at the same time.
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It is the new white hood. That’s exactly what it is. I enables white supremacists to feel entitled to the lives of all minorities that do not fit their cookie cutter definition of what it means to be a person who deserves respect and is worthy of protection. Its a neo-fascist symbol that has manifested racial hatred.
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Well make america crip again is not the correct answer that’s i mean blue vs red but no….
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The authorities are being dismissive about this hate crime.
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You can buy MAGA looking hats that say “Make Racists Afraid Again”.
https://store.strangefamousrecords.com/products/b-dolan-make-racists-afraid-again-hat-pre-order
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Unfortunate, however I am not inclined to believe this official story. We do not know the race of the attackers, as they were masked. After being saved from that lifestyle, I can say with certainty that, that deeply lustful sin attracts drama and brings torment to all who practice it. Fighting amongst gays is extremely common, as you are mixing passion with a naturally aggressive sex (all men are aggressive at their core). The individuals who commit it tend to be extremely messy and deceitful, due to their own insecurities. For all we know, the attacker could have been an ex-lover or an enemy he had in the lifestyle. If you upset another person deluded by that life, the very first thing they will call you is the ‘F word,’ so it is not unlikely that this was gay drama that he wishes to cover up
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https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/uncongenial
odd word choice, or not?
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Their grandchildren are going to be brown and Muslim, and the thought is driving them nuts!
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MAGA could also stand for Make Abagond Great Again. Just an idle thought.
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I do understand the symbolism of Trump but the issue is deeper and goes to the core. Trump is possibly symptomatic, definitely not causative. It’s likely that racists do feel emboldened by Trump but they felt threatened by Obama and the end result was the same: more hate crimes.
IMO, it’s really like comedian Paul Mooney says, “nothing changes but the weather”.
It’s raining so I guess they’ll need umbrellas.
It’s sunny so I guess they’ll need umbrellas.
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“It’s horrible, It doesn’t get worse” These are Donald Trump’s words responding to Jussie Smollett’s attack. WTF does that even mean? Just incoherent rambling as always from the orange, syphilletic fiend.
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For me the speculation is it was two “brothas” wearing the maga hat that are extremely homophobic that did this. The average MAGA person wouldn’t know the actor, the show “Empire” nor that he was gay. Shame on these bastards.
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Other notes to take notice…. A traditional Maga hat wearing people would not be strolling along high end areas while wearing that hat at least… Goes for places like Manhattan or Georgetown D.C. Unless they had alterior motives such as two super homophobic black men or whatever.
If you Google the story the actor seems to have gotten footage but refused to give it up to law enforcement.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chicago-police-say-empire-actor-jussie-smollett-refuses-hand-over-n965371
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I’m waiting for more information, cause him being targeted and identified is suspicious…given the time it occurred.
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Kinda similar to Richard Quest in 2008.
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“Despite the rope, the N-word, the MAGA hats and MAGA cry, the police called it a “possible racially-charged assault and battery”. Not “racist”, but “racially-charged”. What in the world would it take for them to call it racist?”
Hell freezing over?
It is, how do I put it…. “politically necessary” for them to water down the implications this has for black people, and its easy enough to do so because the actor in question is gay. That will be put above his blackness to lessen the impact. If the Police were to admit this was a racist attack, it might give black people the idea to prepare for the resurrection of white lynch mobs through arms.
That and it’s traditional for black anything to be buried under all these other labels and groups.
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The player or victim of the Covington “Blackout” harrisment claims that there was no I’ll will towards him. This takes me back to the movie “Mississippi Burning” where blacks living in the town feared terrible retaliation. So Kentucky, I don’t know of anybody that lives there, or at least this area seems to be openly “White Nationalist” and all minorities within fear hateful retribution if speaking out about it?
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This is not looking good for Smollett it looks like it might be a hoax. The talk on a lot of black social media outlets is that he set this thing up. It will be interesting to know what the truth is.
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And if it’s discovered that Smollett set this up then this is going to make it bad for the next man who gets attacked because of his sexual orientation or race.
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Yeah, that’d be pretty irresponsible since that’s stuff that really happens to people, Trump or no Trump.
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@ Mary
I hope it is not fake. That would make real attacks easier to dismiss.
For my part, I need something more than anonymous sources inside the Chicago police department, an organization not known for their honesty.
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Update (February 20th): After rumours have been flying that Smollett faked the hate crime, the Chicago police today announced that, “Jussie Smollett is now officially classified as a suspect in a criminal investigation by Chicago Police for filing a false police report (Class 4 felony).” Smollett denies it. The FBI is investigating.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47313172
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Surely he didn’t fake it.
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Smollett is going to jail.
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Now it’s: “…Smollett denies it. The FBI is investigating. BBC.” from you.
What if you had exercised the same amount of caution when the story first came out? What would MAGA-capped white dudes (like they would watch Empire?) be doing at 2 a.m. in sub-freezing downtown Chicago, with bleach that would have been frozen at that temperature, and a noose… What if you had said there are some things that seem strange here, but police are investigating at that time, rather than jumping into a condemnation of MAGA folks and Trump?
And actually most of the very egregious so called “hate crimes” reported in the news turn out to be hoaxes and/or fake news (like the 16-year old kid who smiled confusedly while an activist Native American guy–who was also an actor in at least one music video–accosts him and beats a drum right in his face, after the kids were taunted brutally, or like the UVA rape hoax, Duke Lacrosse rape hoax, girl who claimed to have her hijab ripped off hoax, etc..
Can you at least admit that you’re a partisan hack now?
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@ biff
Right in the first line of the post I said “according to early reports”, so I understood that the truth might be different than what it seems at first. But I also understood that whatever the truth in this particular case, hate crimes do take place and it has become worse under Trump.
Unfortunately, there are hoaxes and I hope to God this is not one of them.
I will believe the FBI in this case, but NOT the Chicago police. Just because they SUSPECT or ARREST a Black person, that does NOT make him or her guilty. But for many White people (and some Black people) it does.
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Dude, there are videos of the Nigerian brothers buying rope, bleach, ski masks, red hats and gloves… (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCRix0pnXMg) and there are phone records between these guys and Smollett both before and after the incident, but you are still withholding judgment and acusing the police (and the black police chief who recently tore into Smollett) of RACISM..
Hilarious
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@ biff
I am not accusing the Chicago police of anything. I do not trust them. I do not trust the police in general, but the Chicago police less so than most. And that is hardly new with the Smollett case. Apparently you have no idea how dirty they are. It would be like asking me to trust Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton.
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I’ve refrained from talking about the specifics of this situation because I obviously don’t know. But it’s interesting that the book will probably be thrown at Smollett while white people who make lying calls to the police that get people killed are never thought to have committed any crime.
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Biff. Get over yourself
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Here’s what people who don’t understand why some of us are fearing the worst about this case.
1.) If this is a racial hoax, it would make it harder for actual victims of hate crimes to be taken seriously. The right has always made it their mission to program themselves to believe that black and gay people are NEVER victims, even when they clearly are. The greatest modern examples are just about EVERY police-involved murder of an unarmed black person, and I can remember clearly how right wing media wanted to argue against the fact that racism was the motivating factor for the Charleston Church massacre. And let’s not forget EACH AND EVERY TIME a white person asks belligerent whenever he or she sees a black person doing everyday things and that white person calls the police on them for doing NOTHING. But sure enough, there are people who will contest that those white people were in the right for some BS reason, but will run away at the notion that race was involved.
2.) In this climate where white racism is bubbling in this nation, why the bloody hell would ANYONE stage this? Reports say that Smollett allegedly staged the attack, because he wasn’t getting paid enough or that the letter he allegedly wrote to himself didn’t get enough attention. Even though stranger things have happened, it’s almost impossible to take any of that seriously. We can’t accept someone would be this stupid and careless to want to jeopardize himself, help to undermine any activism against the unapologetic hate in this country and give them fuel to continue their pathological need to hate and fear people who aren’t straight white and male and aren’t mindless “Trumpsters”.
And for what?
3.) I talked a lot about what this does to marginalized groups when members of their own is accused of something terrible. If Smollett’s attack was fake and he knowingly orchestrated it himself, a lot of black and gay people are going to be dismayed, embarrassed, ashamed and will fear the worst. One of those fears is explained in the first point. And America is on denial autopilot whenever something like this happens.
Speaking as a black man, black people can never be victims of racism in the eyes of many people, INCLUDING SOME BLACKS. Whenever racism rears its ugly head, there’s an immediate push-back from people who tell black folks that it’s not racism, that they’re delusional or too sensitive, or anything to deny that race was the issue.
I’ve learned since blogging that some people are too closed-minded with zero empathy to truly get why this case is weighing so heavily on our hearts and minds. They could care less if this puts us in an uneasy position and puts more stress on us than we already feel.
I have no doubt there are many gay and black people praying that Jussie Smollett didn’t cook up the attack. If he did, it will unleash a wave of negative emotions. But if it was authentic and he was indeed attacked, it would still be heavy on us as it reminds us that this country and the world in general, hatred is not only the norm, it’s empowered.
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If Jussie did stage this, he did it so badly: cookie crumbs all the way back to his house. Reports saying because he might be possibly cut from “Empire”? He’s talented enough to move on to newer and bigger, musical and acting venues, like Idris Elba, did after “The Wire”. His demeanor isn’t adding up in the news either, something doesn’t seem quite right.
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biff, were you on vacation again?
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And orange monkey 45 lies every time he opens his putrid, rancid, mouth to speak and he concocts hoaxes every day with no consequence. Racially aroused white folks calling the cops on black people for no reason with no consequences. This is just business as usual in America.
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Instead of the media bombarding the viewers with Jussie Smollett they need to focus on that crazy white supremacist Coast Guard Lieutenant who wants to kill all the Democrat Presidential candidates and the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Maxine Waters and all the other members of Congress that are Democrats. This is a domestic terrorist and thank God he was caught. I wonder why the media is trying to distract the American public with this.
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They do this intentionally. In the scheme of things, this Jesse incident pales in comparison. What of this jackass succeeded in carrying out these massacres?
Anyone who computes this alleged incident to future hate crime attacks is a white supremacist or among their allies. Being a white supremacist society though, this is probably a given. In other words, this incident with Jesse only serves to reinforce their views which already existed.
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Jesus, nobody can take a joke anymore! The guy was just rehearsing for his next role as Susan Smith, remember her? Apparently, it’s a gender neutral casting where a gay black male was to play a white woman who drowned her sons and blamed it on a phantom black male. His crime, if he did what the cops say was nothing more than method acting gone mad. A fine for wasting valuable police time, and damage to his career is all that’s called for here.
Biff, my boy, where’s your strong condemnation of Smith and Charles “Chuck” Stuart, that guy in Boston who blamed Blacks for the murder of his wife, that he carried out? Unless you can show that you vociferously denounced such scams, you should shut the f**k up.
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Ok, why did my comment end up in comment purgatory again?
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I guess white Americans have amnesia in regards to Ryan Lochte the Olympic swimmer, who lied during the 2016 Summer games in Brazil saying he was robbed. White Americans responded with “He’s just a kid” Lochte was 30 years old and “Boys will be boys.” And he was forgiven and competed on Dancing With The Stars and CBS Big Brother. If Smollett is found out to be guilty he will not be afforded the same grace. The double standards in American society are appalling.
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If It’s discovered Smollett is guilty then that means he scapegoated black people and black LGBTQ people as well for his own gain and that would be heinous.
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@ Mary
I think your Ryan Lochte parallel is great! You’re right, I did have a short memory when it came to that, but now that you bring it up… I had the exact same gut feeling to early reports of his story. In the end, he was covering for behavior that would have played out badly for him in the press. So, he made up “alternative facts” thinking it would blow over. He was an idiot because the fake story caused more interest rather than less.
I had the same feeling about Smollett’s story… and I still do. I don’t think we have the real story yet. Perhaps the attack was real but the meeting was not random. Perhaps there’s another reason for him to have given the brothers a check for $3500. Perhaps both sides are now making up stories to paint themselves as innocent because the truth could be more damaging to both sides.
I don’t know… but my gut isn’t buying Smollett’s, CPD’s or the Osundairo’s side of the story just yet.
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@ Open Minded Observer: In this upside down night mare of alternative facts and gas lighting who knows what is the truth. I don’t know what to believe about Smollett but i do think the media is trying to distract the American public from what we really need to be paying attention to and that is Trump and the up coming Mueller investigation and Trump and his lies and concocted hoaxes.
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Lochte was an idiot who got totally trashed with his buddies, did some low key vandalism with them at a gas station in the middle of the night, was confronted at gun point by people working there (who understandably probably had a short fuse, given where they live) and lied about what happened while still incredibly trashed to try to save his skin. What he did was very stupid, but not something he ever would have plotted out ahead of time.
For Smollett, this guy went through a lot of trouble to pull a scam over on an entire nation. He’s made things tougher for other blacks and for gays going forward, as many of you have noted. He’s cost probably millions of dollars in tax payer resources to investigate. He’d be just fine if a couple of white boys were rotting in prison for his selfish and self-promoting lies… And it looks like he’ll get probation.
Gro Jo, sorry if I missed the wall to wall media coverage about how blacks were terrible because Chuck Stuart said they killed his wife or the part where he got out of any prison time at all after what he did was discovered. I honestly had never heard of the guy…. and it was 30 years ago (had to look it up). Terrible thing. Next thing you know it’s back to Emmett Till, the most important news ever (NYT keeps increasing the coverage) and why we need anti-lynching laws. Just like we desperately need laws against cattle rustling and Indian attacks on American settlements…
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Biff, you said:”Gro Jo, sorry if I missed the wall to wall media coverage about how blacks were terrible because Chuck Stuart said they killed his wife or the part where he got out of any prison time at all after what he did was discovered. I honestly had never heard of the guy…. and it was 30 years ago (had to look it up). Terrible thing.”
Glad to see you went back to the record. You must overcome your innate laziness because you managed to miss the most salient fact about Chuck’s little joke, the rounding up of black males who remotely fit his description of the phantom assailant. I say you ‘overlooked’ that fact because I want to give you the benefit of doubt, the more cynical types around here would say you are just lying as usual.
Your bit about it being 30 years ago was equally amusing. Was your absence from this forum due to a stay at an institution to help you with your memory problem? I ask because it wasn’t that long ago that a red-blooded patriot, like you, mowed a crowd of anti-racist demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer and injuring a number of others. 2017 is too long ago? Ok, how about Christopher Hasson? Doesn’t ring a bell? Ok, get back to the institution you escaped from because your memory is sh*t.
“Next thing you know it’s back to Emmett Till, the most important news ever (NYT keeps increasing the coverage) and why we need anti-lynching laws. Just like we desperately need laws against cattle rustling and Indian attacks on American settlements…”
Your loss of memory has you living in the past. Please get help.
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biff, you said,
Lochte was an idiot who got totally trashed with his buddies, did some low key vandalism with them at a gas station in the middle of the night, was confronted at gun point by people working there (who understandably probably had a short fuse, given where they live) and lied about what happened while still incredibly trashed to try to save his skin. What he did was very stupid, but not something he ever would have plotted out ahead of time.
For Smollett, this guy went through a lot of trouble to pull a scam over on an entire nation. He’s made things tougher for other blacks and for gays going forward, as many of you have noted. He’s cost probably millions of dollars in tax payer resources to investigate. He’d be just fine if a couple of white boys were rotting in prison for his selfish and self-promoting lies… And it looks like he’ll get probation.
The thing is police couldn’t find any evidence or anyone to corroborate Ryan Lochte’s claim that he was robbed. All they found was that he participated in vandalizing a gas station.
Also, the Chicago P.D. has an incredibly untrustworthy and even cutthroat reputation, especially when it comes to communities of color in the city. That alone should be embarrassing enough for the city alone without the Jussie Smollett situation.
Granted, I don’t know how the police are in Brazil where Lochte was in trouble. But it’s understandable why there are people who don’t fully believe Chicago P.D.’s findings. I’m not saying they’re wrong or that the evidence they said they found is fraudulent. I’m just saying that CPD have been crying wolf for years.
…Sorry if I missed the wall to wall media coverage about how blacks were terrible because Chuck Stuart said they killed his wife or the part where he got out of any prison time at all after what he did was discovered. I honestly had never heard of the guy…. and it was 30 years ago (had to look it up). Terrible thing. Next thing you know it’s back to Emmett Till, the most important news ever (NYT keeps increasing the coverage) and why we need anti-lynching laws. Just like we desperately need laws against cattle rustling and Indian attacks on American settlements…
Like gro jo stated, the police were searching frantically for the suspect to where anyone who remotely fit the description was rounded up. The mayor wanted every officer to look for the assailant. Stuart even picked a black man out of a line up. That is until Stuart’s brother said that Chuck confessed to murdering his wife after Chuck committed suicide. What’s even more eyebrow-raising was that Chuck received tens of thousands of dollars in insurance money.
And yes, that was less than a few decades ago, but there were more that followed. In most cases that received media coverage, the phantom suspect was black. You were griping about the Chuck Stuart and Emmett Till, you seem to forgot or overlook Jesse Anderson, Susan Smith, Ashley Todd and Bethany Storro to name a few.
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Dr. Katheryn Russell-Brown is the author of the book The Color of Crime, which found that most racial hoaxes are perpetrated by whites falsely blaming a crime on blacks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_hoax
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New information…. The Cheque that Jussie Smollet gave the brother is for personal training duty. And now the FBI are saying he didn’t write the hate letter to himself…
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If I was going to be paid to beat someone up I would want more that 3500 to do so considering the risk. That alone is suspicious. With the money he makes who in their right mind would accept ONLY 3500. Not to mention the amount of information being linked while they were “investigating.” The sloppy handling alone would be a sure fire NO on them getting my phone.
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Leaked*
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There is something suspect about this case for sure. I also find it hard to believe that Jesse is this stupid to plan something like this.
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Charges dropped against Smollett.
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So … all charges against Smollett have been dropped.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/26/entertainment/jussie-smollett-charges-dropped/index.html
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Okay, now i just wish he would go away for a while. I got so tired of seeing and hearing his name.
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I called the outcome of this incident right back on Fri Feb 22nd 2019 at 16:38:22
gro jo wrote: “A fine for wasting valuable police time, and damage to his career is all that’s called for here.”
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Update: The prosecutor dropped the charges against Smollett in exchange for community service and giving up the $10,000 he posted for bail. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police are furious. They believe Smollett staged his own hate crime, the reason given for arresting him.
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Rahm Emmanuel is a jerk and so is the CPD. Why is he taking this so personally? Smollett might need to just disappear for awhile.
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The Chicago Tribune put the papers from the case online. However, when trying to access it the site was down in European countries. I didn’t know Canada was in Europe, something fishy going on.
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https://nypost.com/2019/03/28/trump-confirms-fbi-doj-will-probe-outrageous-jussie-smollett-case/
this article has been modified since the first ‘draft?’ a day or 2 ago, nypost insinuated that his forfeiture of bail was the rationale behind the dismissal…
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When you look at this case at another perspective you can easily realize that Smollett thought of these two Nigerians as Patsies to take the fall if any the hoax went wrong. I think he generally feels that these two Nigerian brothers were not only inferior to him but the general Black American community as a whole. Having African friends in high school and one semester of college I’ve observed this attitude from Black Americans first hand.
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“I think he generally feels that these two Nigerian brothers were not only inferior to him but the general Black American community as a whole.”
Maybe he was asserting paymaster privilege. Trump is no slouch in that department, as the Stormy Daniels affair showed.
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@ TeddyBearDaddy aka CrudeInterpretation aka TheHorrors
Please stick to one name or you will be banned.
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I read an article recently that made a deep dive into the Jussie Smollett case the media hyped for weeks this past summer. Author Chelli Stanley uncovered a raft of irregularities in that case. What made this article more than a speculative rant is Stanley’s inclusion of actual police reports from the Smollett attack case. The reports are posted online at Scribd.com:
Stanley explores what she calls the The Laquan Connection. She shows how Chicago city officials used the Jussie Smollett case as a distraction from the aftermath of the lenient sentences (or non-sentences handed out to the killer’s accomplices) of the police who murdered and covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald.
Stanley also highlighted how the media was complicit in CPD’s smearing of Smollett. One way the media did that is by sidestepping context:
There were also essential facts left out of the media portrayal of the attack on Smollett. Like the two witnesses who supported Smollett’s version of events plus missing video footage of the attack.
https://www.blackagendareport.com/jussie-smollett-chicago-police-department-and-appearingdisappearing-video-footage-trick
While the article is worth a read, the real eye-openers are in the supporting police reports. The reports go on for hundreds of pages and tell a different story than the sensational media accounts of this case.
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Click on the Scribd logo in the lower left hand corner to view the reports.
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Not surprised at all. This is the main medias pattern. Distraction, distraction distraction!
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@Afrofem
I tried the scribd link at the bottom of that article but, it wanted me to log in with a Microsoft ID. That’s when I noticed that the link text is for scribd, but the hyperlink behind was a redirect. Not sure what that’s about, but copy/pasting the link text got me to the reports without any sort of login.
Meanwhile, I’ve always maintained that something doesn’t add up with any of the versions of this case as it has been presented in the media. Reading those reports only affirms that opinion for me. All of that information would have come to light in trial, so it seems like charges being dropped was the right call in light of so much reasonable doubt.
Wondering if CPD is suing him proactively to keep him on the ropes and cast in a negative light for the media just to reduce the odds he will sue the CPD to recover damages for his trashed career.
One thing is certain though: Involving the police was a costly mistake for him.
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@ Open Minded Observer
I’m glad you were able to access the Scribd files. When I followed the link in Stanley’s article, I also had to deal with that crazy redirect. I ended up going to Scribd’s website and doing a site search for “Jussie Smollett”. There were several file groups, but “uploaded by Lizzie” seemed a match for the information Stanley presented.
My comment upthread included that direct link. I was a bit annoyed when the link produced an embed of Scribd’s files. Clicking on the Scribd logo in the lower left corner of the embedded files activates the link. I wonder if I should have added parentheses to the link? That seems to prevent embeds of YouTube video files.
Like Mr. Smith in Fort Worth, TX, calling the police seemed to be the ‘normal’ thing to do to Smollett. We are all socialized to call the police in such situations. I’m sure Smollett had no idea that calling CPD would land him into an agonizing morass. A morass that trashed his reputation, forced him out of his home and possibly damaged his career. Then there is the money he had to shell out to legally defend himself——-and he was the victim in this situation.
On top of everything, he has to deal with the after effects of the original trauma of the attack that fateful night.
Throughout the media hysteria surrounding the case, I remember thinking, “what is the untold story here?” When I was a child my mother told me repeatedly to believe “only half of what you read and a third of what you hear”. In this media environment, I think revising those percentages down is a prudent thing to do.
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Update: Smollett was found guilty of five of six counts of felony disorderly conduct for lying to police about the attack. He flatly denies it was a hoax. He could go to prison, but might just get probation.
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The whole affair was theatre of the absurd. Jussie Smollett got as much attention as he did because he is (or was) minor royalty. I doubt he will get any jail time but his career is shot and he will likely have a substantial fine.
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Afrofem:
“Then there is the money he had to shell out to legally defend himself——-and he was the victim in this situation.”
Pretty clear at this point Jussie Smollett, by his own testimony, was not a victim of a racial attack and overwhelming evidence indicates he staged the whole thing. However, I’ll give him props for creating writing and acting skills.
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The power of corporate media narrative. The police reports tell a different story.
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Afrofem:
“The power of corporate media narrative.”
His own court testimony effectively repudiates much of his earlier story.
It changed (from his own testimony) from being a racial attack to an anti gay attack by two people he knew African immigrants from Nigeria.
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Lets hope the nasty little man get’s the book thrown at him for trying to start a race war. Absolutely disgraceful behaviour from this narcissistic, no talent loser.
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Update: Smollett was sentenced to 150 days (five months) in prison, in addition to fines, probation and so on. That is excessive for a non-violent or non-drug crime. The very same judge gave a White defendant found guilty of domestic violence no prison time at all, just probation. Smollett, after the sentence was announced, said repeatedly that he is not suicidal – presumably fearing that he will be found dead in prison. He still maintains his innocence in no uncertain terms. He does seem to have been railroaded – hardly uncommon for Black defendants, though it rarely makes the news.
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