quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Seen on twitter (from a satire account):


“By staging his own abuse, Jussie Smollett was empowering himself. He knew a racist hate crime directed at him was inevitable and decided to steal the chance to perpetrate it from white people.

He should be commended for that. Not to mention employing two PoCs in the process.”

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Yeah. The hard part is that both versions of the story are *insane.* At the bail hearing, the prosecutors red text messages where Jussie was setting everything up and coordinating it.

Are those texts fakes? Well, when the cops asked Jussie to provide his phone records, he redacted them.

I think what really happened is that he just assumed everyone would believe him; no one would check on anything; so long as no one was apprehended, he could sob his way through; if anyone was apprehended, he could say that was not the assailant.

As far as whether being a victim of a sensational crime where you weren't really injured might help your career . . . it sure would if you have the type of career that depends on being famous and on name recognition.

And as a black person, can I just say that it is extra horrible that he threw in the bit about the noose? They should march his little behind around the Smithsonian African American museum and make him look at those photos of lynchings. Maybe they should hang one in his cell too.

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The Nobility of Victimhood vs. Facts

At the risk of making this the gayest diary I’ve yet written, I have to say something about the Jussie Smollett story. I kept quiet until all the facts were in — the actor is facing a felony charge of filing a false police report over an attack he allegedly arranged and paid for — but, seriously, how did anyone believe this transparent hooey from day one? All I needed to know was that Smollett kept the noose around his neck all the way home that night and was wearing it when the cops arrived. What victim of a real hate crime does such a thing? Then there was the reporting two days later that he refused to hand over his phone: Please.

So for me, the question is: Why did so many people — from Nancy Pelosi to Cory Booker to AOC to the disturbed Ellen Page — so instantly fall for it, or desperately want to believe it? The New York Times’ Charles Blow issued a video tweet where he said he was “hope, hope, hope, hope, hoping” that Smollett had been attacked as he had said. Really? Yes, I know it’s awful when someone fakes a hate crime, and wastes police resources. But wouldn’t it still be good news that a hate crime never actually happened?

Smollett was dumb and incompetent in his elaborate hoax. But he was smart about one thing. The most noble thing in our current culture is victimhood. Smollett aimed for the jackpot — physically attacked for being gay and black by Trump supporters. What greater achievement could there be in 2019 than being an intersectional victim of dudes yelling “This is MAGA country”? And so all good liberals instinctively and with good intentions believed him, embraced him, marveled at his courage, and his determination to “fight the **** back!” He was a central player in their fevered narrative of 21st-century America as a cauldron of hate. His identity as gay and black rendered him instantly innocent, just as the Covington boys’ whiteness rendered them instantly guilty.

There will be no serious media reckoning, although the local press was terrific. Booker, Harris, Pelosi: They’ll never apologize for their rush to judgment. This may not have been “precisely, factually, and semantically correct,” you see, but it was morally true. Kamala Harris swiftly pivoted away to insisting that the core truth, whatever Jussie Smollett did, is that reports of hate crimes are on the rise, and so Jussie was kinda telling a truth anyway.

Tawana Brawley, as Al Sharpton long insisted, was still raped, even though she wasn’t, because of white supremacy; Matthew Shepard was killed by rednecks he didn’t know solely because he was gay, because of white bigotry; Rolling Stone’s Jackie was still raped, because of patriarchy. Here’s the best formulation of the “fake but true” argument, penned by the New York Times editorial board member, Sarah Jeong, after the infamous Rolling Stone story had been debunked and withdrawn: “I believe Jackie. It’s a different kind of believe from believing that her story is a historical, factual account. But she’s not lying.”

Believe Jussie. Just believe. He may have made up an entire story, but “he’s not lying.”

See you next Friday.

quote:

Jussie Smollett is now facing deeper legal troubles after a grand jury returned 16 felony counts against the actor for falsely reporting a hate crime attack against him in January.

The grand jury returned the disorderly conduct charges on Thursday. He is scheduled to be arraigned on March 14. The specific allegations–“false report of offense”– are Class 4 felonies.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:
Perhaps I overestimated the extent to which people understand the ways they can be caught committing a crime.

I was talking about Jussie with one my kids, and I said it is almost impossible to get away with murder of someone you know.

She said she thought if she gave it enough planning, she could do it.

DNA. Moving the body. Disposal of the body. Cell phone tower pings. Cameras on every street. Keeping your story straight. It’s all just too much.

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Originally posted by well-tempered gardener:

quote:

Jussie Smollett is now facing deeper legal troubles after a grand jury returned 16 felony counts against the actor for falsely reporting a hate crime attack against him in January.

The grand jury returned the disorderly conduct charges on Thursday. He is scheduled to be arraigned on March 14. The specific allegations–“false report of offense”– are Class 4 felonies.

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2...and-jury-indictment/

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by well-tempered gardener:

quote:

Jussie Smollett is now facing deeper legal troubles after a grand jury returned 16 felony counts against the actor for falsely reporting a hate crime attack against him in January.

The grand jury returned the disorderly conduct charges on Thursday. He is scheduled to be arraigned on March 14. The specific allegations–“false report of offense”– are Class 4 felonies.

https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2...and-jury-indictment/

Wow. 16 counts for (essentially) the same offense seems excessive.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:
Exactly. Maybe abusive is a better word.