So, to absolutely no one’s surprise except perhaps himself, Jussie Smollett, a third-rate homosexual black actor got convicted of faking a hate crime. When I originally heard of what had supposedly occurred, my reaction was, “Say what??”
Supposedly, the actor went out at 2 a.m. — during a polar vortex.
To get a Subway sandwich from a store supposedly open at 2 a.m. In the south part of Chicago.
And then out of nowhere, white men jumped out at him. Wearing MAGA hats. At 2 a.m. In Chicago. Carrying a noose. And they recognized him.
These “white men” grabbed him and said, “This is MAGA country.” And then they poured some bleach on his clothes. And put the noose on him.
They happened to wear MAGA caps in a black neighborhood of Chicago. And were carrying bleach around. And they just happened to be carrying a noose. During a polar vortex. At 2 a.m.
Then he returns to his apartment — still wearing that noose around his neck.
Riiiiight.
Smollett was stupid thinking that he could have pulled it off. But, let’s be blunt: it takes a special kind of stupid to have believed the story.
SEE ALSO: A Compendium Of Hate Crime Hoaxes: Jussie Smollett’s Was Just The Tip Of The Iceberg
In his trial, it came out that he knew that because he was gay and black and he claimed that MAGA white men attacked him while saying homophobic and racial slurs, the media would run with it.
And, boy, they did. The alphabet soup of the hivemind media — ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR MSNBC, FOX, CNN — wallowed in it, directly or indirectly condemning America and/or Donald Trump and/or white men. ABC’s Robin Roberts landed an interview with Smollett where he laid it on thick and Roberts commiserated with poor Jussie, who was mentally calculating how many roles in movies he could accommodate now that liberal Hollywood and the media had tearfully embraced him.
And not only did the media rush to support him and — eagerly — believe him, but liberal politicians did, too: Kamala Harris, Comrade Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren (aka Fauxahontas/Pocahontas), Tulsi Gabbard, Michelle Obama, Corey Booker (aka Fartacus).
There is a reason why the term “knee-jerk liberal” was created.
Many persons saw right through him, but in today’s toxic atmosphere said nothing, but once he was charged by the police, his hoax lent itself to humorous comments (one popular meme had Christine Blasey Ford testifying before Congress, “Then I saw the men attacking Jussie Smollett. It was Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh”). After the conviction, the comments were equally amusing.
Now that he has been convicted, was his hoax broadcasted as widely as when he originally made the accusation? Hardly, with some networks ignoring it altogether. One of the media hivemind’s tactics is the “news blackout,” wherein a news item that jars with the ideology being promoted by the hivemind is simply relegated to oblivion (examples are the woman who set herself on fire to protest Australia’s dictatorial policies, or a German family’s murder-suicide, both a result of COVID measures, or on a totally different topic, that most attacks on Asian-Americans are carried out by blacks). The media hivemind is truly the enemy of the people.
On the other hand, some commentators made the same caveat that is heard when sexual assault hoaxes are revealed. Not that such hoaxes are morally repugnant and deserve condemnation and severe punishment, no, but regret that they undermine the believability of other accusations.
If one stops to think about it, isn’t it bizarre how many liberals instantly swallow patently ridiculous stories? Simply because someone throws in a few select buzz words like racism, homophobia, misogynist, white supremacist, they fervently affirm the stories with a ferocity against anyone doubting the story, even though they are ignorant of any details. There are some stories that are on the face of it so obviously fraudulent that one has to be either brain dead or an obsessed fanatic to believe it.
To this day, there are people who ferociously believe that AIDS killed millions of people, that Donald Trump was a racist, that the Russian collusion took place, that Christine Blasey Ford was molested by Judge Kavanaugh, that COVID has killed millions and millions of people especially children, that January 6 was an “insurrection” engineered by Trump, that Kyle Rittenhouse was a white supremacist who went out into the streets and down blacks, and so on.
It was obvious, from the beginning, that these stories were lies. Yet, not only were they accepted as factual and widely — and consistently — propagated, they are still believed in, evidence to the contrary.
Just like some people still believe the Jussie Smollett story.
Armando Simón is a retired psychologist and author of When Evolution Stops, Orlando Stories, A Cuban from Kansas and The Cult of Suicide and Other Sci-fi Stories.
Armando Simón — very nice piece on Jussie Smollett. It must be a challenge these days to be accepted as a journalist, columnist, or free lance writer when you have the unapologetic audacity to use simple logic and facts to piece together a commentary and allow the obvious likely conclusion to speak for itself. Sometimes I wonder if we will have to write short essays that provide strong evidence gravity genuinely exists, and explain that when an apple falls from a tree it’s not due to global warming, and neither the tree nor the apple is making a political statement. It’s gravity. Just gravity, Period.
Yes, it sounds absurd that we may someday need to explain simple laws of physics to the so-call journalists and their all-to-eager readers who absorb and embellish any story that promotes their “cause,” though it has become increasingly difficult to find a respectable underlying “cause” or objective in most Liberal communication and ideology. It’s an ideology that speaks far more about what it opposes than what it supports; condemns anything that can be twisted and construed to be racist, hateful, or discriminatory, but provides very few reasonable substantive suggestions for improvement.
I appreciate your ability to communicate so effectively in written form. That’s becoming a lost art. Nevertheless, if you seek to be taken seriously as a writer you must discipline yourself to disregard facts and concentrate on the objective… but you’ll have to figure out what the specific liberal objectives are. I’ve found that to be a far more difficult task than one would expect. Good luck. Just keep saying to yourself, “Fact and Fiction is simply a matter of perspective.” I think that sounds pretty good. Ignorant — but a nice sound byte.
There is a positive feedback loop that encourages hoaxes. The media narrative, necessary to destroy western civilization, is that the country’s original sin of slavery makes America irredeemably racist. As has been noted, the demand for racism far exceeds the supply, so hoaxers are in high demand. As the narrative is a lie, all those who propound it are forced to accept these stories no matter the likelihood they are lies. Being a leftist means never having to say you are sorry.
While I certainly agree with the judgment that it takes a special kind of stupidity (ie tendentiousness) to believe Mr. Smollet’s ridiculous tale, the writer would be well served to get the facts straight. This did not occur on the “southern” side of Chicago but right downtown, slightly north and east of the Loop. And it is not a “black” neighborhood but a multiethnic upscale, high rent, entertainment district containing several upscale hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and very close to the downtown campus of Northwestern University. Is it a coincidence that both of these false details play to the same ignorant stereotype of ‘black people = danger’? Good journalism requires accuracy. Partisan hackery has no such requirement regardless from where on the political spectrum it originates.