Reports say that Empire actor Jussie Smollett staged an attack against himself.

Jussie Smollett. The Hill/Getty.

Chicago police now believe that Jussie Smollett, an actor on the Empire TV show, hired two people to stage a fake hate crime against himself. The Hill. Smollett claimed that two white men had attacked him, put a noose around his neck, poured bleach on him and yelled racist and homophobic things at him. However, two black men were arrested after the investigation and it was found that they had purchased the rope. CNN reported that the police now believe that Smollett staged the attack and police have confirmed that the direction of the investigation has shifted due to statements given by the two men. Police had denied earlier reports that said the same thing but have now changed their statements. Motives for the incident were unclear. 

My Comment:

I've avoided talking about this case until now because it seemed so clear that we weren't getting the whole story. Smollett's initial claims were that he was outside early in the morning and had been attacked by two white men. Those supposed white men attacked Smollett because they knew who he was and hated that he was gay all the while saying that Chicago was "MAGA Country". They then let him go and he reported it to police. 

None of that made any sense at all. First of all, the chances that a couple of Trump supporting white people would be walking around that late at night in the first place is extremely slim. Illinois and Chicago especially, are hugely supportive of Democrats and Trump supporters would be outnumbered by a massive amount. There just aren't that many Trump supporters there. 

Second of all, what are the chances that anyone would even recognize Smollett in the first place? He's the third lead on a show that basically nobody that supports Donald Trump watches. I personally have never seen the show, and had no idea who Smollett even was. I vaguely aware that Empire existed but I had no idea what it was about and who stared in it and I doubt many other people that support Trump did either. Smollett claimed that he was well known to Trump supporters because of how critical he was of the president, but I had never seen him on social media either. As far as I know he didn't exist before this incident. 

Third, this event happened during some of the worst weather we have seen this year. It was during the polar vortex weather event where there was a lot of cold temperatures and snow. The idea that there are wandering gangs of white MAGA supporters out in Chicago during some of the worst weather of the year boggles the mind. 

Finally, there would be little reason for MAGA supporters to do this in the first place. Trump is pretty damn tolerant of gays and blacks and has tried to peel them away from the Democrats. How successful that has been is up in the air but it's not like Trump hates gays or black people. I mean Trump supports Gay Marriage and passed a crime reform bill because he felt that black people were being treated unfairly. Not the actions of someone who hates gays and blacks.  And even if a couple of his supporters did, why would they try to associate an attack with Trump? Even the most dimwitted supporters would understand how counterproductive that is. 

The story never made sense but pointing that out is risky these days. Many people that did risked having their social media accounts banned even though it was clear that something odd was up. "Listen and believe" isn't just something feminists say about rape/sexual assault, now we automatically have to believe accusations of assault and racism without evidence as well. 

I have never bought into that belief system. We should question everything and this case is another reason why. Indeed, I still have reservations about this post just because the lead media outlet reporting it is CNN. If it hadn't been for the fact that the Chicago police had issued a statement essentially confirming CNN's reporting I wouldn't have even written this post up.

Indeed, it seems as though the media and the blue checkmark brigade didn't learn their lessons from the Covington Catholic boys scandal. In that case they all got sucked into a story that didn't really make sense in the first place and then were proven wrong pretty conclusively. Some of those people said and did some horrible things in that incident and may end up getting sued for it. Given the fallout from that case, why on earth would anyone not wait a bit until an investigation was done? To be fair the media coverage of this case was a lot more cautious than in the Covington incident but as far as pundits and celebrities on Twitter? They didn't learn a damn thing. 

One wonders though, what in God's name was Smollett trying to accomplish? The supposed motive has been debunked by the producers of Empire who said that Smollett wasn't getting written off the show. With that being the case what could motivate someone to do this? 

My guess is that it is a combination of pure hatred of white male Trump supporters, along with the power and respect progressives give "victims" that caused him to hire these two Nigerian men to fake a hate crime. He was probably projecting his own faults onto them. 

Carl Jung talked about the "Shadow Archetype" which is the part of your personality that you hate and keep hidden and is often projected onto others. Thought I don't buy all of Jung's theories, I think that in this case it's probably pretty apt. In this case I think Smollett probably has a lot of hate and would very much like to do what he accused others of doing to him. My guess is that he just hates Trump and his white supporters so much that he wanted to do something to hurt them. In his world he thinks that people hate him as much as he hates everyone else when in reality nobody thinks about him at all. 

It's also clear that Smollett doesn't really understand Trump supporters at all and likely has never even talked to one in person. Twitter trolls might indeed say some of the things that were said to them but those are trolls and aren't representative of anything other than trolls. The idea that anyone who supports Trump would be stupid enough to attack Smollett like this in the first place and would do it in a way designed for maximum media outrage is just outrageous. 

I am hoping that Smollett does have to face some criminal and civil charges for this if the story of him paying two men to attack him is confirmed. All this incident did was further inflame the culture wars and incite racism. That is the last thing we need right now and I hope that Smollett gets the book thrown at him. In a perfect world he would get the same charges that any real attackers would have gotten.