© Getty Images/Ringer illustration
If you've been following the Jussie Smollett story, you'll know most of the details but for those of you who missed it let me give a brief overview. On Jan. 29, Smollett claimed to have been attacked, at 2am in very liberal Chicago, by two men wearing MAGA hats who wrapped a rope around his neck, beat him and yelled racial and anti-gay slurs and "this is MAGA country". To anyone with two firing neurons, this sounded more like something out of a Hollywood script than real life. The Chicago police department took the claim very seriously however, probably because of the national attention the story garnered, and conducted a very detailed investigation.
The result was that Smollett's claims were exposed as entirely false, as was the testimony of the two "attackers", who were revealed to be acquaintances of Smollett's and whom he paid to perpetrate the hoax. Smollett allegedly concocted the plan after previously
sending himself a racist and homophobic letter using letters cut from a magazine. The letter failed to get much attention, presumably leading Smollett to decide that a more theatrical act was required.
The Chicago PD gave the evidence to a grand jury which indicted Smollett yesterday. He
turned himself in to authorities today, where he was arrested for felony disorderly conduct for filing a false report of a crime.
The Smollett story is a perfect example of the apparently powerful drive by those on the 'Left' to portray America during Trump's presidency as inherently racist, sexist and xenophobic. While Smollett was the architect of his own hoax, many on the Left have tolerated being the target of this kind of hoax because it's "worth it" in order to highlight the bigger societal issues. This is wrong on many levels, not least because the increasing number of these kinds of hoaxes serves to cast preemptive doubt on the legitimate claims of real victims of real hate crimes.
Comment: They've no problem, mind, with the raised fist symbol created by Gene Sharp and his band of merry military-intelligence buddies.