What the Jussie Smollett Story Reveals:
It shows a peculiar aspect of 21st-century America: victimhood chic.
"I was one of many people who found Jussie Smollett’s story a little off from the beginning. Two white men in ski masks are out in 10-degree weather in the middle of the night, equipped with a bottle of bleach or something like it and a rope that they fashioned into a mock noose. These thugs, who shouted Trump slogans as well as racist and homophobic slurs, seemed to know who Smollett was on sight, meaning they were aficionados of the splashy black soap opera Empire, on which Smollett is the main character. Somehow they were aware that Smollett, prominent but hardly on the A-list as celebrities go, was gay.
Yes, my skepticism made me feel a little guilty. We are justly sensitized to violence against people for being black and for being gay in the wake of incidents I need not name. We are also just past watching legions of people who should have known better refuse to credit Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Maybe fear and trauma distorted Smollett’s memory somewhat? Maybe the media were getting some of the details wrong? Wait and see, I and others thought.
According to CNN, which got the information from two law-enforcement sources—and other news organizations as well—Chicago police believe two Nigerians arrested for their role in the attack were paid by Smollett to stage it. Relevant equipment was allegedly found in their apartment."
Notable in smollett’s account is that he sought to come off as an especially fierce kind of victim—the victim as hero, as cool. “I fought the **** back,” he told ABC’s Robin Roberts in an interview. Smollett has long displayed a hankering for preacher status. His Twitter stream is replete with counsel about matters of spirit, skepticism, and persistence that sounds a tad self-satisfied from someone in his 30s. His mother associated with the Black Panthers and is friends with the activist Angela Davis, and in interviews, Smollett has identified proudly with the activist tradition.
Shocking quote below
On Dom Demon tonight
"This is a young man who figured out he could be more interesting as somebody who was jumped by MAGA shouting white guys than he is as the very depth star a really interesting TV show.
In a way, all of us are capable, in that, we look at say the say Covington kid, and we look at one millisecond of his smile and we decide that he symbolizes all the racism of all of America when really it was just a kid who was not smiling with his teeth not showing. Intelligent people think of themselves of being ahead of the curve and seeing that as a summation of America social history."
John McWhorter
^This statement right here destroys Rob and everyone who went on and on about that Kid smirking.