Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“Actor Jussie Smollett, one-time star of the TV drama ‘Empire,’ was found guilty on Thursday of staging a hate crime against himself in what prosecutors said was a bid to gain sympathy and boost his career.” Reuters
Here’s our prior coverage of the case. The Flip Side
The right applauds the verdict and criticizes prominent figures who failed to question the story despite its implausibility.
“Bad things happen every day in America, but the details of this story were really extraordinarily hard to believe, from the day he told it. Who beats up a guy without really beating him up? Who thinks Chicago is ‘MAGA country’? What dudes roam Chicago with a noose and a bottle of bleach in the dead of winter hoping to run into a black guy so they can gently drape the noose around his neck and run away without so much as taking his cellphone?…
“Smollett is an exceptionally dumb guy who overloaded the fake attack with implausible details, and the everything-is-a-racial-emergency media ran with it. If you don’t have a functioning bushwa detector, you simply shouldn’t be in the media game…Nevertheless, almost across the board, the media reported it as a fact that Smollett ‘was attacked,’ or attributed this assertion to police, when it was never anything but a dubious assertion by an actor… Simple suggestion to everyone who promoted the hoax: Just say, ‘I was wrong and I’m sorry.’ It’ll be good for you. It’ll be good for America.”
Kyle Smith, New York Post
“Politicians such as Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Cory Booker and Kamala Harris all tweeted out their support of Smollett, some going as far as calling it a ‘modern-day lynching’. It was egregious accusatory behavior, based on zero evidence… The biggest problem with the Jussie Smollett debacle is not that the media jumped headfirst into believing a tale that depicts Donald Trump and his supporters as red-hatted evil brownshirts — as with the case of Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann. It’s that they have failed to take responsibility or apologize for peddling false stories since.”
Stephen L. Miller, Spectator World
“The details of the Jussie Smollett case are as sensational as they are disturbing, but the bigger story is why a successful actor would invent such a racially-tinged plot out of whole cloth. The inconvenient truth is that his actions didn’t spring from a vacuum. Far from it, our society actually incentivizes this kind of toxic behavior by glorifying victimhood…
“Smollett’s story perfectly fit the media machine’s pre-designed narrative: Trump and Republicans were racists and they were to blame for a stunning and violent hate-crime perpetrated against a young Black and gay actor. Jussie had every reason to believe that once he was cast as a victim, he would be hoisted upon shoulders and delivered to the next charmed phase of his career and life… From cries of racism at every turn, to the glorification by the media of victimhood mentality, Jussie Smollett is simply a result of a broken and dishonest media and political landscape.”
Cicely Davis, Fox News
“[During the trial] Smollett definitely seemed to be perjuring himself, as all of the evidence suggested. He lied to the jury just like he lied to Chicago police back in 2019… The court has two options if it wants to punish Smollett for giving false testimony. It can hold another trial, which would be costly and time-consuming. Or it can take into account Smollett’s false testimony when it sentences him for five felony counts of disorderly conduct and add to the prison time he might serve…
“Smollett’s sentencing has not yet been scheduled. But when he does appear in court again, he should be forced to learn what happens when you don’t take the judicial process seriously.”
Kaylee McGhee White, Washington Examiner
The left worries that this case will distract from actual hate crimes, but does not support jail time for Smollett.
The left worries that this case will distract from actual hate crimes, but does not support jail time for Smollett.
“It's hard for me to think of Jussie Smollett without thinking of Amy Cooper. They each did something horrifically stupid and dangerous, echoing the worst of this country's racial history for their own selfish reasons… [Cooper] is a White woman who called the police on a Black birdwatcher in Central Park in May 2020, falsely reporting that he was threatening her life and that he had tried to assault her…
“Ultimately, I think it's a shame Smollett and Cooper have commanded so much of the public's attention and sparked so many arguments that I question whether we would all be better off if the actor's charges were dropped and the case was never revived…
“That's why I'm also unmoved by those criticizing people like Vice President Kamala Harris for immediately expressing shock and disgust when Smollett claimed he had been the victim of a violent attack. (Former President Donald Trump also responded to the attack in 2019 by calling it ‘horrible,’ before turning his ire on Smollett.) Harris' sin, supposedly, was being too quick to believe a gay, Black man had suffered a racist and homophobic attack in a major American city, as though that's unimaginable.”
Issac Bailey, CNN
“According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, anti-LGBTQ organizations represented the fastest-growing sector of hate groups in 2019. LGBTQ people aren’t just physically harmed by others. The torment we are confronted with living in a heterosexist society takes a toll on us mentally as well. A 2021 study by the Williams Institute, a sexual orientation and gender identity think tank at the UCLA School of Law, found that 30 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual respondents ages 18 to 25 reported at least one suicide attempt…
“Last week, ABC News affiliate WKRN reported that 12-year-old Eli Fritchley died by suicide in Tennessee. According to his parents, his classmates, other 11- and 12-year-olds, often told him he was ‘going to go to hell’ for being gay… anti-gay violence is real. Racist violence is real. We shouldn’t let the hyped-up media circus that has surrounded this case from the beginning obscure that fact.”
Michael Crawford, NBC News THINK
“I understand the anger against Smollett, because I held it too. When the story initially broke that he had been attacked, progressive politicians and celebrities alike rushed to social media to show support. When Smollett was arrested on suspicion of making it all up, it wasn’t just that goodwill that was gone. A bit of media credibility went with it…
“The fine I am more than OK with, but at this point, why send him to jail? He’s lost his hit show and career. He’ll be mocked for this chapter, most likely for the rest of his life. It is a prison of a different sort. It is the prison in which the justice system decided to place former Rep. Aaron Schock. He had faced a 24-count indictment in 2016 alleging theft of government funds, filing false tax returns, filing false reports with federal election officials and wire fraud. But not long after Smollett was arrested in 2019, all of the charges against Schock were dropped by Chicago prosecutors under the conditions of good behavior and repaying the money…
“Now there are differences between the two cases, but the overall point is this: Jail isn’t the only option our justice system uses to punish those who abuse the public’s trust.”
LZ Granderson, Los Angeles Times
