horrifying attack on Jussie Smollett

[Cavemonster]

It is a bit more than that ain't it? It is not just that they allegedly yelled that ridiculous statement, but that they knew this guy was the "faggot" from Empire.

It is exactly the type of thing that someone would imagine their political boogeymen would yell out.

In the cold, at 2 am, in an area known for homeless and petty drug deals.

And the cops are wasting their time on this ********.

Recognizing celebrities is unbelievable now? Or following people?

 

[Distracted1]

Which one? He's made lots of comments above.




I don't live in a "crazy culture of identity politics". I don't live somewhere where it is "common for people to fake these kinds of incidents". So I haven't a clue as to any such person's motivation, or even if such people really exist. I live somewhere where the police gather evidence, the CPS decides whether to bring charges, and people are innocent until proven guilty.

Can you point me to any successful people in the public eye who have faked something of this nature? Someone with the same balance of what's to be gained against what's to be lost as this actor?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochtegate

 

[tyr_13]

Not sure exactly what that means, or it's relevance. But in the shared culture that Smollett and I occupy, fake hate crimes are quite common.

You also occupy a culture where actual hate crimes are far more common than fake ones. A culture where people really mail bombs to the wrong addresses based on the bomber's political rage. A culture where white-supremacists march in the streets with tiki-torches chanting 'the Jews will not replace us'. A culture where cars are driven into crowds and people still justify it and want to make it legal to do so.

Any skepticism based on 'it sounds too much like a cartoon hate crime' is ridiculous. That remains true regardless of if this incident was really one or a hoax, because other things just as crazy really did happen.

In short, even in cases where skepticism is legitimately warranted, there remain arguments for skepticism which are abject ********.

 

[tyr_13]

probably because here 9 times out of 10 the people doing the mugging are black, and the rest of the time it is a hoax.

Just another day in ******* Chicago

********

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, you would need the attackers to recognize Jussie, know that he would be walking that route early in the morning, and have brought bleach and a cord with them. The route is only about 5 minutes or so, so they have little time to run into Jussie.

They could have seen Jussie at the Subway, and they could know where he lives, so they could know where and how to intercept him.

So I don't find it unbelievable that some attackers were able to intercept him on his way home.

 

[The Big Dog]

Recognizing celebrities is unbelievable now? Or following people?

calling this guy a celebrity is a bit rich, ain't it? He is a bit player.

But now we have some meat on the bones! You are claiming that he was "being followed"? The cops have looked at hundreds of hours of video and have not seen that at all.

Hmmm.

ITS MAGA COUNTRY!

 

[Dr. Keith]

It's a celebrity's phone - usually full of the numbers of other celebrities, all of whom will assume that their numbers are now public (especially if given to some group like the Chicago PD), and that they have to get new numbers, find out what everyone else's new number is again, etc. - and who may blame him for the problem.

Thought that one would be obvious...

It was obvious when talking about Tom Brady's phone, but not now. Odd right?

 

[tyr_13]

Well, you would need the attackers to recognize Jussie, know that he would be walking that route early in the morning, and have brought bleach and a cord with them. The route is only about 5 minutes or so, so they have little time to run into Jussie.

They could have seen Jussie at the Subway, and they could know where he lives, so they could know where and how to intercept him.

So I don't find it unbelievable that some attackers were able to intercept him on his way home.

This keeps being said, and sorry if I've missed it in this thread of naysaying, but where are you getting that the liquid must have been bleach? As far as I've seen Smollett only claimed it was a liquid and the police claimed to have smelled bleach.

 

[Steve]

It's peddling a conspiracy theory under the guise of critical thinking.

And why do I think a lot of "this was fake" talking points are coming off of right wing websites?

Why "conspiracy"? See below.

Last time I checked, actors have never been immune to the human activity of doing obviously stupid crap that could wreck their career.

Actors are also not immune from ingesting chemicals that could make them do stupid crap without even realizing it's stupid.

There was a time in the 70's where my friends and I would partake of Dr. Hoffman's discovery. Some of the things we did would have made no sense at all to any casual observer. There was no purpose or "why". They just happened. We were not celebrities, there was no social media, and no-one had cameras so there was no publicity. Times are different now but the effect of said illicit chemicals is still the same.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well, MAGA is written on the letter sent earlier.

So I don't discount anything on that either.

If you believe the letter and the attack are connected, then MAGA fits.

 

[carlitos]

What on earth is extraordinary about a lone black man being mugged by white guys on the streets of urban America?

My unhelpful anecdote would be that 2 white guys mugging a black guy in Streeterville sounds pretty unusual. But I was wondering about this so I looked and found a summary of a study. Here's the link to the PDF of the original study.



Short version - the vast majority of violent crimes are committed by folks of the same race as the victim. White on black would be rare, as black on white would also be rare (just very slightly less rare).

Some 57 percent of crimes involving white victims were committed by white perpetrators, while only 15 percent were committed by blacks, and 11 percent by Hispanics. Black crime victims fell along similar racial lines, with 63 percent of the crimes committed by black perpetrators, while 11 percent were committed by whites, and 6.6 percent by Hispanics.

Overall, the BJS reported, “the percentage of intraracial [that is, same-race] victimization was higher than the percentage of interracial victimization for all types of violent crime except robbery.”


Moreover, it explained, “the rate of white-on-white violent crime (12.0 per 1,000) was about four times higher than black-on-white violent crime (3.1 per 1,000). The rate of black-on-black crime (16.5 per 1,000) was more than five times higher than white-on-black violent crime (2.8 per 1,000). The rate of Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime (8.3 per 1,000) was about double the rate of white-on-Hispanic (4.1 per 1,000) and black-on-Hispanic (4.2 per 1,000) violent crime.”

 

[LTC8K6]

This keeps being said, and sorry if I've missed it in this thread of naysaying, but where are you getting that the liquid must have been bleach? As far as I've seen Smollett only claimed it was a liquid and the police claimed to have smelled bleach.

Okay, they were carrying a container of liquid that smelled like bleach. It doesn't really matter.

 

[Elagabalus]

Well, you would need the attackers to recognize Jussie, know that he would be walking that route early in the morning, and have brought bleach and a cord with them. The route is only about 5 minutes or so, so they have little time to run into Jussie.

They could have seen Jussie at the Subway, and they could know where he lives, so they could know where and how to intercept him.

So I don't find it unbelievable that some attackers were able to intercept him on his way home.

Actually, it might have been a crime of opportunity i.e. they went for the guy walking down the street and recognized him from the show. Your police pdf says only that an unknown liquid substance was poured on him so they wouldn't necessarily be carrying bleach around with them either.

 

[Cavemonster]

calling this guy a celebrity is a bit rich, ain't it? He is a bit player.

But now we have some meat on the bones! You are claiming that he was "being followed"? The cops have looked at hundreds of hours of video and have not seen that at all.

Hmmm.

ITS MAGA COUNTRY!

I'm making a claim now? Where?

 

[LTC8K6]

Actually, it might have been a crime of opportunity i.e. they went for the guy walking down the street and recognized him from the show. Your police pdf says only that an unknown liquid substance was poured on him so they wouldn't necessarily be carrying bleach around with them either.

Jesus, I'm agreeing that the story is not "unbelievable" and I'm getting flak...

 

[LTC8K6]

What is narrowing down the possibility that this attack occurred on the way back from Subway is the time frame and the video cameras.

There's nothing else that I would question as "impossible" in the story.

 

[The Big Dog]

Well, MAGA is written on the letter sent earlier.

So I don't discount anything on that either.

If you believe the letter and the attack are connected, then MAGA fits.

Yeah, they are connected!

/right now, I think the letter is as fake as our hero's story about the MAGA COUNTRY tough boys staking out our hero to give him some bad words and a tiny cut on the cheek.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

This keeps being said, and sorry if I've missed it in this thread of naysaying, but where are you getting that the liquid must have been bleach? As far as I've seen Smollett only claimed it was a liquid and the police claimed to have smelled bleach.

This is the one fact abut the incident that you want to question?!

 

[LTC8K6]

If the police smelled bleach ~45 minutes after the attack, how strong would that smell have been at the time of the attack?

Assuming the police were indeed smelling the residue of what was thrown on Smollett.

 

[baron]

Yeah, they are connected!

/right now, I think the letter is as fake as our hero's story about the MAGA COUNTRY tough boys staking out our hero to give him some bad words and a tiny cut on the cheek.

And what is that cut on his cheek anyway? That doesn't look like it came from a punch. Looks like a scratch from a nail to me. Not the kind of thing you'd get from being attacked by two guys, especially two guys wearing gloves.