Jussie Smollett Guilty

Crime and Punishment

Jussie Smollett Guilty

Chicago jury convicts meat-beating fabulist of hate-hoax lies. Black Lives Matter says 'Racism!'

Rod Dreher

Dec 9, 2021 7:02 PM

Oh happy day! That creep Jussie Smollett, who claimed that he was attacked in a gay-bashing, was convicted today by a Chicago jury of five of six counts of lying about it:

Actor Jussie Smollett has been found guilty on five of six felony counts of disorderly conduct for making a false report to Chicago police that he was the victim of a hate crime in January 2019, an attack prosecutors said he staged.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for more than nine hours over Wednesday and Thursday.

A disorderly conduct charge for a false crime report is a Class 4 felony and punishable by up to three years in prison and a $25,000 fine. Cook County Judge James Linn will have discretion in imposing a concurrent or consecutive sentence for each count at a later date.

In 2019, when this all first happened, Facebook would not allow people to say what that Chicago jury found today was true. Facebook blocked people posting a commentary from me calling Smollett’s claims a hate hoax:

Let’s revisit some of what was said back in 2019 about the Smollett claim that he was brutalized by gay-bashers screaming, “This is MAGA country!”:

Here’s one from Nancy Pelosi; she deleted the original, but I captured the text on my 2019 post:

Don’t forget this one:

Washington Post reporter Eugene Scott wrote at the time not about Smollett’s “alleged” experience, but about the thing as if it were established fact:

Smollett’s experience is far too common for black gay men, particularly those who speak out against racism and sexism. As activist Preston Mitchum wrote:

“Everyday our multiple marginalized identities increase our chances of facing racist, homophobic vitriol — and this fact has only intensified under the Trump administration with their dog whistle politics. So as we wait to see if justice is served for Smollett, we as Black queer people wait to see if America will finally see our lives as worth protecting. Because history has rarely been on the side of Black queer folk.”

Because no black, gay man could possibly lie about being beaten up by thugs yelling, “This is MAGA country!”

Earlier this week, Black Lives Matter released the following statement:

The below is a statement from Dr. Melina Abdullah, Director of BLM Grassroots and Co-Founder of BLM Los Angeles, regarding the ongoing trial of Jussie Smollett:

As abolitionists, we approach situations of injustice with love and align ourselves with our community. Because we got us. So let’s be clear: we love everybody in our community. It’s not about a trial or a verdict decided in a white supremacist charade, it’s about how we treat our community when corrupt systems are working to devalue their lives. In an abolitionist society, this trial would not be taking place, and our communities would not have to fight and suffer to prove our worth. Instead, we find ourselves, once again, being forced to put our lives and our value in the hands of judges and juries operating in a system that is designed to oppress us, while continuing to face a corrupt and violent police department, which has proven time and again to have no respect for our lives.

In our commitment to abolition, we can never believe police, especially the Chicago Police Department (CPD) over Jussie Smollett, a Black man who has been courageously present, visible, and vocal in the struggle for Black freedom. While policing at-large is an irredeemable institution, CPD is notorious for its long and deep history of corruption, racism, and brutality. From the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, to the Burge tortures, to the murder of Laquan McDonald and subsequent cover-up, to the hundreds of others killed by Chicago police over the years and the thousands who survived abuse, Chicago police consistently demonstrate that they are among the worst of the worst. Police lie and Chicago police lie especially.

Black Lives Matter will continue to work towards the abolition of police and every unjust system. We will continue to love and protect one another, and wrap our arms around those who do the work to usher in Black freedom and, by extension, freedom for everyone else.

Frauds! Clowns! You BLM racists care nothing about the truth, only about loyalty to a narrative. Anybody who gives BLM money after this deserves to be laughed at as a fool.

While it is delightful to watch that faker get his comeuppance, we should not forget that hate hoaxes like this are designed to boost the hoaxer at the expense of making people believe that our society is full of violent bigots, and in turn causing more social mistrust and fear. I hope that in sentencing, the judge throws the book at this meat-beating fabulist: