Jussie Smollett Indicted on New Charges

It’s been a little over a year since most Americans first heard of Jussie Smollett, and almost exactly a year since his story about being attacked by MAGA-hatted racists, in sub-zero Chicago weather, fell apart completely. Smollett managed to stay out of jail for perpetrating a hate-crime hoax, but he got fired from his Fox show Empire and he hasn’t worked since. He embarrassed all the people, including several presidential candidates, who defended him and held him up as an example of the racism in Trump’s America. Then everybody moved on to the next fake outrage, and the next, and the next. But the city of Chicago hasn’t forgotten what Smollett did to them, and now he’s going to stand to account for it.

CBS Chicago:

Actor Jussie Smollett has been indicted on new charges, according to sources with direct knowledge of the case, following a six-month investigation by a special prosecutor looking into police claims he paid two brothers to stage a fake hate crime against himself last year…

Last August, Cook County Judge Michael Toomin appointed [Dan] Webb, a former federal prosecutor, as a special prosecutor in the Smollett case; tasking him to not only investigate Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s handling of the case, but to decide if Smollett should be further prosecuted for allegedly staging a fake hate crime against himself.

At the time, Webb said he was essentially starting the investigation of the whole case over from scratch.

This can’t be how Jussie thought it was going to go, can it?

For whatever it’s worth, for once I was right all along. I was skeptical of this guy from the start:

This is the actor who claims that two masked men screamed MAGA slogans while attacking him with ropes and bleach at 2 AM in subzero temps outside a Subway sandwich shop in Chicago. I think I’m going to wait for more information. pic.twitter.com/mpwPcelhwb

— It’s still 2016 apparently (@jtLOL) January 30, 2019

As Dave Chappelle explained it in his 2019 comedy special Sticks & Stones:

The whole country was up in arms. We was talking about it all the time on the news, and for some reason, African-Americans, we were oddly quiet. We were so quiet about the $#!+ that the gay community started accusing the African-American community of being homophobic for not supporting him. But what they didn’t understand is that we were supporting him with our silence. Because we understood that this [fellow] was clearly lying.

That was when the bottom dropped out for Jussie. Getting clowned on by Chappelle, man. After that, it was okay not to pretend anymore. Using the rational part of your brain wasn’t racist or homophobic.

But no matter what happens to Jussie Smollett, it won’t keep people from staging these hate-crime hoaxes. Whether it’s “racist notes” on restaurant receipts, or poop swastikas smeared on the walls of campus bathrooms, or whatever else, people love to make themselves victims. They crave victimhood so much that when people aren’t bigoted toward them, they just concoct their own hate crime. Because they know “journalists” eat that stuff up with a spoon.

If you want to stop outrage-mongers, stop being outraged all the time. Just because a story confirms your assumptions about the world, that doesn’t mean it’s true. If Jussie Smollett has at least taught you that much, his efforts weren’t entirely in vain.