“hate crimes against black people are usually hoaxes” is a bandwagon
as bandwagons go, not recommended
that one is not going anywhere good
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Other than his gig on the show Empire and his famous family, I don’t know much about him either; but no, to my knowledge, there were previously no obvious signs of this immense lack of intelligence, foresight and self preservation.
He’s just burned his bridge with the Black community with this dumbass stunt.
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The problem is decent people actually have to make progress against all the assholes and vile scum by proving every time that they actually were victimized.
Racist trolls, Liars scumbags and of course the president and his delightfully ignorant supporters have literally made a war on the facts. To anyone stupid enough with no critical thinking to follow them, any lie works but the only thing that works even better is proving with facts the one time they choose to actually believe them when someone pulls shit like this and they can legitimately play the victim.
Every time someone who sides with facts, critical thinking, or is actually maligned by bad forces does something like this it sets us back leaps and bounds compared to the other side- who invent ground to stand on all the time, while we have to prove and validate our ground against reality in the face of unceasing lies.
This guy can go fuck himself with a tire iron sideways.
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Here are two stories:
- A couple of white guys went out looking for a black guy to beat up.
- Someone hired people to beat them up as a publicity stunt and paid them with a check.
Which of those two things do you think happens more often in America?
If you think that we should doubt stories because their details are unlikely, why aren’t you doubting this story?
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Well, okay, this one made me smile.
If they write it into the series (as the kind of move a Lyon would make), art imitates life imitating art imitating life.
There are reports that he pulled some shenanigans on a DUI stop in L.A. in 2007 (like saying he was his brother - not cool). There’s also the possibility that he sent a threat letter to himself leading up to the current incident. I suppose that could be using foresight rather than lacking it.
I do wonder if the Chicago PD gave him an opportunity to fess up and publicly apologize in exchange for lighter treatment. I have mixed feelings about the choice to arrest. On the one hand maybe in and of itself that’s a publicity stunt by the PD; on the other, the alleged assailants’ lives were at risk. But surprise third hand, these same bozos consented and carried out the deed right? It almost bears the stamp of the Brothers Coen.
We’re all in this together!
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… and it was totally believable because… well, just look at those assholes.
Not really. I doubt most people will remember this happened a few weeks from now.
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I don’t know… maybe try living in a society that is consistent hostile to your very existence. It’s not a lot of fun and it screws with your mental health.
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Of course. Not many bows in their quivers, so they have to use ad nauseum what little they have.
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When Trump heard that Smollett was outright lying about politically motivated persecution solely to benefit himself, his first thought must have been, “Amateur…”
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Apparently it’s sardonicism.
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Also, didn’t Smollett start with a fake threat sent to him? Given that, I was initially assuming they were specifically looking for him, and not just randomly lurking around to attack someone.
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“Well you see,” one attacker began, “a black person raped a friend of mine…”
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that word, i don’t think it means what you think it means.
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Thanks
Ironic - irony
Sardonic - sardonicism
I do love English.
(And still prefer the idea of sardony - it sounds a bit more, well … darker?)
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A series of ricearonicisms…
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In the context of what was written, and the clear intent of the writer to say there were (in their view) some dubious (doubtful) circumstances at the time, it seems a perfectly cromulent use of the word here.
And then there’s
Tonic - Tony
Bionic - biony
Sonic - Sony (now, come to think of it…)
I’d better stop now.
Those are fair points and I apologize for anything I said which gave the impression that we should start doubting the victim before the facts are in. That’s not what I was trying to get across.
There are probably several dozen black, gay men assaulted in the USA every single day. Why don’t they get headlines on bb and everywhere else?
Smollett wanted page one, eighty point national headlines, and he seeded his report with all the necessary bait (“MAGA”, “n-------”,“f-------”) to create the impression that this was a political assault. The media went for that bait like a hungry bass for a shiny, wiggly lure.
And the bigger the story at first, the worse and more damaging the letdown. People who are calling this a cataclysmic setback for civil rights should bear that in mind.
Believe the next person who comes forward with an assault story? Absolutely. Turn the victim into an icon of national significance? That can wait a little.
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Really? That assertion feels as alarmist as Trump’s rhetoric about legions of illegal immigrants coming over the border to rape and murder us and I’d argue this type of divisive fearmongering rhetoric (MAGA white nationalists are roaming the streets hunting LGBT people of color!) is just as useful to politicians on the left as Trump’s fearmongering about Central Americans is with his base. The FBI catalogued 5,024 hate crimes against people in 2017, which is a rate of about 1.5 per 100,000 residents. For comparison, the murder rate in DC in 2018 (where I live and have been a victim of violent crime twice) was 23 per 100,000 people.
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If you have bows in you quiver, you are very very confused about how the whole thing works… Oh, I see what you did there. Well played, sir, well played indeed!
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