Chicago Police chief: Smollett's motive "pissed everybody off"

By artappraiser on Thu, 02/21/2019 - 11:15am |

1:05 minute Video @ CNN.com, 25 min. ago

Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson said his department was "pissed off" when they discovered Jussie Smollett's actual motive. Moments ago, Johnson said the "Empire" actor staged the attack on himself because he was unhappy with his salary. Smollett was treated as a victim until police learned more details, Johnson said....

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https://www.cnn.com/entertainment/live-news/jussie-smollett-arrested-chicago/h_943e735c87a94f95ba3fc26aa8e0de38

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thinking right now about all of the very real, very true, very sad and very scared victims of racial and homophobic hate crimes. those who have come forward, and those who suffer in silence. my heart goes out.
— Kate Bennett (@KateBennett_DC) February 21, 2019

by artappraiser on Thu, 02/21/2019 - 11:56am

I think people are making too big a deal about this. These hoaxes are rare and happen on both the left and the right. One that sticks in my mind on the right in 2008 involves a women who carved a B for Barack on her forehead and claimed a couple of blacks did it when they discovered she was a McCain supporter.

by ocean-kat on Thu, 02/21/2019 - 12:54pm

I was thinking like you and mostly staying away from the story. But these developments today made me think a bit more on it. Why are so many so much more het up about this one? The difference is that usually it is a mentally ill person looking for attention, or someone who is borderline mentally ill obsessed with a victimhood meme, or maybe like with Tawana Brawley, a kid just trying to make up something to get out of trouble with the parental units, and then things get waaaay out of hand.

But in this case, he was already a celebrity. And he is cynically using a very au courant hot button victim issue to both amp up the celebrity factor and get more money. As if victimhood = money. And that's got special outrage factor for many more groups than usual.

by artappraiser on Thu, 02/21/2019 - 4:43pm

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