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Saturday, February 23, 2019
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[The actor Jussie Smollett left the Cook County Jail in Chicago after his release on Thursday.](
The actor Jussie Smollett left the Cook County Jail in Chicago after his release on Thursday. Kamil Krzaczynski/Associated Press
[Lauretta Charlton]
Lauretta Charlton
It has been painful to watch the downfall of the actor Jussie Smollett.
By now, you are familiar with his story. In January he claimed to have been attacked by two Trump supporters on a cold night in Chicago. Smollett, who is gay and black, recounted that they shouted âThis is MAGA country,â roughed him up, called him racial and homophobic slurs and put a noose around his neck.
But according to Chicago police, it was all a hoax. The actor practiced and staged the charade and paid two co-conspirators â Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo â to carry out the attack, authorities say, because he was dissatisfied with his salary on the show âEmpire,â for which he has a starring role.
In the immediate aftermath of Smollettâs claim, we wrote about the unique challenge of being black and gay, and how that identity can make one feel especially vulnerable. âJussie is us. That couldâve been any of us,â said a friend of [my colleague Pierre-Antoine Louis](.
A few of you wrote in to say that Smollettâs story sounded fishy from the very beginning and that it was too soon to jump to conclusions. That, as we have learned, was absolutely right. But it is also true that [hate crimes have been on the rise]( for three years, and that three out of five hate crimes in 2017 were motivated by race.
Once the news broke that the reported attack may have been orchestrated by Smollett, Pierre said he felt âembarrassedâ and was worried that people would question his own experience. But he added: âJust because thereâs one false report doesnât mean that the issues we face daily arenât real.â
False reports of hate crimes are extremely rare â less than 1 percent of those reported, [according to some studies]( â but they tend to draw attention, making it easier for people to denounce them as identity politics [run amok]( or simply what happens when we treat victimhood as currency.
Smollett was arrested on a felony charge Thursday, and his legal team has denied the claims made by the police. âHe wants nothing more than to clear his name,â [said Jack Prior]( one of Smollettâs lawyers.
Eddie T. Johnson, the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department, was visibly upset during a news conference about Smollett. He said the actor had [taken advantage of the pain and anger of racism]( draining resources that could have been used to investigate crimes for which people were actually suffering.
âI just wish that the families of gun violence in this city got this much attention,â he said.
I do too.Â
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Join us at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on March 5 to honor individuals from the âOverlookedâ [series](. I will discuss the series with its editor, Amy Padnani, and Veronica Chambers, an archival story editor. [Get tickets here](. Race/Related readers receive $10 off with the code NYTIMES.
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