The Jussie Smollett Affair

[HomerJS]

As I said before, you should not conclude he was lying. What makes my position different was that I also saw nothing to conclude he was telling the truth. We don't have to know why he did it to know that what he claimed was a lie. Now, it would be nice to have a motive, but, motive is not required.

What I and others tried to explain is that until there is evidence to show one way or another, that it was faulty to believe either. You seem to take the position that you should believe until proven otherwise. That is silly.

If he isn't lying then what is he doing? He is either mistaken or telling the truth.

Turns out in this case he was lying. You can still believe someone yet wait for facts to come in before concluding case closed.

If you kids school sends you a note with some accusation and your child denies it, is your child lying? If it doesn't sound plausible I would be default to believing my child but still contact the school to get more details. If it turns out my child was lying there would be hell to pay, for the incident and lying about it.

Blacks, LGBTQ people and Hollywood empathized with the story. That was my position.

I had no problem with people not believing him. There were people in the above group who doubted the story. I had a problem with the same knee jerk cast of characters who never believe claims of black people. You know who they are in this forum.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Ah ok

 

[HomerJS]

But are they more likely though. Are racial based crimes actually on the rise or is just your percaption of them are?

Go read the FBI crime stats yourself

 

[HomerJS]

FBI reports hate crimes are on the rise. That is super complicated, but, there is an increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html

This incident is a little different. This claim was different though.

If it went down like he claimed that's exactly what this would have been. Maybe knew that and used it to manipulate.

 

[realibrad]

If he isn't lying then what is he doing? He is either mistaken or telling the truth.

Without getting to down into the weeds about intent and what not, the answer to you is "we don't know yet". You simply hold back judgement while its being investigated.

Try this.

I ate breakfast. That statement is plausible right? Do you have any reason to believe it other than I claimed it to be? What is your position on it currently?

Turns out in this case he was lying. You can still believe someone yet wait for facts to come in before concluding case closed.

Why believe true/false? You can investigate while lacking belief in either. I think that is where you are getting stuck.

If you kids school sends you a note with some accusation and your child denies it, is your child lying? If it doesn't sound plausible I would be default to believing my child but still contact the school to get more details. If it turns out my child was lying there would be hell to pay, for the incident and lying about it.

Possibly, or, possibly not. What makes your analogy is that we have two agents in your hypothetical and we can slide the bar a little toward whomever has more credibility. Even still, you do not have to believe either side with just a claim.

Blacks, LGBTQ people and Hollywood empathized with the story. That was my position.

Why does that matter in terms of finding truth?

I had no problem with people not believing him. There were people in the above group who doubted the story. I had a problem with the same knee jerk cast of characters who never believe claims of black people. You know who they are in this forum.

Why should Black people be believed more or less than any other person? I personally believe far too many on this forum have a bias of people that drives them to create a motive that does not always exist. I get that you dislike Someone and UC, but, that is your bias of who and what you think they are. You took a short cut with the story and their beliefs when you did not need to. You do not have to believe something is immediately true or false. I'm not saying to go extreme and ignore past behavior, but, you went too far with believing for the reasons you listed.

 

[realibrad]

If it went down like he claimed that's exactly what this would have been. Maybe knew that and used it to manipulate.

From what I understand, attacks are not usually as explicit as this one was claimed to be. Its rare for them to be planned out like this would have been.

 

[Hugo Drax]

Whats odd is he did not seem to be the kind of person to be chasing this kind of attention. Something triggered him to first have this letter sent to himself and then soon after the staged attack. I think the motive was financial, why else risk a career for brownie points from the coastal elites? I read that the ratings on the show was dropping. This seemed like an easy way to boost his status amongst his viewers and the coastal elites. He jumped on the talking circuit, his shows got packed with people now interested in attending, I wonder if the ratings for Empire went up after the attack.

I think it was just a good old fashioned confidence game on his part, he figured this was the easiest way to jumpstart his career. His mistake was he underestimated Chicago PD. Those guys layed the trap and he got snagged.

His mistake is continuing to dig deeper into the lie, it will eventually get to the point of no return. He would have been better off quickly admitting his error. Maybe blame it on Sleeping pills?

 

[UNCjigga]

With the possible exception of wearing the rope, all of those things came out in the days after the initial story broke.

I neither believed nor disbelieved him initially. The arguments for a hoax seemed premature to me. Didn't take long before it started to look that way to me though. But not on that first day.



I have no issue with the skepticism. My issue is with people being celebratory about it being a hoax. It isn't something to celebrate.

I think it’s hilarious how certain posters in this thread are reveling in their ignorance, trying to “shame” anyone who believed Jussie’s hoax immediately after it was reported in the media. Certain “slow” individuals are celebrating the fact that they alone were able to dismiss his claims based on...what? Not needing facts? A hunch that a gay black man claiming to be attacked by MAGAmen in Chicago just made the whole thing up? These forum members are just admitting that they didn’t need any facts to condemn this as a hoax. Every other sane person waited roughly 48 hours until:
- Chicago PD said they couldn’t find any attack on video.
- Timeline established that Jussie waited a while to go to the hospital and then claimed not to notice the noose.
- Images of the threatening letter/envelope came out.

Anyone else waiting to condemn this was just waiting on official word from Chicago PD that this was now a hoax investigation.

 

[HomerJS]

Without getting to down into the weeds about intent and what not, the answer to you is "we don't know yet". You simply hold back judgement while its being investigated.

Try this.

I ate breakfast. That statement is plausible right? Do you have any reason to believe it other than I claimed it to be? What is your position on it currently?



Why believe true/false? You can investigate while lacking belief in either. I think that is where you are getting stuck.



Possibly, or, possibly not. What makes your analogy is that we have two agents in your hypothetical and we can slide the bar a little toward whomever has more credibility. Even still, you do not have to believe either side with just a claim.



Why does that matter in terms of finding truth?



Why should Black people be believed more or less than any other person? I personally believe far too many on this forum have a bias of people that drives them to create a motive that does not always exist. I get that you dislike Someone and UC, but, that is your bias of who and what you think they are. You took a short cut with the story and their beliefs when you did not need to. You do not have to believe something is immediately true or false. I'm not saying to go extreme and ignore past behavior, but, you went too far with believing for the reasons you listed.

Did you go back and read my first sentence in the OP? Now apply it to everything you said. Does it not apply?

 

[HurleyBird]

FBI reports hate crimes are on the rise. That is super complicated, but, there is an increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html

From your link:

Reporting hate crimes to the F.B.I. is currently voluntary. Last year, roughly a thousand more agencies submitted data than those that did the previous year.

The F.B.I. said it planned to train law enforcement officers next year on how to do a better job of identifying and reporting bias-motivated incidents. The Justice Department has also launched a new website on hate crimes.

More hate crimes, or more likely to report hate crimes and more being classified as hate crimes that weren't previously?

 

[realibrad]

Did you go back and read my first sentence in the OP? Now apply it to everything you said. Does it not apply?

I did, and your first post was not the problem. Your first post is effectively linking to the story. Your 2nd post in the thread is the start of the problem.

Right, because it is in the best interest of a successful actor to make this shit up.

Anything to deny the uptick in racist and anti Semitic attacks since your boy took office. I guess he inspires you as well.

Maybe I'll send a note to Idris Elba, dude why don't you toss away your entire acting career and make up a story of MAGA heads attacking you.

His post was perfectly reasonable, and yet you claim that Trump is inspiring him to be anti Semetic. Your tone is insulting for a reasonable position. You can point back to your OP but that ignores what you did on post 16. See the problem?

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

From your link:



More hate crimes, or more likely to report hate crimes and more being classified as hate crimes that weren't previously?

FBI reports hate crimes are on the rise. That is super complicated, but, there is an increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html

This incident is a little different. This claim was different though.

Yeah that has to be quite a tricky to always define what hate crimes are. A white person can yell "Fuck you n*" before shooting him, but if the ultimate drive was just a drug deal that went bad - is it still a hate crime? The intent to kill came from a bad business deal (financial/monetary), not a racial intent of finding one race to be superior/inferior.

I'm guessing they aren't all as obvious as a white racist shithead shooting up a black church.

 

[HomerJS]

Why should Black people be believed more or less than any other person? I personally believe far too many on this forum have a bias of people that drives them to create a motive that does not always exist. I get that you dislike Someone and UC, but, that is your bias of who and what you think they are. You took a short cut with the story and their beliefs when you did not need to. You do not have to believe something is immediately true or false. I'm not saying to go extreme and ignore past behavior, but, you went too far with believing for the reasons you listed.

They shouldn't I'm basing my problem not on just who they are but posting history. Why would I feel good about anyone who's knee jerk reaction to a black person involved in a crime to use the word thug? Just an example.

If you go back and look at my postings in this thread I never said it went down like he claimed. I did post items that supported his claim. While I believed him that was personal I didn't state that here even though one could conclude.

I'm not doing like many here running away when wrong. I can own up to it.

 

[realibrad]

From your link:



More hate crimes, or more likely to report hate crimes and more being classified as hate crimes that weren't previously?

That is why I said it was complicated. From what I understand, its still on the rise even if we don't do a good job of reporting.

 

[HurleyBird]

That is why I said it was complicated. From what I understand, its still on the rise even if we don't do a good job of reporting.

If the error bars appear to be as significant as they sound, it's probably best not to make a claim about the trend one way or the other. Of course, if there's a statistical analysis somewhere that accounts for at least the seemingly increasing reporting bias, I'd love to see it.

 

[HomerJS]

I did, and your first post was not the problem. Your first post is effectively linking to the story. Your 2nd post in the thread is the start of the problem.



His post was perfectly reasonable, and yet you claim that Trump is inspiring him to be anti Semetic. Your tone is insulting for a reasonable position. You can point back to your OP but that ignores what you did on post 16. See the problem?

So at this point in time the story was 24 hours old and the response is ...

I'm sorry but this absolutely REEKS of victim culture mentality akin to poop swastika.

In other words there goes those black people again claiming victim hood over nothing.

Now, what did we know at that time justified that response other then his tendancy to claim black people just make stuff up?

 

[realibrad]

They shouldn't I'm basing my problem not on just who they are but posting history. Why would I feel good about anyone who's knee jerk reaction to a black person involved in a crime to use the word thug? Just an example.

Their posting history is what establishes what and who you think they are. In this context, their history is what they are.

A person could use thug and not mean it in a racist way. A person could use it in a racist way. I believe that instantly labeling that person as a racist for using the word thug is flawed. That said, it is popular to do on this forum.

If you go back and look at my postings in this thread I never said it went down like he claimed. I did post items that supported his claim. While I believed him that was personal I didn't state that here even though one could conclude.

That is not addressing you calling someone anti Semitic because that person disbelieved. You clearly did what I posted as a response to someone saying it was fishy. There is no avoiding that.

I'm not doing like many here running away when wrong. I can own up to it.

While it does not matter, you absolutely have stood your ground and admitted you got this wrong and I do respect that. My respect means little to nothing, but, it is given by me to you for this incident. That is part of the reason I am taking the time to give you my opinion and not being insulting. You are being open and honest and I think that is respectable.

 

[UglyCasanova]

There were lots of red flags right from the get go. We didn’t not believe him because he was black. We didn’t believe him because whenever a story smells fishy there’s usually a reason.

 

[realibrad]

So at this point in time the story was 24 hours old and the response is ...


In other words there goes those black people again claiming victim hood over nothing.

Now, what did we know at that time justified that response other then his tendency to claim black people just make stuff up?

But, you are missing that the poop thing was also a fabrication. Look at it like this, we have yet another accusation of something that seems quite extreme about race. We have had a string of these false claims. The poop incident, the MEGA school boys, and now this. He is perfectly right to say that this type of thing being so extreme with little details does fit. He could have been wrong, but, he was right I think you are seeing it as a Black thing when I think its really not.

I don't know Someone, and I don't believe we have ever exchanged PMs. I'm not defending him, so much as what he did as its what I also did here which was to hold back belief because of what we did and did not know.

Black people lie, not because they are Black, but, because they are people.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

So at this point in time the story was 24 hours old and the response is ...


In other words there goes those black people again claiming victim hood over nothing.

Now, what did we know at that time justified that response other then his tendancy to claim black people just make stuff up?

It's not over nothing. It is because I know that crimes aren't complex. They aren't those stupid fucking crime scene investigation shows that you like to imagine.

No one makes this elaborate plan to set things up magically to get a fucking sandwich and somehow some masked people have everything setup to beat the person up - but not bad enough to not grab your sandwich and go walk home ... All while somehow figuratively deciding to tie a rope around their neck as some sort of symbolism (but not actual damage).... Add on top of that - someone deciding to bottle up some bleach ahead of time and throw it on someone? It's just FAR too much. If someone is racist and wants to injure someone - they fucking injure them. They don't do symbolism. The guy had a cut or something he made on his cheek - he didn't have broken bones or ropeburn from suffocation.

On top of that, this was when the polar vortex was going on - it doesn't take a genius to know the freezing temperature of bleach and knowing that it would be frozen fucking solid in that weather.

Also what kind of a MAGA person watches a show about a gay black male to even know him, his name, or his show?

Do some analysis - and quit giving criminals so much credit like they are super dooper genius'. Criminals are fucking retarded. It's why they get caught...

 

[SlowSpyder]

FBI reports hate crimes are on the rise. That is super complicated, but, there is an increase.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/us/hate-crimes-fbi-2017.html

This incident is a little different. This claim was different though.

But what people need to understand is that this picture is very foggy. It all is about how the crime is classified. Workplace violence, mass shooting, hate crime, terror, good ol' fashion violent crime, etc. can all overlap. A motive doesn't have to fit nicely into any one category.

 

[realibrad]

But what people need to understand is that this picture is very foggy. It all is about how the crime is classified. Workplace violence, mass shooting, hate crime, terror, good ol' fashion violent crime, etc. can all overlap. A motive doesn't have to fit nicely into any one category.

Yep, that is why I said its complicated.

 

[HurleyBird]

Assuming that hate crimes are on the rise and it's not just reporting bias, attribution itself is tricky. A Democrat will blame the President, and a Republican will blame the media, BLM, and race-baiting liberals.

The ADL says that antisemitism is surging. Is there reporting bias there too? How much of the alleged increase in hate crimes is due to the alleged increase in antisemitism? Trump is probably the most pro-Jew and pro-Israel president the US has ever had, yet one of his fans shot up a synagogue. How do you attribute culpability?

 

[Ichinisan]

So at this point in time the story was 24 hours old and the response is ...

I'm sorry but this absolutely REEKS of victim culture mentality akin to poop swastika. ...

In other words there goes those black people again claiming victim hood over nothing.

Now, what did we know at that time justified that response other then his tendancy to claim black people just make stuff up?

He called it based on intuition from what he saw. I could have done that, but chose not to because I didn't want to deal with the groupthink shit show (such as your next post in the thread).

You cannot claim the intuition was incorrect.

 

[HomerJS]

That is not addressing you calling someone anti Semitic because that person disbelieved. You clearly did what I posted as a response to someone saying it was fishy. There is no avoiding that.

This is what I actually said...

Anything to deny the uptick in racist and anti Semitic attacks since your boy took office. I guess he inspires you as well.

In others words despite the spike in theses kinds of attacks your immediate assumption is black people crying wolf. Again the case just broke. That's quite different then just not believing him which is fine. That' would have been like me saying at that point, "I knew those white Trump supporters were just out to attack black people."

He does seem to be inspired by Trump's behavior which includes all the racism and antisemitism