Go Away, Fool

P rior to January 29, 2019, Jussie Smollett was a little-known actor. Had you ever heard of him? I hadn’t. After January 29, 2019, Smollett became very well known indeed. Which was the whole point. He wanted to be well known. He wanted to be a national symbol. He got what he wanted.

And yesterday he was sentenced to 150 days in prison for the utterly ridiculous stunt he staged to increase his profile, and raise his wages, on . . . whatever that show was that he used to be on. According to his accomplices, eleven days prior to the hoax, which I venture to say is today the most notorious fictitious hate crime in American history, Smollett mailed himself a cartoonishly threatening letter (the return address, in felt-tip pen, read, “MAGA” and appeared to have been scrawled by a toddler, which it was). The letter, organized like one of those kidnappers’ missives from 1930s Hollywood, featured cut-up letters from magazines spelling out the legend, “YOU WILL DIE FAG.” Smollett even took care to add a dangerous-looking white powder (crushed-up Tylenol) to the envelope. The world shrugged. People in the public eye get hate mail all the time (ask anyone at NR). It doesn’t mean much, even if you’re black. Even the stick-figure drawing of a lynching on the letter didn’t deliver massive fame, or a raise, to Smollett.

So, one week after Smollett received the letter he sent himself, he staged the clownish attack that asked the world to believe two black friends of Smollett happened to be walking in the same neighborhood as he on a frosty night, armed with a noose, and instead of saying “Hello, there, Jussie,” they suddenly threw out racist and homophobic slurs and “MAGA!” and then threw either bleach or an unknown liquid on him (depending on which of Smollett’s accounts you are hearing), then tussled with him, leaving him with no injuries except an adorable little scrape, then ran away without robbing him, but left the noose dangling around his neck like a style statement. What’s the purpose of attacking someone and running away? Why would black, two-man lynch mobs be prowling late-night Chicago in January? Who bothers to carry out an attack without robbing or seriously hurting the victim? On a frigid night? Why did Smollett casually saunter home, still wearing the supposedly trauma-inducing noose, then wait 40 minutes before calling the police?

Smollett should not only be imprisoned for lying about America’s most inflammatory subject, he should be given additional punishment for lousy script-writing. Even Aaron Sorkin wouldn’t have engineered such an on-the-nose lefty-fantasy scenario.

If, at any point in this farce, Smollett had come clean and said, “Yes, I made the whole thing up to get attention, and I’m very sorry,” he not only would have escaped jail time, he would probably have escaped prosecution. After all, no one was hurt, unless you count Smollett himself (that teensy-tiny little smudge of a mark under his eye, exactly the damage level you’d expect from a vicious hate-crime beating).

Instead, Smollett continued to lie, committed perjury on the stand right under the judge’s nose, and lied on his way out the door. “I’m innocent!” he screamed after Judge James Linn issued the sentence, which includes 30 months of probation and $145,000 in fines and restitution.

“If I did this,” Smollett claimed, “then it means that I shoved my fist in the fears of black Americans in this country for over 400 years and the fears of the LGBTQ community.” Huh? You shoved a “fist in the fears”? Get help, Jussie, starting with a ghostwriter.

“Your honor, I respect you and I respect your decision,” he continued, “but I did not do this and I am not suicidal. If anything happens to me when I go in there, I did not do it to myself, and you must all know that.” Smollett thinks he’s going to get killed in prison? More likely he’s going to be laughed at for being the most ridiculous convict the system has ever seen. “Juicy Smollée,” his fellow inmates will snicker whenever they see him coming.

In any case, if Smollett feared prison, he should have availed himself of the option of . . . not carrying out a fake hate crime and lying about it for three years. Racial (and homophobic) attacks are serious business, and for Smollett to mock them in order to promote his brand was a crime against the nation. America needs Smollett to go behind bars. Go away, fool.