Hate crimes are no joke. Every day someone is a victim of a hate crime. Some people even die from them, and some have trust issues with people because of what happened. That is why when the whole Jussie Smollett situation happened it made me really angry.
Jussie, when that happened back in January you had a lot of people really worried about you. People were turning against one another because of what happened. I was worried that a race war was going to start.
To do this because you didn't like your salary on "Empire?" There are other ways you could have settled this without wasting the time of the CPD. You know that Chicago is one of the biggest crime-ridden places—I mean, I hope you would have known that considering you live there. The police have enough to deal with, with murders taking place almost every week.
With what happened now I worry that victims of actual hate crimes won't be taken seriously. This is not a joke, this is the reality. This is not a TV show where everything is made up. This is the real world.
And the noose, really? You do realize that several African Americans have been lynched, right? Maybe you should read up on your history.
I feel like your punishment should be a lesson to what you have done. I think that you should volunteer at an LGBTQ+ center and see what others went through and what they are fearing every day.
I don't know why you had to do what you did, but you need serious help. No one just wakes up and decides to fake an attack, taking advantage of the divide that our country is already facing.
For everyone regardless of what your political views are, this is kind of action is not excusable and just because he is famous he definitely should not get a free pass.
I am doing a separate piece on this later on, however, I just want to say that I have many friends in those communities, and they have been through stuff—some of them might have been through the thing that you staged just because you wanted more money.
You need to make things right, you need to apologize not just to the police and the "Empire" cast, but to the communities that you belong to. You really let them down because they look up to someone like you as a role model. When you came out, I'm sure you inspired several others to come out as well.
So if you want to save your career, start doing damage control. Get out there and start using your fame to bring people together, not divide people further.
