It is not uncommon for a story to completely envelop the headlines for days at a time which can often creep its way into our politics and create movements. We often tend to believe the most heinous stories. These stories unite us against the awful things we are capable of as a people. Unfortunately this can create an incentive to be in the spotlight for the wrong reasons

On January 29th, a story broke detailing a hate crime committed against Jussie Smollett, a star in the show "Empire". In his report he detailed that the two attackers recognized him from his show and initiated the attack with homophobic slurs and telling him "This is MAGA country" before assaulting him with bleach and repeated blows to his face and body. This attack immediately garnered national attention. Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Cory Booker described it as a "Modern day lynching." as well as Nancy Pelosi calling the attack "An affront to our humanity." All sentiments that we can agree on, had the attack happened the way Smollett described.

Not long after the story broke, skepticism began to take hold mostly among critics of Smollett's left leaning political history. It would seem that it was merely fueled by contempt for Jussie himself rather than the event, however, the evidence gathered by the Chicago Police department left some rather large holes in his initial story. It was reported that Smollett was only out of CCTV footage for 60 seconds before returning to view with a small rope around his neck. Additionally the only other people caught on camera at the scene of the crime did not fit the description of the men that Smollett claimed attacked him. Following this report skepticism hit an all time high and many began questioning the validity of his claims.

Days later, police were able to apprehend the two persons of interest caught on video in the area of the attack, and what they found was troubling. The two men were brothers of Nigerian descent and one of them had previously been an extra on Empire. During an interrogation of the gentlemen, they admit that Smollett had engaged them about staging a hate crime to gain national attention, even going as far to rehearse it weeks before. Additionally, the brothers told police that the hate letter that was sent to Jussie earlier in the month had been sent my himself. The FBI is now investigating, as sending such mail is a federal crime.

While it is fortunate that an actual hate crime did not happen, some have taken this opportunity to retroactively accuse some of faking hate crimes, or to discredit future ones. This is not the takeaway we should have from this event. It is important to remember that Jussie Smollett is an individual acting as an individual and is not indicative of any group of society at large. It would be a colossal mistake to let this event get in the way of future hate crime investigations, as they do happen and have real victims who will suffer because of Smollett's actions. It would seem that Smollett was using the current divisive nature of our country to promote himself in society, which only stands to create more division. Division that, if left unchecked, will keep creating events like this.