It's likely best to not be one of the people acting immediately skeptical and instead side with the victim like a good person does.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Jussie Smollett Breaks His Silence After Vicious Attack: 'I'm OK'
- Thread starter Saya
- Start date
- Status
That's not true, you can say what you feel. The only one stopping you is you, there's plenty of discussion happening. Nobody is going to take kindly to what amounts to playing the victim, like you aren't allowed to say what you really think without the mean old mods and users holding you accountable for it. All you're doing now is the equivalent of "I'll get banned if I say what I want but I'm gonna make sure to let everyone know that".
I realize that poster is banned, but I'm loving the "hate crime don't just happen in 2019, it's too cartoonishly evil!" energy they were giving, as if we didn't see white racists showing up with shotguns to a black kid's birthday party in 2015.
Believing victims is important because you want that show of support to be there for future victims so they can feel comfortable coming forward when something horrible happens with them. The fact that people go; 'Well... this seems suspicious... not sure I believe.... etc' is what keeps victims from reporting abusers because they feel they will be met with skepticism.
It's not as if you get anything out of airing your suspicions of a victim's account, even if it comes out later it was a hoax. You get a hearty 'I told you so.' but it makes you look like a jackass in the first place for doubting their story based on feelings.
I believe victims and want them to feel safe coming forward. I believe Jussie and hope this can be resolved soon. Racist and homophobic attacks DO happen in this country, and the victims deserve our respect and to be supported while they are facing all the stress that comes from seeking justice.
It's not as if you get anything out of airing your suspicions of a victim's account, even if it comes out later it was a hoax. You get a hearty 'I told you so.' but it makes you look like a jackass in the first place for doubting their story based on feelings.
I believe victims and want them to feel safe coming forward. I believe Jussie and hope this can be resolved soon. Racist and homophobic attacks DO happen in this country, and the victims deserve our respect and to be supported while they are facing all the stress that comes from seeking justice.
All that really needs to be said and sad that it's gotta be said on page 14 on the second thread. The facts will lead where they lead but your default position should be to support and believe accusers, especially when there is no reason to doubt their honesty.
"Police can detain the potential suspects for an additional 24 hours past the 48 hour holding period under special circumstances, but it must go through the prosecutors office and has to be clear process," police said. "Detectives have probable cause that they may have been involved in an alleged crime and we are working to corroborate the allegations and investigative timeline as our investigation continues."
Expect the charges soon and the two men to be identified officially.
TMZ reporting the two brothers were booked on "battery" charges.
Expect the charges soon and the two men to be identified officially.
TMZ reporting the two brothers were booked on "battery" charges.
User Banned (Permanent): Repeatedly doubling down on banned behavior. History of severe infractions.
I have literally been called racist, dumb, homophobic, doubter of victims, and more all because I said "this story sounds weird and here is why". If that's how things should work in your mind, cool, but I see it as being far from ideal.
Also, we're attempting to have this strange conversation where you're allowed to say almost anything you want to me, including direct insults, but I'm not even allowed to actually present my position in full because I could get banned for doing so. I like this forum (faults and all), so I'd rather not get banned, and thus I'm not going to fully respond to you unless the rules around this discussion change. Frankly, I probably won't respond to you even if the thread rules do change shortly, because I'm not petty like that.
I just hope this story ultimately leads to some rule changes around here that allow for skepticism when it might be warranted, even around sensitive subjects like this one.
https://www.tmz.com/2019/02/15/juss...ttery-nigerian-brothers-empire-extras-actors/
Police have now arrested 2 men in the Jussie Smollett investigation -- 2 men with ties to "Empire" -- and TMZ has learned they were booked for battery.
The men are brothers from Nigeria named Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, and Chicago cops are now calling them "potential suspects" ... as opposed to persons of interest. We know it was their home cops raided Wednesday and seized a long list of potential evidence ... including several bottles of bleach.
Police have now arrested 2 men in the Jussie Smollett investigation -- 2 men with ties to "Empire" -- and TMZ has learned they were booked for battery.
The men are brothers from Nigeria named Olabinjo and Abimbola Osundairo, and Chicago cops are now calling them "potential suspects" ... as opposed to persons of interest. We know it was their home cops raided Wednesday and seized a long list of potential evidence ... including several bottles of bleach.
Last edited:
I sure wasn't expecting these white supremacists to be Nigerians named Olabinjo and Abimbola.
And... you didn't see an issue with immediately jumping on disbelief of an assault victim? You don't realize the precedent that sets?
What someone thinks is "reasonable suspicion" is entirely relative, as I've seen people be "reasonably suspicious" of a great many things that were absolutely not worthy of it, the most publicized one I remember being the death and rape threats against Anita Sarkeesian. So saying that people taking issue with suspicion is a problem assumes that what you feel is "reasonable suspicion" is an objective truth, when it's not.
And by voicing your subjective suspicions, you help develop and encourage a culture of distrusting victims of assault. If your intentions are noble, I'd like to think that the reasonable course of action would be to recognize what voicing your doubt of the victim's account brings about or contributes to.
If the knowledge that you have inadvertently contributed to a culture of victim blaming makes you uncomfortable, it should. It's what you do with that discomfort that matters now.
Not doubling down but instead taking heed to what could lead someone to that apparently-false conclusion would have been a better start, from my perspective.
It never was. Voicing that opinion with either the intended or unintended consequence of furthering a culture of doubting assault victims with little to nothing of legitimacy to substantiate it is. I hope that you can see the difference.
Well put.
Yup. So the Nigerian brothers had a beef with Jussie, stalked and assaulted him disguised as MAGA idiots?
Maybe? Will just check back in 7-10 days while this drama unfolds.
Smollett shared his detailed account of the alleged attack in a Thursday morning interview on "Good Morning America," in which he rejected reports that he said he told police the attackers wore Make America Great Again hats.
"I never said that," he said. "I didn't need to add anything like that. They called me a f****t, they called me a n****r. There's no which way you cut it. I don't need some MAGA hat as the cherry on some racist sundae."
This is certainly an entirely possible outcome. Their knowing him would also explain why they knew where he might be at 2 a.m.
You keep going with the victim complex. And, literally? You were literally called those things? Not by me you weren't, I haven't called you a single name. Not being fully accommodating or saccharin to you when I believe you are purposefully skirting the line is not "direct insults" by any stretch.
User Banned (1 Day): Inflammatory generalizations regarding the people of a country
I won't say I'm surprised at the people involved in a homophobic hate crime being Nigerians named Olabinjo and Abimbola, though.
I never said you called me those things, but others most certainly did. I was commenting on the broader discussion here, where I'm not allowed to fully explain my point of view, but you're allowed to question my point of view.
I believe Jussie said his attackers were white.....
There's a lot of layers to this case now and so many more questions. Was it a personal beef or were they hired? Why would they call him the N word if they were also black (is this commonly used by Nigerians as an insult against African-Americans?)? Was it staged or real? Did Jussie know it was them or have an idea?
I think it is important that no one jumps to conclusions because even if they are formally charged, we will not know these answers until they either give a confession or are found guilty.
This is so disingenuous. People are trying to transform "believe women" into "dont ever question the circumstances of a reported crime, no matter what, blindly believe the alleged victim." There were a number of strange circumstances in the original report of Smollett's attack.
You should look into the word "Akata" and the many arguments that have spawned from its use.
The very first initial reports back in January said they were masked.
That's certainly seems like it could be a possibility.
Perhaps their skimasks and cover up worked so well it fooled Jussie into thinking they were Trump supporters. Perhaps Jussie was telling everybody what truthfully happened to him and some of the weirdness in this case was the brothers attempts to throw off the scent and cover their tracks.
Soon enough, I'm sure we'll find out more about what really went down, or if this story has another twist.
ITS IS NOT OUR JOB TO SOLVE CRIMES. So having a default disbelief just seems like an assholish thing to do to someone who is probably a victim.
because when people see sketchy shit they almost never go. Omg this is terrible this thing happened, i hope they are okay but it is all so weird. Which is a fine statement vs. I dont believe this guy, this shit is weird. no one is going to come after you for being a dick with the former.
I don't think you understand. Binging CSI and playing internet detective clearly takes priority over supporting victims and waiting for professionals to do their jobs
It's certainly plausible that he believed them to be white in the moment if the rest of his claims about what they shouted at him were true.
This is what I'm thinking as well. I wonder if the brothers were also behind the threatening letters Jussie received before the attack.
If these 2 are the guys that did it I bet they yelled that stuff purposefully to try to make it harder for Jussie and the cops to identify them.
You are allowed it what I'm saying, you are choosing not to because you are afraid of the consequences. Do you believe Jussie?
Yes, victim accounts of their attacker(s) can sometimes have incorrect assertions through no fault of their own, due in part to acute post-traumatic stress and in part due to disinformation provided by the attacker(s). And? I'm not seeing how that adds up to a justification for doubting and picking apart a victim's statement, like we're going to crack the case on the police's behalf.
I have always asserted that this was a hate crime, be it racial, homophobic or both. This new information appears to narrow this down to a homophobic hate crime. I don't see how the information we have makes this better somehow or that it warranted all the disbelief, because at best, we still have an assault victim and a hate crime, just that now there's perpetrators who may have been masking their intentions using white supremacist attack hallmarks (like, say, a noose or calling their victim the n-word) and signs it was fully premeditated (which, if you don't remember, people were saying couldn't possibly be the case when the story first came out because "it was cold outside", as though premeditated attacks against public figures don't involve weeks to months of planning and stalking *coughJFKcoughReagancough*).
That's our "best-case" scenario... yay? /s
So... why were we casting doubt on the victim again? Despite all the casting of aspersions and character assassination that's been attempted against Smollett by doing so, we still have a hate crime and he's still a victim of it.
Yep, it's a bunch of nonsense. This is a message board to discuss things going on, not a victims hotline. What's the point of even posting stuff if it can't be discussed in any way? People on here talking about a weird story, being kind of fishy isn't going to stop any victims from coming forward, and people are given complete immunity to name call and impugn people's character for saying, hey, this seems kind of odd.
This is a gross exaggeration of how people have approached this story. Immediately casting doubt from the jump is couched in a lot of racism and homophobia. If this is how you're going to approach every hate crime, you are the problem.
I don't think I've seen that type of response from Era for literally any other similar story.
Kinda curious to see what happened. Something similar happened in my area a while back and the outcome was a bit unexpected.
What a weird story from front to back.
Chicago Police were on their best shit to track the suspects down from the evidence they had to work with. Investigative work be crazy.
Chicago Police were on their best shit to track the suspects down from the evidence they had to work with. Investigative work be crazy.
Nonsense. You don't need to be racist or homophobic to tell this story was very odd from the start. The details and timeline never matched up. Pointing out the obvious isn't couched in racism or homophobia. When we have to start ignoring red flags because it's not PC to mention them, that's not a good sign. If people are being racist about it or homophobic about it then point it out. Otherwise, you're the problem.
My initial skepticism was from the way this was reported.
I believed (and still do) that he was attacked from the get go. You can believe the victim and still be skeptical of the reported events.
Despite all the red flags from the initial report, a hate crime still happened. So don't lose sight of that.
Exactly right. Jumping straight to racism/sexism/homophobia etc is not the right course of action.
- Status