On January 29, Two Hate Crimes Occurred. The Media Only Covered The Fake One. Here's Why.
On January 29, 2019, Chicago Police opened a hate crime investigation into the alleged assault of
Empire actor Jussie Smollett. Smollett, who is black and gay, alleged that two men approached him at 2 a.m. in Chicago, where they shouted โf*****โ and โn*****,โ tried to wrap a noose around his neck, and poured bleach on him. He also told TMZ that the men shouted, โThis is MAGA country.โ
The story received unending press. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), tweeted, โThe racist, homophobic attack on [Smollett] is an affront to our humanity.โ Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) called it a โmodern-day lynching.โ Congresswoman and Fresh Faceโข of the Democratic Party Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed anyone who questioned the story, tweeting, โThe attack was not โpossiblyโ homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack.โ
The story was a hoax.
That same night, a Jewish man in New York was beaten by three thugs. Nothing was stolen. The attack was caught on video.
https://twitter.com/mottiseligson/status/1090604264005820416
Outside of a report in The Jerusalem Post, the story received virtually no attention.
This isnโt the only story of anti-Semitism in New York. Not by a long shot. Two weeks before that beating, a Jewish man, 19, was โ
violently assaultedโ as he walked past a local laundromat by a group of teenage black males. In December, a 16-year-old Jewish teen spent a week in a hospital after being beaten by two other teens; witnesses said that the teens screamed โ
Kill the Jew.โ The NYPD categorized the attack as โgang relatedโ rather than a hate crime, angering Jews in the area. This weekend, vandals shattered the window of a
Chabad in Bushwick as the rabbi and his family slept inside.
On January 29, Two Hate Crimes Occurred. The Media Only Covered The Fake One. Here's Why.