Jussie Smollett was attacked by two white men at the airport. The men hung a noose around his neck, poured an unknown substance on him, and called him racist and homophobic slurs. During his performance in West Hollywood, he cleared up a few murky details about the attack. First he said he wasn’t fully healed yet, his ribs weren’t cracked, and he fought the attackers back.
When I heard about this story I was heartbroken. I know so many gay black men and I felt for them, because I knew that their fear of being attacked was heightened because of this. I have seen a lot of people trying to separate his race from his sexuality and I don’t agree with that. Him being black and him being gay are two parts of his identity that coexist and influence many factors of his life. This can be compared to Emmett Till who was attacked by several white men for supposedly whistling at a white woman, which was confirmed not to be true decades later. Till was attacked because of his race, and people questioned whether or not it was a hate crime as well.
Jussie Smollett
The Story of Emmett Till
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