Quick! Pop Quiz: Name the guy who a Chicago jury found guilty yesterday of faking a hate crime. Now, name the three men found guilty of killing Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia.

If you are a MAGAt, you got the question correctly but couldn’t name one of the three white men who chased Ahmaud Arbery down in a pickup truck and murdered him. Hell, you may be a liberal and not be able to name all three men.

This is not to make excuses or defend Jussie Smollett who was found guilty by a Chicago jury yesterday on five counts of disorderly conduct. What Smollett did is not a good thing, but murder is a much more serious crime than disorderly conduct.

Should we be comparing these two crimes? Yes, we should. You may cry that I’m trying to deflect and distract from Jussie Smollett, but Jussie Smollett is a deflection and distraction.

White conservatives suffer from white fragility, which is a choice because they have white privilege. White Christian conservatives believe they are the most persecuted people in world history. Other than dark-skinned people invading our nation, white people believe the second greatest danger to America is the framing of all white people as racist. It’s why so many white people were enabled by Trump to come out of the racist woodwork and march with Nazis in Charlottesville. It’s why we now have Oathkeepers and Proud Boys. It’s why we have Glenn Youngkin.

Glenn Youngkin was elected governor of Virginia on the fear of Critical Race Theory being taught in schools, which of course, is not actually being taught in Virginia schools. White racists fear Critical Race Theory is an attack on white people…by giving history lessons. The fact is, white people don’t come off so well in history books…except in Texas history books. But it’s not just the treatment of black people where whites don’t come off so well in history books. It’s the white treatment of Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, etc. Throughout history, the majority race has always been dicks. In the United States (after we killed all the Native Americans), the majority has always been white. And now, white America wants to shut the door on the history they created, which they always tried to hide.

It’s not so much that we’re afraid of black history being taught, but the real white history.

Now, conservatives get to focus on Jussie Smollett, the gay black actor who faked a hate crime, not so much to make white people look bad and start a race war (which is what a lot of people on Fox News claim), but to get attention and help his career. Every Trumplican is focused on this hate crime while ignoring actual hate crimes. They believe this hate crime is an assault on their white fragility and proves hate crimes don’t exist.

I asked a white nationalist cartoonist (who recently drew a cartoon of Critical Race Theory Frankenstein attacking a sweet innocent white blonde little girl) who has done several cartoons on Smollett, why he hasn’t done any on Ahmaud Arbery or his murderers. His argument was that the three white guys who murdered Arbery would have done so even if Arbery was white. See? Even when a hate crime lands in their laps, they refuse to identify it as a hate crime. I’m shocked he didn’t argue that Arbery tripped and fell on the sweet innocent white guys’ shotgun.

Conservatives are talking about one hate crime. Just one. What they don’t want to talk about is the fact hate crimes increased by 20 percent in this nation during the Trump presidency (sic).

The greatest increase in hate crimes during the Trump presidency (sic) was against black people, Jewish people, gay men, and Latinos.

In 2019, there were 51 murders classified as hate crimes. 39 of those were committed by white nationalists.  There were three murders by white nationalists in 2016, the year before Trump was sworn in. There were 12 in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, and 17 in 2018.

Jussie Smollett was indicted, then reached a deal with Chicago prosecutors where all charges were dropped and Smollett agreed to perform community service as well as giving up his $10,000 bond. Chicago cops were livid.

You see, the Chicago Police have a long and sordid history of civil rights violations. They’ve spent millions on legal settlements with victims and their families. Between 2013 and 2019, they spent $213 million on private lawyers. Now, they wanted to use Smollett as a distraction and treat his disorderly conduct as an attack on them. The Chicago Police Department spent over $130,000 investigating Jussie Smollet’s fake hate crime and disorderly conduct, yet over the past decade, only one in eight sex crimes reported to the Chicago Police resulted in an arrest. And in Chicago, it takes about a year and a half for a rape kit to be sent to a lab. Yet, they were all over this fake hate crime thing. Imagine how much good the Chicago Police could accomplish if they focused as much on sex crimes as they did on snagging the gay black actor.

The cops were so livid and put so much pressure on prosecutors, that they re-indicted Smollett. Smollett sued on the grounds his rights were being violated as the second indictment was double jeopardy, which a judge threw out. Don’t be surprised if this case gets tossed again after Smollett appeals.

Did Smollett fake a hate crime? He sure did and he should be punished for it. He faces three years in prison but may only get community service and a fine. I think the guy should spend the next three years picking up garbage on the interstate. I would also advise that after all his time and service is completed, that he get the fuck out of Chicago.

The people who want Smollett punished over a fake hate crime are the same people supporting the white nationalists who attacked the United States Capitol building.

Now tell me, where did the gay black actor touch your white fragility?

By the way, the three white men who were found guilty of murdering Ahmaud Arbery names are Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William “Roddie” Bryan. They murdered Arbery in February 2020 but weren’t charged and arrested until May 2020. That’s white privilege.

Creative note: While drawing today’s cartoon, I listened to some Drivin N Cryin and The Stooges.

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