Nigeria seems like a strange destination for some MAGA country inhabitants. This storyās not gonna end wellā¦
Nigerian MAGAiacs? Donald Trump will use this as evidence that his support among Blacks is up to 400%!
Itās hard to find a more homophobic place than Africa. This surprises me not in the slightest.
Iāve stayed quiet on this b/c I want the evidence to come out. If the Chicago DA ends up charging these 2 persons of interest for a crime, I think we need an investigation into how that other story that Smollet made the whole thing up got to a major news org in Chicago (ABC). I sense a very Breitbartian feel to it. I even think the Russians would be involved in pushing the storyline. Iāll await further developments but when you see a story take multiple turns like this one has, someone usually has an agenda.
Actually a number of African immigrants have fairly culturally conservative views so itās not at all surprising that some would get wrapped up in the MAGA cult. Additionally some like to distance themselves from Black Americans and others by touting their up from the bootstraps immigrant experience.
A few years ago there was an article in the NYT about tension between newer African emigres and Black Americans in the Bronx. Occasionally they would be mocked āHey your ancestors sold my great great grandfatherā. But overall they have integrated well into those neighborhoods.
Possibly. Though the noose and declaring āThis is MAGA countryā is textbook white American āeconomic anxietyā.
If they are indeed Nigerian and not American citizens (I would expect they would have been referred to as Nigerian American if so) maybe they like Trump because they were able to get special work visas to work on āEmpireā if it turns out that they did work on the set. I canāt wait for more details, because it seems like things kind of took a turn for the Twilight Zone at this point.
Edit: it is being reported that they are American citizens of Nigerian descent and that they are black. I assumed the attackers were white due to the MAGA comments reported, but the only contemporaneous reports were that they wore ski masks (and since it was just on the cusp of the Polar Vortex, that was not odd).
Well this got fucking weird
Evangelicals in Africa are pushing all kinds of Kill The Gays laws. It couldāve been part of that.
I just want this resolved. Mr. Smollett is enduring way too much crap-ola in this case.
I canāt āgetā why anybody would think this is a ācareer moveā on Mr. Smollettās part. And why people could say that.
Nigeria seems like a strange destination for some MAGA country inhabitants ā¦
I seem to remember a certain Supreme Court Justice.
That āisā the point. You got it.
I can āgetā that it might look suspicious that this happened underneath a traffic camera which was pointed the other way so āthatā might look strange, but the two appeared on numerous CC-tv cameras before and after.
If they were wearing ski masks (makes sense in THAT weather, I am from Chicago and I learned to love ski masks and leggings) I can see why he mischaracterized the race more easily.
I wonder if there was a vindictive former co-worker or lover behind it who instructed these thugs to make it look like a random hate crime.
A did a Google search and this is what I turned up about Nigeria specifically. The article is from 2016.
Nigeria: Federal law classifies homosexual behavior as a felony punishable by imprisonment, but several states have adopted sharia law and imposed a death penalty for men. A law signed in early January makes it illegal for gay people countrywide to hold a meeting or form clubs.
I guess because they have no idea how popular Empire is within the black community so they assume heād need to do something like this.
None of these new revelations look good for Smollett. Just for starters, he failed to notice that the assailants were black and that they (presumably) spoke with a Nigerian accent. Then,we need to believe that these guys knew he would be going to Subway at 2 am and came prepared with a noose and bottle of bleach? This sounds like a characture of a maga-inspired attack and not a real one.
I very much hope Iām wrong about this.
They āwereā wearing ski masks and gloves. I could see under the street lights he did not see their skin color under those conditions.
I have to admit that my first thought after hearing the claim that the attack was staged was: āIs this a variation on the far-rightās ācrisis actorsā accusations?ā
There are more and more pieces of the story that donāt really add up. Even the initial report included one detail that made me pause: āA police spokesperson said Smollett was still wearing the rope around his neck when police arrived.ā Seriously? Does that seem plausible? Who would react that way? Why would you go home, call the police, and wait for them without taking off the noose?
The ācame prepared to attack meā details are, indeed, troubling. Shades of Tawana Brawley, who claimed that her assailants were lying in wait for her, but who also volunteered that she normally didnāt travel by that route.
Weāll seeā¦
Were they also successfully disguising their accented voices?
Call me quirky, but I believe that things have to be at least somewhat rational.
When people scream they may not have an āaccent.ā Maybe Smollett just thought it āhadā to be white guys and did not ālistenā in the way most of us might not when we were getting our asses kicked.
I donāt know, were there already interviews with the two men on the tv so I could determine how āthickā their accents were.
I do agree itās problematic; itās just that itās like asking somebody to read something during an earthquake to make a āverifiableā identification. But two guys wearing ski masks and gloves do not show much skin. AND I have been under Chicago street lights. Colors are muted.