Unintended Consequences

News just broke that Jussie Smollett has been indicted on felony charges for giving a false statement to the police regarding his racist and homophobic attack. The two men that were arrested previously claimed that Smollett paid them to attack him because Smollet had arranged hate letters to be sent to himself that contained “a white substance” and they were not getting enough attention by local and national media.

To a complete outsider and armchair psychiatrist, this looks like some kind of mania, so I’m going to go easy on him. I have a huge amount of sympathy for doing the wrong thing while not being able to see the world for what it really is. But having sympathy is not the same as thinking that he shouldn’t have consequences. Consequences are the only thing that really work in terms of forcing self-reflection.

Just because my actions created emotional issues and his created legal ones don’t have much weight with me. They are two sides of the same disastrous coin…. well, legal trouble creates emotional trauma, so in this case, the coin has landed on its edge and Smollet is looking down.

The main reason I believe this can be chalked up to mental illness is that he didn’t play this out to the end. Being such a public figure only increases the chances that he would get caught, because the case is automatically more high profile.

And past that, there are the consequences for the queer community at large, not that Smollett ever signed up to be any kind of poster boy, but to me, the unintended consequence is possibly less enlightened people regarding the plight of LGBT people will say that things in the United States aren’t that bad. This attack was rigged, so maybe others are, too.

I would argue that violence against gay men and transgender people is worse than it is for lesbians, statistically, because lesbians fly under the radar, due to the fact that most men think we’re cute and harmless, playtoys for their fantasies and not individuals with agency. There’s also the demeaning and insulting trope I run across frequently, that it’s cheating for straight women to sleep with other men, but women? That’s not cheating at all. That’s an opportunity.

I will never forget one of Kathleen’s friends taking us to a bar where the friend’s parents were drinking and the dad asked us to kiss in front of him. First of all, eww. Second of all, that’s your daughter’s friends. I wasn’t angry because he was drunk, but I was eager to leave because I was extremely nauseous.

So, my hope is that people do not write off emotional and physical violence toward our community, because it happens all the time. ALL THE TIME. We don’t need to make up threats, they’re already here. And with a conservative federal senate and even more conservative state congresses, the law isn’t often on our side. Before the indictment came out, I was reticent to believe that a black gay man would get a fair shake from the Chicago Police, anyway.

From what I have seen, the investigation looks fair, but surely you can see where I’m coming from based on past history.

It will be interesting to hear what Smollett has to say when he is ready to give a statement. I am willing to forgive him, but not to let him off the hook. Apologies must come with changed behavior. Otherwise, the apology is null and void. The intended and unintended consequences are going to be a ripple effect for a long time to come.

What happens when the next queer person is attacked? It’s only a matter of time. It could be happening right now. Are they going to be believed? Or will the echo of Smollett’s attack create more scrutiny than before?

I want to know that when I say something happened to me, that I will be given the benefit of the doubt immediately.

And so do all my brothers and sisters.