JACKSON — Mississippi celebrities are speaking out after a racist, homophobic attack on “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett that Chicago police describe as a “possible hate crime.”
Smollett told investigators he was leaving a Chicago Subway at 2 a.m. Tuesday when two white suspects, wearing ski masks, shouted racist and homophobic slurs at him. They then hit him in the face, poured a “chemical substance” on him and wrapped a rope around his neck, the police report reads.
The alleged assailants, Smollett told police, shouted, “This is MAGA country!” at one point. “MAGA” is a reference to President Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Trump Tower Chicago is just blocks away from the site of the alleged attack.
The actor said the assailants fled, at which point he went to a nearby hospital. In a statement Tuesday, police said they were “currently working to gather video, identify potential witnesses and establish an investigative timeline.”
“This is sickening,” former N’Sync star Lance Bass, a Clinton, Miss., native, wrote on Facebook as the news broke Tuesday.
Bass, a gay man, came out in 2006.
“And I love that they have to use ‘possible,’” Bass added, in a comment on his own post. “The MAGA men were heard saying ‘aren’t you that f-ggot n-gger on Empire?’ Yea. I thinks it’s safe to assume it’s a hate crime.”
Several years ago, Lance Bass’ mother wrote a letter to her Southern Baptist church about being the mother of a gay son. That letter went viral. In 2014, Bass also campaigned against SB 2681, one of Mississippi’s “religious freedom” laws that enshrined a right for businesses in the state to discriminate against LGBT people.
Bestselling author and Jackson native Angie Thomas also responded to the attack on Twitter.
“Jesus,” she wrote in one tweet, adding in another: “I love you @JussieSmollett.”
Thomas, a black woman, wrote The New York Times best-seller “The Hate U Give,” a story about racism and police brutality. She also retweeted another user, who wrote that the attack on Smollett shows why people don’t find “1993 style homophobic jokes funny anymore.” That tweet specifically called out Kevin Hart, who lost his Oscars hosting gig after old anti-gay jokes surfaced.
“Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay’,” Hart tweeted in 2011.
Blossom Chrishelle Brown, a transgender actress and producer from Greenwood, Miss., also weighed in. “Sending out thoughts and prayers to the amazing Jussie Smollett as he was a victim of a hate crime as he was attacked by two homophobic individuals,” Brown wrote.
Brown appeared in the first season of “I Am Cait,” the now-cancelled 2015 show about Caitlyn Jenner.
NAACP President: Hate Crimes ‘Directly Linked to Trump’
FBI statistics released in November showed a 17-percent increase in hate crimes between 2016 and 2017. Anti-black hate crimes increased 16 percent; anti-gay hate crimes increased 5 percent; anti-Jewish hate crimes increased 37 percent; anti-religious hate crimes increased 23 percent; hate crimes motivated by gender bias increased 48 percent; and hate crimes against people with disabilities increased 66 percent.
Hate crimes also increased from 2015 to 2016, and spiked in the month after Trump’s election.
NAACP President Derrick Johnson, who previously served as president of the organization’s Mississippi branch, wrote that the rise in hate crimes is “directly linked” to Trump.
“The recent racist and homophobic attack on acclaimed actor and activist Jussie Smollett is troubling,” Johnson wrote. “The rise in hate crimes is directly linked to President Donald J. Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric. It is dangerous for any society to allow a tone of divisiveness and hatred to dominate the political discourse.
“As this rhetoric continues to bleed into our everyday lives, dangerous behavior will continue to place many law-abiding individuals at risk. We pray for a full physical and mental recovery for Jussie Smollett and many unnamed victims of this forum of hate based terrorism.”
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., compared the attack to the brutal Jim Crow-era attacks and killings of black men.
“The vicious attack on actor Jussie Smollett was an attempted modern-day lynching,” Booker tweeted. “I’m glad he’s safe. To those in Congress who don’t feel the urgency to pass our Anti-Lynching bill designating lynching as a federal hate crime – I urge you to pay attention.”
Booker, a likely 2020 candidate for president, visited Mississippi last July and November to support Mississippi Democrat Mike Espy’s bid for U.S. Senate. Espy lost the race to incumbent Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, whose campaign struggled after she made a joke about “public hangings”—in the state that historically had the most lynchings of black men after the Civil War.
The Mississippi Free Press produced this story through the MFP Solutions Lab, supported by the Solutions Journalism Network. This series digs into Mississippi’s systemic issues and sheds light on responses to them in other communities. Beyond just reporting on problems, these stories interrogate their causes and inspect potential solutions.
