Some years ago I was introduced to one notion of how to tackle dishonest and insincere accusations of racism. It was not just that there should be a social cost to making a dishonest claim, but that the cost should equal that borne by somebody who is accurately and correctly identified as a racist. Without such a disincentive there is no reason (other than decency and honesty, which may sometimes be in short supply) for people not to level such accusations insincerely in order to beat away any and all critics.
Since Monday night I have been wondering, amid much else, whether some similar aspiration could be encouraged regarding hate crimes.
In recent days and weeks there has been much comment on the case of Jussie Smollett. He is of course the actor from ‘Empire’ who last month claimed that he had been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack when two men leapt on him outside a branch of Subway in the early hours of the morning. From the moment the story broke a lot of things seemed strange about it. Smollett said he had finished up with a rope around his neck, but was still holding on to his Subway sandwich. Early claims that the attackers in Chicago had talked about ‘MAGA’ (Make America Great Again) all seemed a little too much.
Of course it couldn’t have been better for some people. Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats tried to lay a trail of blame that would eventually lead to the White House. And in a frankly horrible piece of self-aggrandising, sandpaper-voiced publicity-seeking, an actress called Ellen Page – with the complicity of Stephen Colbert – auditioned for chief weaponiser of the hate-crime. Perhaps just as Pelosi has had to use the delete button on her Twitter account, so Colbert and Page may now be wishing their attribution of blame against
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