Do you really think a racist gay black man will get the same sentence as a racist straight white guy for reporting a race related crime in a liberal city like Chicago? If he is fined, some Hollywood liberal will pay it and he’ll never spend a day in jail “because he has suffered enough”.
Normally I would expect a white racist be punished more than a black racist. However, in this case, Smollett badly embarrassed the city so we might see some equivalence.
If he does not get three years, we have a clear case of bias to cite. So we have that going for us.