thependulumswings

Surely you are familiar with the Jussie Smollet accusation, police report, investigation, charges, charges dismissed, and special investigator appointed saga aren’t you?  Smollet, is an openly gay African American actor who fabricated a story of two white men physically assaulting him after they spewed racial and homophobic slurs in the wee hours of a very cold Chicago morning last year.

Well, it took another turn after another twist yesterday.  It turns out that the special investigator appointed has contributed funds in the past to the reelection campaign of the DA he was appointed to investigate.  Back to square one this mess goes.

Also, while high profile, but not quite the same page turner, yesterday the unnamed sixth-grade girl at a private Virginia school who accused three classmates last week of forcibly cutting her dreadlocks now says the allegations were false, according to statements from the girl’s family and the principal at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield.

The 12-year-old, who is African American, said three white male students held her down in a school playground a week ago during recess, covered her mouth, called her insulting names and used scissors to cut her hair.   The grandparents of the girl, who are her legal guardians, released an apology Monday.

The Fairfax County NAACP acknowledged the sixth-grader’s charge was false but cautioned against a rush to judgment about the validity of allegations of racial violence.

“Too often in these rare instances of fabricated hate crimes, critics use a broad brush to claim racially motivated crimes are virtually non-existent,” the organization stated. “This is demonstrably wrong. Data from numerous sources, including the Anti-Defamation League, the FBI, and the Justice Department, shows bias motivated crimes are on the rise, year over year.”  “Bias motivated” is a very broad umbrella.

So all of this makes us wonder.

Why are there even rare instances of fabricated hate crimes?  Is the lying accuser wanting personal attention?  Are they acting out because they feel it will draw attention to a problem that is under reported and far too common?  Given the intense scrutiny and sensitivity of the examples above, can they be?  Or, are they racially motivated hate crimes unto themselves?  Hmm.  It is, after all, a crime to file a false police report.  If those convicted of hate crimes get stiffer sentences, should those convicted of filing false reports of hate crimes get stiffer sentences?

And, if racially motivated crimes, real or imagined, are identified as such and the ethnicity of the accuser and the accused are identified, published, and scrutinized, then why aren’t police departments the US over allowed to describe an assailant’s race when an accuser first describes the assailant?  It’s because America wants to end racial profiling.  What is that exactly you ask?  Racial profiling refers to the practice by law enforcement officials of targeting individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Criminal profiling, generally, as practiced by police, is the reliance on a group of characteristics they believe to be associated with crime.  So identifying race in the quest to solve hate crimes is good, but in other crimes (that FAR FAR out number hate crimes) it is bad.