Fake hate crimes outlined.
BroJack
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http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040407.shtml
Ever since self-defacing teenager Tawana Brawley smeared feces all
over herself, scrawled "KKK" and "*****" on her skin, climbed into a
trash bag, and blamed it on racist cops in New York, America has been
victimized by wannabe victims -- warped publicity-seekers so desperate
for attention that they'll fake the hate by any means necessary.
Brawley (who now calls herself Maryam Muhammad) is all grown up. But
her psychologically stunted heirs continue to soak up public sympathy
and squander police resources. Recent media attention has focused on
the pathetic case of Audrey Seiler, a 20-year-old sophomore at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison who reportedly faked her own
abduction and sent 150 cops on an intensive manhunt. The search ended
when law enforcement authorities discovered Seiler in a marsh two
miles from her home. A store surveillance tape revealed that Seiler
herself had purchased a knife, duct tape and rope found at the "crime"
scene.
Experts have compared Seiler to Brawley, but the analogy does not
quite fit. There will always be lone troubled hoaxers like Seiler who
abuse a community's compassion for bizarre personal gratification.
What made the Brawley case truly distinct and despicable, however, was
its underlying political agenda. Brawley and her race card-playing
patrons, Al Sharpton, Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, maliciously
smeared innocent white men to falsely reinforce the notion of America
as an unredeemable oppressor of females and minorities. This vicious
strain of Tawana Brawleyism is alive and well on college campuses. In
these educational temples of the perpetually aggrieved, rationality
and truth have been recklessly sacrificed at the altar of diversity.
I've reported before on the hate crime hoax phenomenon at Arizona
State University (where Muslim student Ahmad Saad Nasim faked assaults
against himself to exploit the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks) and at the
University of Mississippi (where black students falsely blamed racist
vandalism against fellow black students on whites). The latest case of
apparently manufactured racism involves left-wing academic Kerri Dunn.
On March 9, the Claremont McKenna College visiting professor of
psychology claimed she discovered anti-Semitic, anti-black, anti-woman
epithets ("kike," "***** lover" and "*****") spray-painted on her
1992 Honda Civic. The car's windows were smashed and the tires
slashed. Dunn had been a vocal critic of other alleged racist
incidents on campus. After she reported the incident, administrators
and students rallied around Dunn; classes were cancelled at all five
of the Claremont Colleges; local and federal authorities launched an
investigation.
Things started smelling funny when so many students didn't even know
what "kike" meant that the campus rabbi had to put out an explanatory
press release. Dunn, for that matter, isn't even Jewish. She is a
Catholic "considering" converting to Judaism. So how did Dunn's
purported assailants know this? She explained that the attack -- which
she called "a well-planned-out act of terrorism" -- must have been
committed by her own students, who knew of her plans to convert. More
irksome questions arose. How did the assailants know which car on the
campus parking lot was hers? The students must have followed her, Dunn
said. And what about the $1,700 in property she told police had been
stolen, which mysteriously turned up in Dunn's possession? No
explanation.
The final blow to Dunn's credibility came when Claremont police and
the FBI concluded that Dunn the victim was also the victimizer. Giving
new meaning to the phrase "auto vandalism," two witnesses told
investigators that they saw Dunn drive her car -- adorned with the
offending graffiti -- into a parking lot and smash the car's windows
and slash the tires herself. Investigators and administrators say the
witnesses are credible and (unlike Dunn) have no agenda.
As is typical in these cases, the perpetrator and her loyal
supporters are in denial. Dunn, who was involved in past tangles with
the law over shoplifting charges, blames the police for being
irresponsible and "irreparably damag(ing) her reputation and emotional
health." Minority students shrug at the fraud. "I'm not concerned with
whether it's a hoax or not," said Pomona College junior Adam Briggs of
the Pan-African Student Association.
Of course not. When it comes to smearing America, as Tawana Brawley
taught us all so well, the end always justifies the manufactured
means.
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