This one isn't a bogus hate crime... it's a series of four bogus hate crimes, all wrapped up with fruit flavoring and a moral. I love it when a tale has a moral. Are you ready? Here it comes. The moral to this story is:

Sometimes a watermelon is just a watermelon.

The story starts on September 8, 2003, when a watermelon with markings on it was found outside a black student's dormitory door in Mary Park Hall at San Francisco State University (SFSU). This was (of course) investigated as a hate crime by campus police because... well, because that's the victim-obsessed world we've created for ourselves. Investigators quickly learned that no hate crime was involved. The watermelon had been all over the dorm, for some silly reason related to college kids being college kids, and the fact that it eventually ended up at the door of somebody black was simply happenstance.

So much for bogus hate crime number one.

The investigation's outcome infuriated a friend of the suddenly un-victimized student. That friend was another black student at SFSU named Leah Miller. More on Leah later.

One week after the watermelon nightmare, on September 15, a black SFSU student named Allison Jackson, possibly inspired by the watermelon commotion, reported that somebody had written "BLACK BITCHES" on her apartment door in a complex called the Village, next to the campus.

Now Leah was really steaming. Not only was her friend's victimhood dismissed, disrespected, and disregarded, now somebody else was getting the attention and glory that comes with being the victim of a hate crime. It wasn't fair! So the next day, September 16, Leah wrote the word "NIGG" on a neighbor's wall in Mary Park Hall, and pretended to find a note with the same word slipped under her door.

"NIGG?" What is that? It sounds like she had to quit mid-word because somebody came along... but then why did she write the same four letters on the note? I find this puzzling, but not puzzling enough to really give a crap.

(I'm guessing that newspapers reporting on the event simply didn't want to print the full word... again, don't give a crap one way or the other since the whole thing was bogus from the get-go.)

Turmoil, hand-wringing, and hate-crime investigating roiled the campus for the next three days. You can just imagine. This was San Francisco, after all. For the kind of people who live in San Francisco, a four-hate-crime cluster is exciting like the Super Bowl is for normal people.

Then, on September 19, handwriting analysis made Allison Jackson a suspect in her own hate crime. Five tense (for her) days later she admitted writing "BLACK BITCHES" because she wanted out of her apartment lease, and she figured that would do it. One of the perks of being a hate crime victim, ya know?

So much for bogus hate crime number two.

You can imagine Leah Miller's thoughts at this point: "They can analyze handwriting? Oh shit."

On October 8, Miller admitted writing the racist word – half or whole, we'll never know – both on the wall and on the note. She justified herself by saying she was trying to draw more attention to the watermelon incident.

Sigh.

So much for bogus hate crime numbers three and four.

Who are these people? Do they have any idea how evil their actions are, how many people have suffered and died from racism, and how bitter the feelings that are excited by this kind of dishonesty? At least Leah Miller apologized, although she tried to lay off part of the responsibility on an unnamed older student who talked her into it. Allison Jackson didn't seem to give a shit that she caused pain to fellow students and wasted everybody's time and trouble.

Hey, she wanted to move. Simple as that.

You get an appreciation for the despicable nature of these fake hate crimes when you contemplate that the neighbor upon whose wall Leah Miller wrote, and one of the roommates Allison Jackson was trying to escape, were black. Those unfortunate innocents had to live in fear and indignity – worrying about skulking Klansmen, Nazis, and skinheads – until the truth came out.


Sources:

11/14/03 - Number 2 Pencil - Faking racism in San Francisco

11/17/03 - The Golden Gate [X]press - Campus Hate Crimes

11/20/03 - The Golden Gate [X]press - Fake hate crimes not new

11/20/03 - Zarko Research and Consulting - Faking Racism for Personal Gain

4/20/04 - SanDiego Union-Tribune - Colleges perfect milieu for hate crime hoaxes

4/20/04 - Los Angeles Times - As Hate-Crime Concerns Rise, So Does the Threat of Hoaxes



Posted from Reno, Nevada, USA