The Sordid History of Racial Hoaxes
No one knows why Bethany Storro decided to mutilate her own face with acid late last month. Obviously deeply troubled, she was sane enough to make a calculated decision to maximize sympathy and deflect suspicion. She blamed it on a black person.
And the fake acid attack became the latest twist on a tactic as old as America itself, one that plays into every long-held stereotype of black folks as criminal and violent: the racial hoax. The racial hoax "plays into long-standing fear and part of American folklore, that the main victims of blacks are white women," says Adrian Pantoja, a political scientist at Pitzer College in California who specializes in American racial attitudes. "It’s very strategic because they know they will get the most attention if they claim the perpetrator is black."...
It’s a tactic used by white women that once had black men swinging from trees and led to the writing of the renowned book To Kill a Mockingbird. White men and women seeking to cover up crimes and misdeeds have used the same ploy more recently. The most infamous cases include Charles Stuart, who created a fictional black man to cover up the murder of his pregnant wife in 1989, and Susan Smith, who directed attention to a black male carjacker after she killed her two children in 1994.
In 2003 a man came to a bank with a bomb tied around his neck, claiming that a group of black men had planted the bomb on him. He and some of his white friends had planned the whole thing. In 2008 a John McCain supporter carved the letter B into her forehead and blamed a black man. And last year, Bonnie Sweeten, a white woman, told police she and her daughter had been abducted by two black men in a Cadillac to cover up a trip to Disney World....
Read entire article at The Root
And the fake acid attack became the latest twist on a tactic as old as America itself, one that plays into every long-held stereotype of black folks as criminal and violent: the racial hoax. The racial hoax "plays into long-standing fear and part of American folklore, that the main victims of blacks are white women," says Adrian Pantoja, a political scientist at Pitzer College in California who specializes in American racial attitudes. "It’s very strategic because they know they will get the most attention if they claim the perpetrator is black."...
It’s a tactic used by white women that once had black men swinging from trees and led to the writing of the renowned book To Kill a Mockingbird. White men and women seeking to cover up crimes and misdeeds have used the same ploy more recently. The most infamous cases include Charles Stuart, who created a fictional black man to cover up the murder of his pregnant wife in 1989, and Susan Smith, who directed attention to a black male carjacker after she killed her two children in 1994.
In 2003 a man came to a bank with a bomb tied around his neck, claiming that a group of black men had planted the bomb on him. He and some of his white friends had planned the whole thing. In 2008 a John McCain supporter carved the letter B into her forehead and blamed a black man. And last year, Bonnie Sweeten, a white woman, told police she and her daughter had been abducted by two black men in a Cadillac to cover up a trip to Disney World....