Thursday, August 22, 2013

TOP Shelf

What Althouse said back in March, when Oberlin canceled classes over some purported racial incident...
When you don't know who has said/written/done something, don't take the expression at face value. Where the identity of the speaker/writer/actor is hidden, think about who has a motive, who has an interest.
Today, the truth comes out. It was, as anyone who's been paying attention should have guessed, a hoax.
Althouse links Instapundit.
I PRETTY MUCH ASSUME THAT ANY “RACIST INCIDENT” IS PROBABLY A HOAX NOWADAYS: Meet the privileged Obama-supporting white kids who perpetrated cruel Oberlin race hoax.


At Althouse, MnMark said...
It's amazing, really. In this country with something on the order of 150 million+ white people, there are so few actual "hate" crimes committed by whites that the non-whites feel compelled to invent such incidents in order to keep the fires of white guilt and "diversity-worship" stoked.

There have been dozens of these fake "hate" crimes staged by non-whites in the last decade. When was the last time you can recall an actual "hate" crime committed by a white? They are so rare that for all practical purposes they just don't occur. Non-whites have been forced to invent offenses like "white privilege" to try to maintain the appearance of discrimination where there is none - at least none that anyone, white or black, 50 years ago would have recognized as actual discrimination.

The last actual white-on-black "hate crime" I can think of is when those white guys dragged the black guy behind their pickup, something like 15 or 20 years ago. And that wasn't just casual "hate", it was revenge for a prison rape.

19 comments:

rcocean said...

Uh, "Non-whites" are not faking most the hate crimes that get in the news. Lefties are. And most of them are white. Like the 2 at Oberlin.

You have Jewish Leftists faking antisemitic hate crimes, you got white feminists faking "hate speech" against women, you got left-wing white boys faking hate crimes against Hispanics, you got left-wing Gays faking Homophobic attacks.

rcocean said...

And they'll keep on doing it, because the blow-back is zero. A few conservatives/moderates shake their head and that's it.

Until there's some societal sanction against crying wolf, they're going to keep on, keeping on.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Until there's some societal sanction against crying wolf...

Would it be unfair to make the amount of sanction, whatever that is, contingent upon how widespread the hoax is distributed.

The more the story is picked up by the media, the higher the sanction.

Revenant said...

The "sanction" is that people start to tune out complaints about racism. You already see this in politics -- the race card is so overplayed that it is almost completely ignored.

Synova said...

I expect that for a lot of people, the raising awareness thing is more important than the truth thing. What did whatshisface call it... Fake but True? Ah... fake but accurate.

So the University or whoever... well... having all those awareness classes, that was a *good* thing, right? At least something good came of it, right?

A few people who are a bit more self-aware than others may cringe because they know better.

I want to say though, quite aside from those "meta" sorts of consequences of crying wolf... these sorts of stunts HURT people, real people, on the immediate and individual plane.

yashu said...

As rcocean said, the consistent pattern in hate crime hoaxes isn't so much "non-white," as it is LEFT-WING.

Which is not to say that all hoaxers, without exception, are primarily (psychologically) driven by left-wing/ progressive/ Democratic politics or ideology. (NB many of them are just ideologically motivated, political through-and-through, like these Obama fanboys.) But that ideology is ALWAYS the sine qua non in these cases; otherwise it wouldn't work in the college campus environment. That's the incentive structure.

Consider this sick puppy, advertising on craiglist for someone to have sex with her, then shoot her. Or (when no one took her up on that first offer), at least beat her up. There's a pathology here reminiscent of Munchausen syndrome. But her (conscious) self-righteous motivation, her self-justification, was of course some higher (cockamamie) "feminist" purpose.

At the end of the day, the Munchausen syndrome people are only seeking sympathy/ attention for themselves. Whereas these sick hoaxers operate under the delusion that they're martyrs for a cause, too. Actually, the Munchausen people have the delusion of martyrdom too. The difference is, the judgment of others when the truth is revealed.

For after all, people, we're just benighted right-wing bigots, missing the point. OK, so these incidents might have been staged, and yeah maybe it hurt some "innocent" victims. Who cares, here's the thing: they're FAKE, BUT ACCURATE.

Consider this article last year from Inside Higher Ed.

Here's the key quote. (Warning. Take your high blood pressure medication before reading further.)

But one should not discount these incidents, even if they are set up, some officials say. Regardless of whether a hate crime actually occurred, the fact that a student would feel compelled to fake one points to a whole other set of problems beyond just crisis response.

“As an administrator, those are the kinds of things I’m really sensitive to – what are the students saying – because even if it’s not true, the perception is their reality,” said William L. Howard, assistant vice president of academic services at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. In other words, while a student’s method of calling attention to perceived prejudice may be flawed, that perception of prejudice still exists. “If you say, ‘This is not an issue on my campus,’ and a student has an experience that is counter to that, you have to listen to them.”

Mary-Jeanne Raleigh, director of counseling services at St. Mary’s and president of the American College Counseling Association, said the handful of students over the years who have been referred to her for reporting false crimes have perceived there to be a larger issue at play, such as fear for their own safety or perceived rejection or persecution on the campus.


So this is the lesson to be learned from hate crime or rape hoaxes. We live in a "rape culture" and a culture of "institutionalized racism." These poor individuals, these brave individuals, are just trying to bring that reality to light.

virgil xenophon said...

NUMBER ONE Poster Boy for blowback=zero? Just check out the Rev on MSNBC. The Tawana Brawley and Freddies Mkt affairs really hurt his career, didn't they?

virgil xenophon said...

PS: I must--indeed feel compelled--to apologize for characterizing whatever signifies Sharpton's existence/"life arc" as a "career" as such a designation implies some sort of honorable calling/professionalism.

virgil xenophon said...

Oh, yashu, no need to worry about my meds--I have my trusty rapidly diminishing fifth of Barbancourt 5-Star within easy reach as I type--and there's plenty more where that came from--a vital MUST in the age of Obama and leftist cultural dominion in general..

yashu said...

Oh, yashu, no need to worry about my meds--I have my trusty rapidly diminishing fifth of Barbancourt 5-Star within easy reach as I type

Oh, that's wonderful rum! (I'm familiar with it from my dad's liquor cabinet. I'm a Caribbean girl.)

I self-medicate, myself. Favor red wine, bourbon, and (yes, don't tell edutcher) the occasional toke.

I worry, sometimes, that this has enabled me to tune out politics, all too well, recently. I mean, some tuning out-- or at least numbing out-- is necessary, otherwise I would go crazy. (After Benghazi & IRS, especially.)

I spend a lot of time in the belly of the beast, which is especially taxing.

edutcher said...

We've gotten to the point where the Lefties parody themselves, which is part of their inherent corruption.

Collapse is imminent, if the soviet Union is a guide.

Unknown said...

Regardless of whether a hate crime actually occurred, the fact that a student would feel compelled to fake one points to a whole other set of problems beyond just crisis response.

This excerpted statement is true, but the problem it indicates is not the same one that the author believes it to be.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Math class is tough!

yashu said...

these sorts of stunts HURT people, real people, on the immediate and individual plane.

And not just immediate individuals (e.g. specific individuals falsely accused).

Consider what it's like to be "out" as a conservative or Republican or right-winger (or just heterosexual white man) on a college campus-- in this kind of environment, where such hoaxes are perpetrated.

Ipso facto, you are perceived as a racist/ rapist/ misogynist/ homophobe/ etc. YOU are guilty. Even when the hoaxes are discovered to be hoaxes-- you are guilty, anyway.

And it hurts everyone else too, of course-- including the groups/ minorities falsely targeted by the hoax. They don't only suffer from the "cry wolf" aspect, but the toxic college indoctrination of perpetual victimization. For even if the hoax is a hoax, it's a fake that (college says) is still accurate; the underlying message (college says) is the TRUTH.

Same dynamic at work in so much MSM (mis)reporting. Even if they later add "corrections," the narrative is propagated, taken for granted, as the given reality of things, the "accurate" big picture.

yashu said...

The Obama fanboys who did this probably felt as justified as the online mobys in the run-up to the election. Or as justified as many who enabled or perpetrated vote fraud. Or as justified as so many "journalists" who subordinate truth (what's truth, anyway) to (what they consider) a higher political purpose. Or as justified as the IRS functionaries who harassed Tea Partiers & conservatives.

The rot here is an ideological one.

Cody Jarrett said...


Would it be unfair to make the amount of sanction, whatever that is, contingent upon how widespread the hoax is distributed.

The more the story is picked up by the media, the higher the sanction.


Any instance should be punished to the absolute maximum possible. Lives should be destroyed, stained forever. Public examples should be made (they should bring back the stocks, and work camps).

People should suffer.

rhhardin said...

Somebody in the MSM wants a race war.

It's good for ratings.

It's a familiar and comfortable narrative for sought-after viewers.

rhhardin said...

MSM coverage of vast numbers of whites no longer interested in what blacks think would be good.

It started around the time of the OJ trial.

Amartel said...

DIY racism.
Brought to you by stupid tools
(Si se puede!)
Racism is necessary to the state The state needs a domestic enemy
an internal problem
an historical wrrrong
a grievance
an excuse
a violence inherent in the system
that only the state can make right
(to benefit its supporters)
Therefore
It's always Selma in 1963
Everywhere
All the time
Just ask Oprah, you racists.
You couldn't possibly understand
You just don't see it as a serious problem because
(1) you're white. (Even if you're not.)
(2) it does not exist as a serious problem
Which is why we have
DIY racism.
Brought to you by stupid tools
Etc.