We wonder how Jesse Jackson feels. Not long after he meets with students at Trinity College concerning the racial threats encountered there that it turns out that it was all a hoax concocted by a young girl hoping to convince her parents to let her transfer out of the university. It certainly hasn’t been the first time that he and others have rushed to exploit a media opportunity only to later discover it was all a ruse.

We wonder if he feels like the students of Claremont College that were so outraged at a supposed hate crime there that they organized an entire day of outrage to take their community back from racism. “I’m more outraged than thou” became the mantra of the student body and anyone not exhibiting outrage was labeled a racist. Only one problem, it was a hoax concocted by a faculty member who thought her speech on racism would go over better if she was seen as a victim.

Of course the award of best (or worst) racial hoax goes to Rev. Al Sharpton who in 1987 took the twisted lies of a young girl (Tawana Brawley) who spun an abduction story to avoid being grounded by her mom and turned it into national headlines. Sharpton finally lost a deflamation case but it put him on the map with people too twisted to care that it had all been a fabrication.

Why does this keep happening? Because almost all of these cases involve some element of racism and anyone who questions the story of the “victim” even in the slightest is immediately labeled a “racist” by those parachuting in to exploit the situation. So the hard questions don’t get asked and reasonable explanations remain unsaid. Even more importantly however is that it is doubtful that Revs. Jackson and Sharpton or anyone else exploiting these situations would have a chance to get the type of media exposure that they do without them. With the combination of exploitive, compliant media on one hand and headline-seeking opportunists on the other, we can sadly expect the hoaxes to continue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 10th, 2005 at 8:31 am by Insider and is filed under Brilliant, but uncategorizable, Politically Correct ... and stupid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.