Another hate hoax. Girl who claimed three white boys cut her dreadlocks admits she made the story up.

Amari Allen. ABC News/WJLA.

The black student who said three white boys cut her dreadlocks admits she made the story up. ABC News. Amari Allen, a 12 year old girl, said the three boys had attacked her at recess at Immanuel Christian School in Springfield Virginia and called her hair ugly and nappy. The story prompted an investigation and threats of expulsion. However, Allen's family confessed on Monday that the incident never happened. The family apologized for the incident and said they would take responsibility for Allen's actions. 

My Comment:

This is a terrible situation. On the one hand this little girl almost ruined three little boys lives. Getting accused of a racist attack, even at such a young age, is a life ruining thing and had the story not fallen apart these boys could have been expelled or even faced criminal charges. That would probably ruin anyone's life, just as being labeled a racist would be as well. Ruining a group of  sixth grader's reputation and putting them in legal jeopardy is an extreme crime and one that should be punished severely

On the other, the accuser is only 12 years old. Though I think a 12 year old should know that doing something like this is wrong, she's still very young and may not have known how dire the consequences would be. I think she should face punishment yes, but what punishment is appropriate for this? If she was an adult I would say throw the book at her but she's just a kid. I do think it's appropriate for her and her parents to apologize for the damage they caused, but I don't think that's going to be enough for most people. 

I think the media is the true villain in this case. They have made it very clear that if you are a black person who falsely accuses white people of a racially motivated attack you can make national news, become famous and even make money from gofundme's and other crowdfunding services. Plus they have created an environment where false accusations of racism are seen as a moral good. They didn't criticize Jussie Smollet for his crime because they disagreed with what he did, just the fact he got caught. 

The media also didn't use very good judgement in this case. The story made very little sense on the face of it. People do cut off hair to humiliate people, but if they do so, they don't leave their victim with as much hair as Allen had. You cut at the root, not at the tip of the hair. It immediately looked like to me that she had cut her own hair as I thought even after the attack it looked pretty good. Her hair got slightly shorter and was still stylish, which is not what racist attackers would do if they wanted to humiliate her. Plus, I never got the impression that white people, even racist ones, care about black people's hair at all, but I have noticed that many black people are obsessed over their hair. A real racist attack would have involved violence and racist language, not an insult on hair. 

I also don't think that this story ever should have been reported in the first place. A schoolyard scuffle is not national news even if it did happen exactly the way Allen said it. I know when I was a kid I got into fights (never with anyone outside of my race though) and it would be utterly insane if that fight became international news. The things people do when they are 12 shouldn't have a global reach. I know I am being somewhat hypocritical saying that while covering the story, but I wasn't the one that put it out their in the first place. 

Finally, I think it is very important for people to wait it out on these race-based stories. So many times in the past few years the media has gotten it completely wrong, starting with Trayvon Martin. Then there was the "hands up don't shoot" Michael Brown lie, the Covington Catholic kids fabrication, the Jussie Smollet hoax and dozens of other cases based on race where it turned out the media was wrong. Better to wait until the truth comes out than jump on the bandwagon and end up with egg on your face. 

Why do they get these things wrong? Part of it is genuine racism against white people. They assume all white people secretly or openly hate black people because that's what social justice teaches, even though it's not anywhere close to being true. Part of it is just because they want to see their political enemies hurt, and right now that includes anyone with white skin or a penis who isn't on board with social justice, even if they are 6th graders. 

Most importantly the media is based on clicks and outrage generates a whole lot of them. They know that people will tune in the hear stories of racism and violence and that's way more important to them than getting to the truth. Had the media just waited on this case until an investigation was done they would have avoided all of this but they would have missed out on the money that they made from spreading the lie... 

There was also a political angle to all of this as well. Vice President Mike Pence's wife, Karen Pence, works part time at this school teaching art. I think that is part of the reason the story when viral as the media could slander Pence as a racist just because this incident happened at her school. That doesn't make much sense but it doesn't have to, people who already hate Pence will just take this as more evidence that he's racist even after it's proven the incident didn't happen. It just goes to show how utterly toxic the media environment is these days.