Kerby Anderson

Let me give you some advice. The next time you hear a media report of a hate crime by a conservative or Trump supporter, wait a day and see if it is a hoax. John Hawkins lists “10 Examples of Hate Crimes that Turned Out to be Scams.” Elizabeth Nolan Brown documents in Reason that “There Is No Violent Hate-Crime Wave in Trump’s America.” Kevin Williamson, writing in National Review, talks about both “Fake Hate Crimes” and “Fake Hate.” There is even the fakehatecrimes.org website that documents these fake crimes in the hundreds. Juan Thompson, a left-wing journalist who was fired from his position at The Intercept, was in the news again for making a string of threats to Jewish community centers. Apparently, he was trying to frame his ex-girlfriend as a “racist white girl.” Three black coeds at the University of Albany said they were attacked on a city bus by a group of white men using racial slurs. Hundreds came to a campus rally against racism based on their false report. Surveillance videos contradicted their account, as did statements by fellow passengers. Actually, they were the aggressors who hit a 19-year-old white woman on the bus. Muslim women at the University of Louisiana, the University of Michigan, and the University of New Mexico made false claims they were attacked and had their head coverings pulled off. In a number of cases, we don’t know the names of some of these hijab hoaxers. Frankly, I don’t think we should be protecting the identities of people who file false police reports. A student at Beloit College reported anti-Muslim graffiti on his door and outside his dorm room. After police investigated, they found he perpetrated the fraud himself. The news media will continue to report each of these incidents, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to wonder if many of them are frauds and nothing more than fake hate crimes.