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Dreadlocks - another faked racist hate crime

William Parcher

Show me the monkey!
William Parcher
Joined
Jul 26, 2005
Messages
27,471
Black high school student, 12, who accused three of her male white classmates of pinning her down and cutting off her dreadlocks, admits that she made it up

Daily Mail said:
The black high school student who accused three white male classmates of pinning her down and cutting off her dreadlocks has 'acknowledged' that she made the allegation up, according to her school.

Amari Allen, 12, claimed she was held down by three boys who cut her hair off at their $12,000-a-year school. She also gave a tearful interview about it afterwards and said they called her hair 'ugly' and 'nappy', a racist term that is used to derogatorily describe African American women's hair.

They also shared photos of her uneven hair after the alleged incident.

On Monday, however, the child's family issued a statement to it was false and to apologize to the boys.

Why the claims were fabricated remains unclear.

The family asked for forgiveness in their statement and said they had 'betrayed the wider community.' 'To those young boys and their parents, we sincerely apologize for the pain and anxiety these allegations have caused...
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...nt-said-bullies-cut-dreadlocks-admits-up.html
 
theprestige said:
We're already talking about it in the Massive Wave dread thread.
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Dang, and sorry that I didn't read that other thread first.

Before creating this thread I searched this forum for the word "dreadlocks" thinking that if it was being discussed already then that word ought to be part of the discussion. It wasn't and so I decided that it probably wasn't being discussed.
 
12 year old tells lies. I'm just shocked I tell you, just shocked!

If she keeps it up, and practices really hard, she could have a future as a president... or something.
 
smartcooky said:
12 year old tells lies. I'm just shocked I tell you, just shocked!
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You're missing the point. This is the follow up story, where the girl's lie is exposed.

And frankly, the 12 year old tellling a lie is the least objectionable part of this incident.

Far more objectionable is the initial reporting.
 
theprestige said:
Far more objectionable is the initial reporting.
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OK, make the case against the reporters, please. Here's what I wrote in response to you in the other thread:
Puppycow said:
I think either the girl or her family, or both together made a choice to take this to the media. They didn't have to invite a reporter into their home and give an on-camera interview, but they did. Since she was a minor, I don't think the media would have published her name without her permission. She chose to go public with the accusations, although she could have remained anonymous.

Maybe the reporter(s) should have figured out what I was able to figure out based on their reports, but . . . they didn't really have proof that she was lying, and not reporting it straight up could have exposed them to another kind of criticism. So you report it using words like "alleged" and "girl claims that", which means they're just reporting the claim in a neutral way without either endorsing it or casting it in a skeptical light (which would get them accused of the things that I have been accused of here by ponderingturtle and others). Either way though, whether it turns out to be true or a hoax, it will be something that people are interested in. So they're going to report it.
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For some additional context, let me throw this in for your consideration:

Truth-default theory
Truth-default theory (TDT) is a communication theory which predicts and explains the use of veracity and deception detection in humans. It was developed upon the discovery of the veracity effect - whereby the proportion of truths versus lies presented in a judgment study on deception will drive accuracy rates. This theory gets its name from its central idea which is the truth-default state. This idea suggests that people presume others to be honest because they either don't think of deception as a possibility during communicating or because there is insufficient evidence lending them unable to prove they are being deceived.[1] Emotions, arousal, strategic self-presentation, and cognitive effort are nonverbal behaviors that one might find in deception detection.[1] Ultimately this theory predicts that speakers and listeners will default to use the truth to achieve their communicative goals. However, if the truth presents a problem, then deception will surface as a viable option for goal attainment.
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Background
As an alternative view of deception and detection, truth-default theory was introduced by Timothy R. Levine. Levine is a Professor and Chair of Communication Studies at University of Alabama Birmingham. While experimenting with deception detection, Levine found that, even in high suspicion situations, truth-bias still occurred. At first, truth-bias was thought of as flawed cognitive processing but later found to be functional and adaptive. After enough focus on truth-bias, truth-default theory began to take shape.[2]
. . .

Truth bias
Truth bias refers to people's inclination towards believing, to some degree, the communication of another person, regardless of whether or not that person is actually lying or being untruthful.[6][3] It is human nature to believe communication is honest, which in turn makes humans highly vulnerable to deception.[3] Consequently, a person's ability to detect deception is weakened, particularly when the source of deception is unfamiliar.
. . .
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If this theory is correct (and there is experimental evidence to back it up) then skeptical thinking is actually hard because it goes against default human nature. I find this true in myself. I wasn't born a skeptic. When I was a young child I think I pretty much just took everything I was told at face value and never even considered the possibility that I was being lied to. Or that the person telling me this might be wrong for various reasons. I had to learn to be a skeptic, and many people never seem to learn the skill, or only learn it incompletely.

So it's conceivable that the reporters who initially reported this story simply didn't have the skeptical tools to detect that something didn't seem quite right about it. By default of natural human nature (truth bias), they simply accepted the girl's story at face value. Perhaps.
 
Here's what I think may have happened (and I think it, because having spent a part of my life as a teacher, I have seen this sort of thing play out a lot)

1. Something happened and the girl's dreads got cut off, maybe by a "friend" or some other person. Maybe it was as a result if a bet or a dare. Anyway, the how and why of it doesn't matter.

2. She didn't want to get the real culprit in trouble so she lied to her parents and blamed the two boys.

3. The parents made a WAAAAY bigger deal out of it that she expected, so she was really forced to either go along with it, or to admit the lie. She tried to ride it out.

4. In the end, things got way more serious, the press the publicity, and she was really forced to own up.

As for the media, what possible reason could they have to disbelieve her. If she seemed credible and her parents supported her story, there was no reason to question it.

IMO, this whole thing is a just a big, fat nothingburger - a pre-teen lied and things got out of hand. Nothing to see here folks, everyone go home.
 
smartcooky said:
12 year old tells lies. I'm just shocked I tell you, just shocked!

If she keeps it up, and practices really hard, she could have a future as a president... or something.
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At the minimum the girl should be counseled for what is apparently anti-white racism. Nip racism in the bud.
 
smartcooky said:
As for the media, what possible reason could they have to disbelieve her. If she seemed credible and her parents supported her story, there was no reason to question it.
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That seems like an odd thing for a skeptic to say.

Shouldn't the media question what they are told?

Somehow I managed to figure it out and made a public prediction about it but somehow there's no way that the media couldn't have figured out the same thing? Why is your default assumption that someone is telling the truth? No obvious reason to disbelieve = believe?
 
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