Steve wrote here about a church arson in Mississippi, where someone set a church on fire and spray-painted the words “Vote Trump” on a wall, a week before the presidential election. Unsurprisingly, a member of the church who had nothing to do with Donald Trump has been arrested and charged with arson. It’s just another fake hate crime; as Steve wrote, “95 percent of reported hate crimes are hoaxes, especially so on college campuses.” That’s true of the ones selected for publication in the news, anyway.
It is obvious what happened here–another stupid anti-Trump smear–but the Associated Press pretends to be perplexed: “Arrest of black man in black church fire stirs debates.”
The arrest of a black man on a charge of burning a black Mississippi church that was spray-painted with the words “Vote Trump” has sparked bickering online and consternation in the community surrounding the church.
“Bickering” is when you point out that the story, much ballyhooed in the liberal media, was a fraud.
In the days after the church fire, Greenville Mayor Errick D. Simmons — an African-American who took office several months ago on a pledge of racial unity — urged officials to investigate it as a possible hate crime.
Of course. That was the whole idea.
Chris Orr, a Greenville resident and former police officer for the city, expressed frustration over the mayor’s early words about the fire.
“I have a lot of respect for the mayor,” Orr, who is white, said Thursday. “But, classifying this as a hate crime of a ‘historically black church in a black community’ before the investigation even got going good was basically profiling the suspect as a white person, whether he directly said it or not.”
Mr. Orr has a good point, but he obviously doesn’t understand the point of “profiling” hysteria. It has nothing to do with fairness or justice.
Others, of course, stuck up for the profiling that turned out to be wrong:
Democratic state Sen. Derrick Simmons of Greenville, said the mayor had the right approach.
“There is a dark past in America and in the Deep South regarding the burning of African-American churches,” Derrick Simmons said. “The way law enforcement authorities initially investigated this matter as a hate crime I believe was warranted, considering the past and the history.”
This is a subject for another day, but alleged arson of black churches in the South has been a fertile source of fake news for at least the last 15 years.
The AP, for its part, remains perplexed. The words “hoax” and “fraud” do not appear in its story. Instead, it reports:
Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, who is also the state fire marshal, said investigators don’t believe the fire and vandalism were politically motivated, despite happening a week before the contentious presidential election.
And despite the perpetrator having spray-painted “Vote Trump” on the wall. No politics there! Nothing to see here, move along! Anti-Trump fake hate crimes must not be reported as such; that is a rule somewhere in the Associated Press’s style book.
As is usually the case, the individuals on the ground take a more positive and practical approach than the media vultures who are desperate to fall for fake hate crimes:
Since the fire, Hopewell members have been worshipping in the chapel at First Baptist Church of Greenville, a predominantly white congregation that says Hopewell can stay as long as it needs a home.
James Nichols, senior pastor at First Baptist, said Thursday that he’s been trying to get in touch with Hopewell Bishop Clarence Green since McClinton’s arrest. The two clergymen say they consider themselves brothers in Christ, and Nichols said it’s important that people not engage in divisive speculation about why someone would have burned Hopewell.
Merry Christmas to them all.
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