Fake Hate Crime Which Blamed Arson of Indian Store on Trump's "White America" Exposed as Being Committed by a Black Guy

Okay. We've seen this story before. A lot.

First, the facts:

Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, arrested the 32-year-old African-American for allegedly setting fire to a market owned by an immigrant from Bhutan. The arsonist left a note, which began: "Our newly elected president Donald Trump is our nation builder for white America."

...

"You all know that, we want our country back on the right track," he informed. “We need to get rid of Muslims, Indians and all immigrants. Specially, we don't want business by refugees and immigrant any more."

"We are ready to wake up some of our great state including North Carolina and we will take care of the country," he typed. "Immigrants and refugee are taking our job, doing business and leaving us standard. So, you are not allowed to do business any more."

After a "God Bless America" complementary close, the letter-writer identified himself as "White America." But the racist surveillance video shows a black American.

Seems pretty cut and dried -- Curtis Fournoy has been arrested for malicious damage. He was caught on video doing it.

Obviously, an attempt at yet another fake hate crime.

What's strange is the Charlotte Observer's coverage of it -- they accuse people of saying that a fake race hoax is in fact a fake race hoax of being nutty conspiracy theorists.

In one of the single strangest "news" articles I've ever read, the reporter attempts to narrate the facts of the case while still retaining the intended hoax villain of "White America" as the real villain here -- websites which speculated that this was a fake hate crime stand accused of having been right.

After acknowledging the fact that this seems to be yet another fake hate crime -- and noting the recent fake crime of racist and anti-gay graffiti sprayed on the walls of a library named in honor of a victim of Dylann Roof's AME racial rampage was in fact committed by a black guy -- the Charlotte Observer goes right back to the original and unchangeable narrative that white people are "conspiracy theorists" for suspecting fake hate crimes are indeed fake:

The arrest of a black Charlottean for a planned out hate crime credited to “white America” has turned a Charlotte arson case into fuel for roiling conspiracy theories on social media.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police suspected a black man in the case from the start, after seeing surveillance tape outside the Central Market, an immigrant-operated store in east Charlotte. A window was broken out, a flaming object thrown through the door and a note left behind that credited the fire to white followers of Donald Trump.

The man charged Sunday, Curtis Flournoy, 32, has been arrested five previous times in Mecklenburg County.

So how did a man with a history of marijuana arrests come up with an arson plan that included a typed note that starts: "Our newly elected president Donald Trump is our nation builder for White America. You all know that, we want our country back on the right track. We need to get ride of Muslims, Indians and all immigrants."

Headlines in the far right media on Sunday insisted that the hate crime was faked, staged and a hoax, based on their assumption that the suspect had a motive other than driving immigrants out.

"While this may seem like a Trump-related hate crime perpetrated by immigrant-hating white racists," said the Defiant America, "it was none other than the work of a black man."

His motive? Civil unrest, according to conservative websites like The Federalist Papers, which called the fire "clearly a hoax hate crime designed to blame white people."

Um, his note was signed "White America." You remember that, right?

Note that that nugget was actually not included in the Charlotte Observer's spin-up. It had been included in previous Charlotte Observer write-ups of the case, but somehow wasn't relevant in this article which declared that people were "conspiracy theorists" for suspecting a black guy signing an anti-immigrant screed "White America" was doing so for reasons of (fake) racial provocation.

Said Liberty Unyielding: "Two of the nation's more vexing domestic problems -- deteriorating race relations and immigration -- appear to have provided dual motivation."

The Right Wing News called it "a twofer for hate."

"Harm the local Indian business people and blame Caucasians for all of it. It may be that the guy just wanted to stir up trouble," said the site. "Regardless of who is to blame, this will ratchet up tensions even more in that area. Authorities have rightfully labeled this crime a hate crime."

Still other websites resorted to sarcasm, claiming a "devious" white Trump supporter disguised himself as black.

"POLICE RELEASE VIDEO OF ‘WHITE SUPREMACIST’ COMMITTING CRIME FOR 'WHITE AMERICA'," said a headline in Milo.com.

The Charlotte Observer offers no reason why these recitations of facts and perfectly-fair speculations are "conspiracy theories," except to note that police have not yet announced a motive.

They're claiming extrapolating a motive from evidence -- the guy signed his screed "White America," for crying out loud! -- makes this a racist conspiracy theory?

Apparently the real evidence that sites declaring this a fake race crime are "conspiracy theorists" is that they're "right wing," and that's all the evidence you really need.

"Right wing" people are "conspiracy theorists" by definition. Those People, you know what They are like.

It doesn't matter what the facts turn out to be -- the Narrative must never be challenged.

The Narrative is perfect. The Narrative was created by God Xerself.

The Narrative makes the facts. The facts cannot be allowed to make The Narrative.

More: I wonder if this videotape is also a conspiracy theory:

Also, see Gabe Malor's old (don't comment on old posts!) ruminations about the media's Designated Villains -- the villains who must always be discovered to be the real villains, even though there's no real evidence to support the claim that they're villains at all.

The dramatic arc of the fictions they're writing simply demands a villain.

posted by Ace at 02:48 PM

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