Just when we had about recovered from Jussie Smollett's shocking racism claims, here come reports of a 12-year-old black Virginia girl accusing three white boys at her private Christian school of holding her down and cutting off her dreadlocks.  During the attack, the boys called her hair ugly and "nappy."

Just like in Jussie's case, it never happened.  Once again, a black person feeds the white-on-black racism narrative.  This has become so commonplace that one gets the distinct impression there isn't enough real white racism going on, so blacks pitch in to bring the number of incidents more into line with whatever the narrative calls for.

One could feel some sympathy for the girl, being only 12 and all, but this didn't happen in a vacuum.  Black activists emphasize that racism is learned at home.  Hence, we surmise that black animus toward whites, manifested in incidents such as this one, is fomented in black homes.

In this case, the parents' apology seems genuine.  It doesn't seem likely that these parents raised their daughter this way, otherwise they would not be paying $12K annual tuition for her to attend a largely white private school.  She may have picked up this kind of thinking from peers, perhaps in the neighborhood where she lives.  We don't know.

Nevertheless, we have arrived at a point where forgive-and-forget is no longer acceptable.  Over and over, we read about some poor, beleaguered black student being bullied by callous whites.  It's usually (but not always) a defenseless girl against a gang of white boys, adding the offenses of toxic masculinity and bullying to the sheer nastiness of the attack.  The school administration leaps to the girl's defense, righteously lecturing the student body that the school is a no-bullying, no-racism zone, yada yada yada.

Eventually, we hear that it was all fraudulent.

This kind of thing has to stop, and the only way we know to restrain such hoaxes is via heavy penalties, levied against the parents in cases involving minors.  They are the only responsible adults who can rein in such behavior in their kids.  Applicable law must mandate more than just slap-on-the-wrist penalties.

In cases involving adults such as Smollett, hefty fines plus significant jail time is called for.  Enough of slanderous accusations being treated as small-time pranks and adolescent larks.  Reputations matter, and a reputation of being racist is destructive of jobs, careers, lives.  Those who would destroy others out of sheer malice deserve to have their own malice thrown right back at them.

Image: Dominick D via Flickr (cropped).