From Free Life, Issue 20, August 1994
ISSN: 0260 5112

The Hoaxer Project: A Joint Appeal

Are you disturbed by a "rising tide" of allegedly racist and anti-semitic incidents? Have you wondered how some of these incidents seem to occur just when they are most convenient for propaganda, or institutional blackmail, or to promote restrictions on freedom of speech? If so, you may not be surprised to learn that a significant proportion of these incidents are hoaxes.

Most real incidents are isolated things, usually involving children entirely unconnected with a "hate" group. Incidents involving physical injury or damage to property are statistically rare. For example, the 1,200 or so allegedly anti-semitic incidents recorded annually in the United States by the Anti- Defamation League amount to approximately one incident per two hundred thousand citizens; and the vast majority of these are nothing worse than graffiti or nuisance phone calls by children. A single hoaxer can inflate these statistics considerably.

Because real incidents are so uncommon, and because they are so useful to manipulate people and institutions when they do occur, the temptation to fabricate them is strong. The benefits of victimisation are well established and "victims" are often treated as heroes ennobled by their experience. Police officers who investigate these incidents privately report that perhaps as many as 25 per cent of them are hoaxes.

What signs suggest that an alleged anti-semitic or racist incident may be a hoax? We suggest the following:

1. An incident which cannot be corroborated with good evidence from a disinterested witness;

2. An incident which occurs when it is "needed" to promote awareness or sensitivity, or to silence critics;

3. Repeat incidents, especially with "difficult", resentful and easily offended individuals who frequently complain of insults, slights, harassment or assaults;

4. Incidents which are ruthlessly exploited by the victims to attain victim celebrity status, or to pursue a social or political agenda, or to obtain financial benefits.

Here follow several examples of proven hoaxes:

1. Quintin E. Banks, an 18 year old black student at Northwest Missouri University in Maryville, Missouri, reports a "racially-motivated" assault and death threats. These reports bring him much attention. Newspaper accounts portray the university as a hotbed of racism. On the strength of the complaint, the University calls in the FBI, the Justice Department and a special investigator from the Missouri Highway Patrol. During the course of an interrogation by Sergeant Larry R. Stobbs of the Highway Patrol, Mr Banks admits that the complaints were a hoax of his own making.

2. Laurie A. Recht, a Jewish legal secretary and supporter of court-ordered desegregation in Yonkers, New York, reports receiving many death threats over several months following a meeting where she was heckled by angry whites. Ms Recht becomes a media heroine for her actions and is awarded an honorary degree. To catch the perpetrators, the FBI installs a television camera outside her apartment and taps her telephone line. The tap shows that no calls have been received when she reported that they had; and the hidden camera records Ms Recht in the act of writing a threat on the wall next to her apartment.

3. A series of fires in Hartford, Connecticut occurs at Young Israel Synagogue, Emmanuel Synagogue, the home of Rabbi Solomon Krupka, and at the home of State Representative Joan Kemler, who is Jewish. In a glare of hostile publicity, the Police pull out all the stops to find the arsonist. Barry Dov Schuss, a 17 year old Jewish student, eventually confesses to all four arsons.

4. A New York black teenager, Tawana Brawley, claims to have been kidnapped for several days, and raped by white men - who then put her in a plastic rubbish bag and marked her with racist insults using dog faeces. The case becomes a cause celebre in New York City, with editorials, marches and media personalities deploring the incident and the racist climate which caused it. Later, a detailed police investigation determines that the whole case was a hoax.

5. James Oppenheim, former president of the Jewish Student Union at the State University of New York in Binghampton leads demonstrations against anti-semitism after the Union building is defaced with anti-Jewish abuse in November 1988. He also makes numerous demands on the university administration, among these being the establishment of a Judaic Studies Department. Mr Oppenheim is then arrested for having painted the anti-semitic abuse himself in order to create sympathy for Jewish causes.

6. Michael A. Smith, a white student at Ohio Dominican College in Columbus, is charged with sending "hate letters" with racial abuse and death threats to 13 black and Puerto Rican students and faculty members. Following an investigation, Sheriff's department investigators determine that it was Janice Hamlet, a black instructor who had argued with Mr Smith and attempted to get him thrown out of school, who typed and posted the letters. The charges against Mr Smith have been dropped, and made against Ms Hamlet instead. The maximum penalty on conviction is 11 years in prison or a $7,000 fine or both.

We will say emphatically, that not every reported incident of this kind is a hoax. We will also say that those who do commit attacks on life and property should be caught and punished according to law. However, it should be plain that many hoaxes are perpetrated, and that in at least Great Britain and some European countries, the purpose of many such hoaxes is to attack the right of many - undoubtedly vile - organisations to put their case befor the public.

Although in any given year, many hoaxes will be discovered and reported, these discoveries have little value individually. Very often, once public attention has moved elsewhere, a hoax will be quietly added to a list of allegedly real incidents, and so used as propaganda regardless of its discovery.

The purpose of the Hoaxer Project is to gather up and record as many hoax reports as possible. By doing this, we hope to be able to show patterns of use and effect that have not so far been found.

What the readers of Free Life can do is to look out for and send in evidence of any proven hoaxes of this nature. Information on past events is also helpful.

Of course, any newspaper cuttings must include the name of the newspaper and date of publication. Any submissions without these essential markers, no matter how interesting in themselves, will be thrown away.

Equally of course, all communications will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Information should be sent to the Editor of Free Life and to:

Laird Wilcox Editorial Research Service

PO Box 2047

Olathe

Kansas 66061

United States of America

Tel/Fax: 001 913 829 0609