I started hearing about this a few days ago: a series of incidents in which Obama supporters — usually black — violently attacked McCain supporters — usually white. The most prominent of them was an incident in which a woman claimed that a 6’4″ black man mugged her and stole $60, then took an extra step because he was enraged by the McCain sticker on her car; he then carved the letter “B” on her face to “teach her a lesson” about not being pro-Obama.

I was skeptical about this from the get-go. Not only because of the silliness of the premise — what mugger is going to stop long enough to write a dyslexic “B” on some woman’s face once he’s got the money? Risk capture, and leave additional evidence, to make a political statement? And with a 4-to-5-inch knife, that shallow little “B” is all he did? Besides, wouldn’t the letter “O” have been quicker? PoC, please. On top of that, people from the area pointed out that it’s a heavily-trafficed intersection where anyone carving up somebody else would very likely be noticed, if not stopped by good Samaritans. So this attacker wasn’t just dyslexic, he was also stupidly self-destructive.

But I was also skeptical because the underlying narrative of this attack was so clear. Big black man, young earnest white woman, violent violation of the woman’s body. This alone made it newsworthy in some parts. But the added political basis of the attack, along with the ongoing whispers that we’ll see the LA Riots redux if those uppity black people don’t get their way, seemed to send a screamingly obvious message to those who are already terrified of the coming black apocalypse: if Obama is elected, black men everywhere will do this to all of us. Ooooweeeooooo… (cue Halloween music)

Turns out she made it up. Surprise, surprise. I’m skeptical about her confession, too:

Asked whether the false report was politically motivated, Bryant replied, “It’s difficult to say.”

“She is stating that she was in her vehicle driving around, and she came up with this idea,” she said. “She said she has prior mental problems and doesn’t know how the backward letter ‘B’ got on her face.”

…Rrrright. So she was delusional enough to conjure up an imaginary 6’4″ black man wearing shiny shoes who violently assaulted her, and schizoid enough to lose track of reality and forget how the “B” or the bruises happened… yet she was rational and coherent enough that no one immediately sent her for a psych eval?

It can happen, yes. But it’s damned unlikely.

What’s more likely is that she knew precisely what she was doing. Not so long ago, they used to string PoC men up when accusations like this got made. I think she probably knew that, too.

We’ve got 10 days ’til the election. I imagine we’ll see a lot more of this in the next few days, and not all of the attempts will be as ham-handed as this. Brace yourselves, folks.