Mythic power - Tawana Bradley case

National Review, April 29, 1988

Mythic Power

NEXT TO THE "Preppie Murder Case," the hottest crime serial in the New York media lately has been that of Tawana Brawley, a black high-school girl who says she was kidnapped and raped by six white men for four days, over the Thanksgiving holiday. Miss Brawley was quickly taken under wing by three black militant hustlers straight out of Tom Wolfe, who splashed wild accusations of official coverups, racism, etc., all over the tabloids, while preventing Miss Brawley from cooperating with the law. The authorities have been unable to do anything and afraid to do nothing.

Meanwhile, skepticism about Miss Brawley's story has quietly grown. The New York Times has done patient investigative work exposing the inconsistencies and implausibilities of her original version. Her three patrons have stuck to her story, as it were, counting on tribal solidarity to sustain the myth against rational criticism. The girl herself may be caught up in a network that has invested so heavily in her allegations that she could hardly correct them if she wanted to.

Now the Daily News reports that a classmate of Miss Brawley's had, 18 months earlier, told a similar story, later proven false, of having been kidnapped and raped, "in details strikingly similar to the Brawley allegations." It's becoming obvious why Miss Brawley isn't being allowed to cooperate with an official investigation. In the current atmosphere, the generic I-was-raped-by-the-Klan story has an automatic resonance. Many blacks rally to it, and skeptical whites are branded as racist. No proof is necessary. The myth lives with no visible means of support. Shades of Janet Cooke.