Tawana Brawley Redux? A Knee-Jerk Response

New York Times headline: Strauss-Kahn Accuser’s Call Alarmed Prosecutors

Twenty-eight hours after a housekeeper at the Sofitel New York said she was sexually assaulted by Dominique Strauss-Kahn, she spoke by phone to a boyfriend in an immigration jail in Arizona. Investigators with the Manhattan district attorney’s office learned the call had been recorded and had it translated from a “unique dialect of Fulani,” a language from the woman’s native country, Guinea, according to a well-placed law enforcement official.

When the conversation was translated — a job completed only this Wednesday — investigators were alarmed: “She says words to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry, this guy has a lot of money. I know what I’m doing,’ ” the official said.

This news feeding frenzy reminds this writer of the Tawana Brawley paroxysm of news, fact, hysteria, race, class. bullshit and more. This is a knee jerk response to breaking news. Something less knee-jerk is in the offing.

Maybe.

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