Last week, I heard a story about a girl. A girl around the same age as me. A girl that could have been me.

She was walking along in a park in Winnsboro, La., when three men in hoodies jumped out and attacked her. They keyed her car with racial slurs, including “KKK,” and set this poor girl on fire.

Horrified, angry and confused about the actions of mankind and racism, I began to type out an angry and embittered column. There were many things that shocked me about this story, especially the amount of hate that people are capable of displaying. It always disappoints me when people are outright racist; it downright saddens me when people have to go out and display that kind of ignorance and bigotry by keying a woman’s car and setting her on fire. 

Originally, I was upset that the police and the FBI were hesitant to call it a hate crime because they didn’t know the race of the perpetrators. That’s upsetting because it doesn’t necessarily have to be white on black to be a hate crime: It can be any race attacking any race to be a hate crime.

However, now I’m upset for completely different reasons. Because after I started to type out my column, I turned away from it for a couple of days because I wanted get out all of my unreasonable emotions before I wrote my real opinion on it. 

But when I came back, the news reports changed. In an upsetting new twist, it turns out that she made up the story. Police reports claim that she burned herself — no one had attacked her. Authorities figured this out via the fingerprints on the lighter and lighter fluid.

Oh. My God.

Now, a tiny piece of me feels for the girl. I don’t know whether she did this for attention, or just has some mental illness. Regardless of the reason, someone needs to take care of her. It’s not every day that you feel that you need to set yourself on fire, and I don’t imagine it’s easy to watch yourself burn. It hurts — she has third degree burns — and you’d need to be mentally undeterred to do so.

With all this in mind, can you blame her?

Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes. I’m still very angry.

First of all, a large portion of America reacted to this, and rightfully. When you hear reports on a potential hate crime, of course you’re going to be upset and you will have strong emotions. Many people held candlelight vigils and showed their support via social media. And the worst part is, she made people in her community uneasy. Racial relations in Louisiana are not known for being perfect, and a reported incident like this set people on edge.

Second of all, she set all discussion of hate crimes and bigotry a step back. Prior to the most recent developments in the story, people, including myself, were having conversations about race relations and attacks. I don’t know, had the original story been true, how much change would have happened in the hate crime climate, but at least people were taking an interest in the issues. But now, the discussion and call for change concerning racism, though no less important and necessary, has been convoluted.

Even looking at the comments on updated news stories and reports, I can tell that she now created this culture where some people will, in the back of their mind, question hate crime reports and the validity of the victim. Is that correct? Absolutely not. But that’s the reality of what she started. It’s not so much that people jumped to conclusions and didn’t “check their facts;” it’s what news channels and police officials originally reported. But now, people who were taken aback at the mention of a hate crime look like they jumped to conclusions. 

Essentially, this a modern case of the boy who cried wolf: Because of this crime, people may be less likely to believe that the next reported hate crime is real. I urge people not to think this way. This case is the exception, not the rule.

Tolu is a senior in Media. She can be reached at [email protected].