A few weeks ago a pretty white girl in my hometown had her face badly burned by some sort of acid. Initially she had reported to police that she was getting into her car when a black woman approached her, saying “Hey, pretty little girl, want to take a drink of this?” before throwing the caustic liquid on her face. Yesterday the police announced that the entire story had been a hoax, one in a long line of “bushy-haired man” stories such as those of Diana Downs, Susan Smart, Charles Stuart and Ashley Todd wherein a random black person is blamed for a crime which distracts from the real, white culprit. It was interesting, as one keen observer noted, how much the police sketch of the alleged attacker looked like the pretty white perpetrator. This got me thinking about crazy people, particularly pretty white ones, whom we are all conditioned to believe as surely as we are conditioned to blame all sorts of crime and malice on black people.

Rather than shrink from public attention, this young woman was very brave: speaking publicly of her ordeal, she volunteered to have pictures of her acid-scarred face and associated surgery covered prominently with photographs. Looking at one picture of her injuries, I was struck by how much her swollen face resembled another crazy woman, who had accused me of malice. This set me to meditating on “missing white girl syndrome” and the readiness of our culture to grab easy scapegoats. Where does the crazy come from, and what about us leads us to blithely accept the allegations of one group (pretty white girls) and quickly condemn another (scary black men)?

The same person who noted the similarity in facial structure between the police sketch and acid victim put forward that this might be a subconscious admission of guilt, noting that there were other cases where people with personality disorders had “alts” or alternative personalities who actively harassed them. Perhaps this was something like that. Again, I don’t know, but it got me thinking again about pretty white girls, scary men and general social gullibility.

What is it about our culture that values the white person’s life more than the black person, particularly valorizing the pretty white girl? Natalee Holloway or JonBenét Ramsey becomes an international celebrity when they are missing, while dozens of other cases are tossed on a neglected missing persons list, abandoned for years until a body may identified.

We want stories that confirm our fairytale understandings of the world more than we want truth, and the people who manipulate our media and sense of justice understand this. Such was the case in my own unfortunate experience with one self-centered, over-entitled daughter of privilege. Pretty white girls can learn early to play the system like a drum, and will do so until we tire of them or they are no longer so pretty. Whom they hurt in the process is entirely irrelevant to them, but a problem for us.

My best guess at this point is that Cate Carter, formerly of Adidas in Portland and Shanghai, is deeply self-centered. More so even than I, or the various lawyers who milk her for daddy’s money. She obviously thinks that her wishes should be law, and is not above lying on court affidavits to get this. I honestly believe that she thinks I would kill her, because I honestly believe she thinks she deserves it. It annoys me that she seems able to find a seemingly endless supply of lawyers who will either suborn perjury or accept it for $15,000 per shot. They will cynically make up stories about me because they understand as I did not that too many judges are lazy or inattentive, dumb as jurors and willing to accept the simplest fairy story on offer.

Huge parts of the criminal justice system are about willful ignorance of fact to shoe-horn every case into perhaps half a dozen simplistic narratives. The narrative which Acid Woman used was that she was so beautiful and worthy of attention that a jealous black woman would throw acid in her face. The narrative that Cate Carter put forward was similar, but cost me me several years of frustration and almost two years of gross wages. I was lucky. “Bushy-haired man” stories such as Acid Woman’s cost innocent people of color their lives, whether through Emmett Till killings or thousands of unjust prosecutions and convictions.

It is comforting to believe that all pretty white girls are innocent and true, that all bushy-haired men are evil and that all lawyers are just, judges attentive, prosecutors honest and police impeccable. That is a lie. When a narrative matches your view of the world but is suspiciously void of details, watch out. It could be a pretty white girl or other politician, lying to play you and mostly serve themselves.

Pray that they are not rich or crazy.