Snopes Debunks Islamophobia Hate Hoax

WaPo is at it again this morning, screaming in a featured story about Muslim women so menaced by Trump supporters who allegedly tug on their hijabs like playground pranksters that they have been forced to take self-defense classes so that they know how to escape a “hijab grab.” Yet even liberal-leaning Snopes smells a rat regarding the postelection Islamophobia epidemic:

In late November 2016, a photograph of what looks like a threatening letter from a “neighborhood town watch” appeared and subsequently made its way around social media…

The photograph appeared with a wide range of different claims. When it was posted to Reddit on 20 November 2016, it was accompanied by a message claiming that the letter had been circulated to Muslims in Massachusetts. Facebook users shared the image claiming that the letter was sent to a “hijabi Muslim woman in Harrisburg, PA”. Others said that it had been taken in Michigan, while the earliest posting of this image we uncovered, which was shared on 11 November 2016, alleged that it was from somewhere in Delaware…

[T]here is no evidence that it was widely circulated to Muslims around the United States. It either documents an isolated incident (which has not warranted media coverage or police reports), or [is] the work of a hoaxster who typed the letter, printed out a copy, photographed it, then shared it online with a fictional story.

This hoaxster would belong on the Hate Hoax List. Given that at least some and conceivably all of these alleged hijab grabs never happened, the Washington Post probably belongs there too.

On a tip from Rob E. Hat tip: Weasel Zippers.