Bethany Storro was once the target of the nation's sympathy, but she is slowly becoming the target of the nation's suspicion. The 28-year-old Storro, who is deaf, said that she was the victim of a random attack. According to Storro, a young black woman came up to her and said, "Hey, pretty girl," before throwing a cup of acid in to her face.

The attack on Storro, which allegedly took place on August 30, grabbed international headlines. She was even scheduled to appear on the 'Oprah.'

That's when reporters started asking a lot of questions.

According to Storro, the injuries to her nose and face did not affect her eyesight, because she was wearing sunglasses, but one reporter asked her why she was wearing sunglasses when it was nearly sunset. The reporter also asked how Storro could hear what the woman was saying when she is deaf.

The suspicions of the reporter were accelerated by the fact that many homeless people in the park on the night Storro was attacked said she was all alone when she fell to the ground screaming. While the incident is still under investigation, it is known that Storro canceled her scheduled appearance on 'Oprah' without giving producers a reason for her decision.

On her Facebook page, Storro simply said she canceled because "the show was going to possibly turn into another direction, so my family and I decided not to go on."

One must sincerely hope that the reports that Storro is making this up are untrue. If it were the case that Storro did indeed fabricate the incident, there is obvious reason for concern.

It's sad that when many people have lied about being attacked, they were quick to say that a black man or woman did the crime; Susan Smith, the woman who drowned her two children, blamed it on a black man. There was also the infamous incident in Boston nearly 20 years ago, when Charles Stuart killed his pregnant wife and said that a black man did it. Finally, there was the case this May, in which a Philly police sergeant, Charles Ramsey, said he was shot by a black man but actually shot himself.

The world is a crazy place.

Clearly, these accusations contribute to racial profiling. African Americans are more likely to be suspected of crimes and are therefore more likely to be searched, arrested and incarcerated for crimes, even when they didn't commit them. This is the nature of America and the nation we've been for the past 400 years. Unfortunately, things aren't going to change anytime soon.

Watch Storro's "story" here:



Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered to your e-mail, please click here.