The news is full of stories about people behaving badly – what’s good about that?  Well, nothing on the face of it.  We have all heard that two wrongs don’t make a right, but sometimes I’m not sure that is universally true.

A few weeks ago, the internet and news media in general were abuzz with a story about a 3 year old little girl with disfiguring facial scars who was asked by employees to leave a Jackson, Mississippi KFC because her face was “disrupting their customers”.  That’s bad behavior.  The story went viral immediately – KFC was roundly condemned on social media;  employees and managers at two Jackson KFC locations have faced constant verbal harrassment, death threats and have had drinks thrown at them.  That’s more bad behavior.  To KFC’s credit, they immediately launched an investigation and donated $30,000 toward the girl’s ongoing medical expenses from the incident that caused her disfigurement.  More on that in a minute.

So, where to begin?  Believing the story is one thing.  But to go take physical action – go to  a KFC restaurant, not knowing if it is the one in question (the original story and facebook post did not specify the location) and berate and/or assault someone over it?  That’s…crazy.  Anyone who would see this story then go and threaten or assault a random person over it is simply bat-shit crazy.  Did anyone take a moment and think whether this story of boorish behavior by KFC employees might not be exactly true?  Certainly the news media did not before reporting this incident.  That’s also bad (or irresponsible) behavior.

But KFC did think about it, after all it was their reputation on the line.  I mentioned that they launched an investigation, and the investigation now has found that the incident never happened.

Without assigning malice toward the girl’s family, there would have been immediate reason to doubt the story if anyone had thought to look for a motive.  The young girl was horribly injured when she was mauled by her grandfather’s pitbulls, and the family either had no insurance or very little.  They have  a facebook page and were attempting to raise funds online for the child’s medical expenses, attempts that yielded meager results:  only $595 prior to the KFC incident.  After the story went viral, donations have soared to approximately $135,000, including $30,000 from KFC.  Intentional, or happy accident?  I don’t know – or care that much.  It’s obvious this little girl is going to need surgeries, medical care, etc. that the family probably cannot afford, insurance or not.  I do hope that somehow this money is put into a trust so that it will be used exclusively for those ends, and not hijacked by the family who had a record of at least marginally responsible behavior.

Let’s do the math:  grandfather’s pitbulls maul child (bad) + KFC employees disrespect child (if true bad) + girls family fabricates incident (if true bad) + media casues firestorm without fact checking (bad) + public goes bat-shit on KFC (bad) = child gets needed treatment (good).  That’s four bads (plus another two possible bads) equals a good.

Math is hard and my question still stands:  can two wrongs make a right?  It is wrong for a three year old child to be mauled by her grandfather’s dogs.  It is also wrong for random people to be threatened or assaulted by bat-shit crazy people for no reason.  It is wrong for the news media to jump on a sensational story and put people at risk thereby.  But it is right that the child will be getting the treatment she needs.  And in that context, I suspect any of the parties taken in by the hoax will be OK with it.  I know I am.