Viola Fletcher and her once prosperous community experienced the harm of collective blame and collective punishment, for a crime that never happened. That did not matter for the residents, the beautiful homes, the “Black Wall Street” of Tulsa, Okla.

The false accusation that a Black 19-year-old had assaulted a young white woman was enough to precipitate events that began the night of May 31, 1921, and stretched into June 1. White mobs — deputized by law enforcement — descended on the African American Greenwood neighborhood in a violent and, according to a Justice Department review published in the last month of the Biden administration, “coordinated, military-style attack.”

After the looting, the fires, the makeshift bombs that survivors said they witnessed being dropped from planes, Greenwood was destroyed, with the death toll put as high as 300.

Seven-year-old Fletcher survived but never forgot. She lived long enough to testify before a congressional panel 100 years later: “I still see Black men being shot, Black bodies lying in the street. I still smell smoke and see fire.”

“Mother Fletcher,” a name bestowed on this keeper of memory, died last month at the age of 111.

Though whites in the community and beyond tried to erase this event, in the same way the current White House is trying to erase any stories that paint anything except a triumphant picture of American exceptionalism, the narrative never died, because of the determination of Fletcher and other survivors.

Something America never seems to learn, though, is the inevitable cost of making a race, a faith, a nationality or a neighborhood the scapegoat for the real or imagined transgressions of an individual.

The lives of Fletcher and her Greenwood neighbors, the ones who survived two days of terror, were tragically altered when prosperity and property transformed into poverty and homelessness, and no one paid a price or made them whole.

The words I heard when I myself was a young girl make perfect sense.

I remember the whispers among adults whenever a high-profile crime hit the headlines: “I hope a Black person didn’t do it.”

Why, I wondered, would every Black person be blamed for something some stranger did? I had a hard enough time obeying the rules my parents laid down. Now I had to mind other people’s business, too?

I learned soon enough that only some folks ever got to be seen as individuals. Others were quickly judged by the company we didn’t keep, if that company shared the same skin color. Heck, just living in West Baltimore painted me as a criminal by those who never set foot in my family’s neat row house.

No wonder Barack Obama’s hair turned gray after eight years. As a representative of all Black folks, the first Black president had to strive for perfection, had to be “a credit to his race.” His entire family spent those years under a microscope. On the other hand, every one of Donald Trump’s transgressions — such as centering himself in the family tragedy of a double homicide — is written off, even by those repulsed by his words, as Trump representing no one but his authentic self.

That skewed scale is now official policy, with Donald Trump expressing a desire to rid the country of U.S. citizens who don’t fit the preferred profile. That would be Norwegian or Danish, and I’ll leave it to readers to connect the dots. And if a crime can be used to cast blame, that’s all the justification that’s needed to demonize an entire group of people.

In Minnesota, a massive COVID-era fraud scandal cost hundreds of millions of dollars, with many of Somali descent now charged. Ahmed Samatar, an international studies professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, who has lived in the state for more than 30 years, told PBS he was “ashamed.”

“Somali Minnesotans have to face this, and they really have to clean up their act,” he said. “But I think the challenge is to keep that in its proper place … and then, next to it, expound on what the Somalis have achieved in the state of Minnesota.”

Instead, the administration sent ICE for an immigration crackdown, though most Somali Americans were born here or are in the country legally. Trump declared he wants everyone — U.S. citizen or not — with roots in Somalia, including elected Rep. Ilhan Omar, out.

“These aren’t people that work,” he said, fulfilling the fear of Samatar, and business owners like Waris Mohamud, who, in that PBS report, offered an invitation to the president he voted for: “Come over here, have a tea, and you will learn who we are.”

I would not expect a visit soon.

When an Afghan immigrant who was granted asylum this year, after aiding the U.S. military and moving to America four years ago, was charged with shooting two National Guard members in Washington, killing one, the many condemnations failed to stop the president from halting immigration claims from that country. That included those vouched for by veterans they aided.

“We know that this man committed a heinous atrocity, and he should be held accountable. What we know also is that Afghans should not be held accountable for his actions,” Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of AfghanEvac, said to KGTV in San Diego.

But of course, they will be by those who make the decisions.

Yes, we preach personal responsibility and revel in the myth of American individualism, but that only seems the case for some Americans.

For others, their safe and unbothered existence, their very security, can depend on what someone else has done or is accused of doing.

The result is an American like Viola Fletcher. A Washington Post story recounted that after a century “she still kept a light on at night and slept in a chair positioned toward the door of her apartment so that she could make a fast escape in the event of danger.”

And that is no security at all.

Mary C. Curtis has worked at The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Charlotte Observer, as national correspondent for Politics Daily, and is a senior facilitator with The OpEd Project. She is host of the CQ Roll Call “Equal Time with Mary C. Curtis” podcast. Follow her on Twitter @mcurtisnc3.