It wasn’t a racist who wrote on the bathroom wall.
At least it wasn’t a white racist.
It was a college-aged African-American woman, a student at Our Lady of Mercy High School, scrawling a veiled threat that included the n-word.
That was Monday, and it was Monday night that the story broke across the evening news. There were promises from the administration about a town hall and some assemblies and a new tolerance and diversity program. The chief of police said it was loathsome and called it a hate crime and promised to get to the bottom of it.
The school’s diversity officer mourned the fact that her black students had now come face to face with bigotry. Counseling was offered, outreach was promised and all agreed that this was a symptom of a far-deeper problem in the school and in society. There were accounts of students sobbing.
Blogs were written, videos were recorded, demonstrations were held.
And eyes were rolled.
Because this was either an outrage or a lie, depending on perspective – the perspective of politics and race. If you were woke or black, it was proof of the undying white racism of American society. If you were conservative or white, it smelled like someone crying wolf.
Both those reactions, in their way, are stereotypes based in prejudice. To believe unquestioningly because of your racial views is as morally wrong as disbelieving unquestioningly because of your racial views. Though it is natural to see in society affirmation of our bias, it is not noble. And it is not restricted to one race.
Racism is not about power, it is about evil, and evil can reside in any heart. Bigotry against others, because of their race or because they are not of our race, is a temptation into which most of humankind at least occasionally falls, and from which no person or community is immune.
And the n-word written on the bathroom wall was a dog whistle that sounded differently in different ears.
To one bias, it was an indictment of an institution and community. To another bias, it was one more lie.
One set of ears believed white people were always bad, and the other set of ears believed that claims of white bigotry were always false.
And so on social media they posted that it was one more Jussie Smollett. And on the evening news they opined that America’s racism continues to rear its head.
When what they should have done – what the entire community should have done – is waited to find out who did it and what their motivation was. It wouldn’t have been a long wait. School and police officials knew by the end of Tuesday who had written on the wall.
And they knew that the narrative they had put out was false.
And yet such are the race politics of our day – such is the fear of being cancelled – that no one spoke, no one contradicted, everyone just let it ride. A falsehood that comported with the progressive narrative was safer for all involved than a truth that contradicted it.
A school named for the Mother of the Son of God chose to live with a lie rather than to tell an unpleasant truth.
And everybody went along with it.
Which makes this a teachable moment.
Certainly, the young woman who wrote the slur needs to learn. Whether her action was the temporary stupidity of youth or the plotting deception of dishonest activism, she needs to learn. Hopefully the school administration has the compassion and the courage to help her do so.
The school needs to learn. It needs to learn to stand for what’s right, and to be measured and thoughtful in its actions. It needs to commit to tell the truth, and to not jump to conclusions.
The press should recognize its role in fanning the flames of this incident, and of its tendency to embrace a narrative based on politics instead of facts. The same is true for community journalists and social-media commentators.
But the rest of us need to learn, too.
Those who unquestioningly believed the graffiti was real, and those unquestioningly believed it wasn’t.
We could have waited until we learned the facts of the matter, but instead we leapt to our hardened positions.
We did that because of the bilateral prejudice of politics and race.
And so today’s lie was believed, which makes it less likely tomorrow’s truth will be believed.
And that may be the greatest wrong of all.