Old White Joe Biden and many others have assured us repeatedly that “white supremacists” constitute the bigger terror threat to Americans today, and they wouldn’t lie to us, would they? The only thing they lack to complete the picture are actual white supremacist terrorists. And while it may not rise to the level of suicide bombings or the droning of innocent families, it was indeed terrifying when racist graffiti was found at two St. Louis-area high schools: Parkway Central in Chesterfield and Parkway North in St. Louis itself.
The graffiti was found in the boys’ bathroom at Parkway Central Wednesday, and the same things were scrawled on a bathroom wall at Parkway North: “HOPE ALL BLACK PEOPLE DIE” and “N****R.” The next morning at Parkway Central, according to St. Louis’ KMOV, “over a thousand students and staff walked out of Parkway Central High Schools in solidarity… Parkway Central students, staff and teachers walked out during class to stand in solidarity and asking the administration for change.”
At the protest, the horror was palpable. One student remarked: “I’m sitting in that building, shaking in fear because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me because of my skin tone. We need change in this building and we don’t need it then, we need it now.” Another student claimed that it was just another day at the racist cauldron known as Parkway Central: “I was shocked, but at the same time honestly I wasn’t. Freshman year there was a video with racial slurs being said. Sophomore year, there was a meme posted during school about what happened with the video. Junior year there was a video with a girl who had profanity written on her stomach and now this.”
A third student noted her shame at having to attend what she depicted as essentially a KKK feeder school: “It’s kind of embarrassing because you know, you have other schools looking at you like the racist school, like that’s the school you’d never want to go to because stuff like that actually happens to the students that attend our school.” Despite the fact that staff and teachers participated in the walkout, she added: “Stuff like that needs to be talked about in class especially instead of just pushing it under the rug.”
At the protest, according to the Daily Mail, “students were captured cursing at school administrators, shedding tears and chanting into bullhorns at the protest.” One student said: “I am sick and tired of people getting racially profiled,” although it wasn’t clear what kind of racial profiling had been going on at the school. She added: “I just want to say to the school, do better.”
Parkway Central Principal Tim McCarthy, however, was not in the least inclined to sweep the matter under the rug, and appeared anxious to do better. He took immediate action, telling students: “As your building principal, these actions which degrade individuals’ human dignity have no place in school. They have no place at Central High and are antithetical to our core values of respect, integrity and caring.”
Of course. And McCarthy wasn’t finished. He sent a note home to parents informing them that “a serious incident” had taken place: “Racist hate speech was written on bathroom walls at school.” He assured parents, in case any were wondering whether he approved of this, that “this act is an affront to the core values of our community and a serious violation of our discipline code. Please know that we take this offense seriously and will work with district officials to investigate the incident and hold anyone involved accountable for their actions.”
Related: Another Democrat Caught Perpetrating a Hate Hoax for Sympathy
Parkway Schools Superintendent Dr. Keith Marty sent his own letter to parents, assuring them “there will be no tolerance for hate speech and students found responsible will receive severe disciplinary consequences and referral to law enforcement.” As anxious as McCarthy had been to affirm his progressive bona fides, Marty reminded them: “Racism is wrong. Racism, hate speech and racist behavior causes everlasting harm and degrades Parkway students and staff. Racism undermines our mission, commitments, tradition, reputation, character principles and the moral fabric and core values of our outstanding school district and community.”
Amid all this affirmation of prevailing pieties, which hardly anyone actually rejects, there was just one catch: on Tuesday, a black student admitted to having scrawled the graffiti at both schools. Marty wrote to parents again, telling them this and saying that he was nevertheless “proud” of the students who protested, for “proactively [leading] walkouts.” He declared: “We remain hurt by the actions of the student, as it does not represent the values of our community.”
It was as if a newspaper in 1938 responded to the hysteria that followed Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast by assuring readers that the risk of an invasion by space aliens was very real, and that the people who panicked were entirely reasonable. If any Parkway Schools official had any spine and could see things clearly amid the prevailing fog of Leftist misinformation and disinformation, he or she would have told parents and students that the incident showed one thing above all: that victimhood is currency today, and the more one has of it, the richer one is. But actual racist incidents are so few and far between that they must be fabricated. The official could have concluded with an appeal to unity and calm, and invited skepticism regarding claims of racism, while pledging to do everything possible against any actual outbreaks of it.
But for that, we would need someone with courage, and such people are getting scarcer by the day.
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