It was Oberlin all over again…another Black history Month racist hate speech hoax. As Professor Jacobson reports, the racist message  written on a whiteboard in front of a black Grand Valley State University (in Michigan) student’s door last month at was written by the student himself. This was not discovered, however, until the incident was used to justify the usual condemnations of American society as a  hotbed of racial hate and prejudice against non-whites.

The police report:

“The Grand Valley State University Police Department has concluded a thorough investigation of the Racial Bias incident reported on February 17, 2014. The person believed to be responsible for the drawing and language written on the dry erase board is a Grand Valley student and the owner of the message board. The incident has had a disruptive impact on the community and as a result, the student has been referred to the Dean of Students for a student code violation. University policy does not permit the release of his/her name.”

An understatement, don’t you think? The incident was nationally reported; websites such as the Huffington Post weighed in, followed of course by the predictable comments of the Huffpo gang to the effect that the U.S., and especially conservatives, Southerners, and Republicans are racist through and through. We learned who the perpetrators of the Oberlin false flag hoax were, and I see no good reason why the black student who did this shouldn’t have his name publicized exactly as widely as his unethical act. I don’t want to hire him. I don’t want to have him in my neighborhood. Do you?

Why are these images and words somehow relieved of their harmful intent and effect because the perpetrator says, “Hey, I didn’t mean it…and I’m black, so it’s just a hoax.” I reject that completely. If a black student can say “I was joking,” then a white student should be able to say the same, and be implicitly trusted. After all, who can read what’s in his heart and mind? I could make a persuasive argument that the hoax is more damaging and harmful than if it were really the crude racist insult it was designed to appear. Such a hoax is presumably designed to increase distrust, further divide us, give ammunition to race-baiters and grievance advocates. In Barack Obama’s America, where the cry of “Racist!” has become a tool of political repression, this is the exact equivalent of shouting fire in a crowded theater, an evil, deliberate act.  A white racist’s message on a black man’s door? Hateful, cruel, ignorant…but no more harmful, and arguably less unethical.

After all, the fake message is all of those things, and also a lie.