Do We Need To Convene A Commission Every Time Some Idiot Graffitis?

Someone in the City of Grand Forks scrawled something ignorant and bigoted on the side of a building recently (see above) and now activists are demanding the city form a commission in response.

Because we need to start a dialogue about race, or something. As if Americans weren’t already bombarded with that dialogue every day, day after day, with accusations of racism often not often because of actual racism but because of ideological differences.

There’s a reason why Starbucks backed away from the whole #RaceTogether thing went away.

Residents from all corners of the community voiced embarrassment and called for a greater push for understanding. It also triggered memories for some of a 2010 incident when a swastika was painted on a Grand Forks elementary school.

Natasha Thomas, a diversity advocate who is calling for a Diversity and Inclusion Commission in Grand Forks, said the offensive act hits hard.

“There’s a lot of shock, there’s some anger, there’s some hurt — some definite hurt,” she said. “But what I think is important now is that we realize it presents an opportunity for us to be better. There’s a need for a diversity commission or a broader conversation on diversity.”

I’m all for pushing back on racism, but do we really need to empower childish vandalism with this sort of a reaction? Because that’s what we’re doing.

You want to cut down on the number of these ugly incidents? Stop overreacting to them.

Systemic racism is, contrary to what some activists might want you to believe, a thing of the past in America. Not only is it illegal, but it’s hard to imagine any business in the United States surviving for long by refusing service to people because of something like race.

But the aforementioned activists need fodder to justify their activism, and it speaks volumes about America’s much improved race relations that they must resort to such nebulous justifications as graffiti randomly scrawled by idiots.

The vandalism was idiotic. Judging by the community reaction, pretty much everyone acknowledges that. There’s nobody out publicly defending this nonsense. That’s a good thing.

What more do we need?