Respectfully addressing our racial issues

Racism knows no borders. It is not limited to any age group. Or socio-economic grouping

It does not respect. Period.

Think about that. At its core, racism is a refusal to respect.

The region again recoiled earlier this week when faced with outright racism. An ugly racial epithet was scrawled on the dorm room door of an African-American student at Cabrini University.

The crude three-word racist graffiti – which of course just had to include the N-word – made it clear that the young woman who resides there was not only not respected, but not wanted.

Yes, on a campus of one of our most enlightened institutions. In Radnor. On the Main Line.

Like we said, racism does not respect.

Incredulously, just a day after that incident convulsed the campus and renewed discussions about our racial problems across the region, two more incidents of hateful racial graffiti were discovered on the campus, at least one of them in the same dorm. Again the targets were minority students.

To its credit, the university did not try to hide what happened on the picturesque campus. Instead, officials attacked it and vowed to work with police to find those responsible.

This is not an indictment of Cabrini or its students. To their credit, many of the students took to decorating the hallways of the dorm with messages of support. Town hall-style meetings were held by the school to keep students updated on the investigation and answer any questions they might have.

What this is, is an indictment of hate, and an acknowledgement that it continues to linger.

The danger is that what was once hidden – at times under a hood – is now becoming emboldened.

It is an outgrowth of heated – yes, often hateful — partisan bickering that has drowned out our once civil political process and convinced some parts of society that they were being left behind, ignored, even scorned by the elites who govern.

That sense of isolation ignited a movement to “take back America” and “drain the swamp.”

Unfortunately, along the way it also breathed new life into some old, ugly sentiment.

It was the kind of sentiment seen marching in the streets of Charlottesville, Va., carrying tiki torches.

But don’t think for a moment this new rise of hate is limited to the deep South. If nothing else, what happened at Cabrini should dispel any such belief.

This kind of lingering resentment and racial animosity is present in every town.

In West Chester, constantly pointed to as a vibrant community on the rise with a great downtown area, a destination locale for up-and-coming young adults, they are struggling to quell some ugly racial incidents as well.

A series of online threats and hate speech made against minority students at West Chester East High School had set the community on edge. Not helping was a feeling in the community that police and school officials waited too long to alert parents and students. And when action was taken, some in the community noticed it was handled differently than other situations might have been.

The West Chester incident underscored another problem with the growing problem of racial intolerance and hate speech. While the situation in Charlottesville could not be more open and in your face with neo-Nazis and members of the Ku Klux Klan openly marching in the streets and spouting their hateful rhetoric, there is an ocean of ugly sentiment constantly simmering online. And much of it is anonymous. That anonymity often allows people to do and say things they would not otherwise do, Charlottesville not withstanding.

Ironically, a black student eventually was charged with in connection with the posts.

Several town hall meetings were held so officials could talk with the community.

The idea was pretty simple.

“It is all about dialogue,” said West Goshen Police Chief Joseph Gleason. Imagine that. Yes, America still has issues with race. Despite the arrest in the West Chester incident, and the ongoing investigation at Cabrini, we are not going to arrest our way out of our racial issues. It goes deeper than that.

But maybe Chief Gleason and the residents in West Goshen are on to something.

Dialog. Talking to one another. Empathy. Trying to understand another’s position. Respecting one another. Sure beats marching with tiki torches.

Or scrawling messages of hate on dorm room doors.

Yes, America still has issues with race. Despite the arrest in the West Chester incident, and the ongoing investigation at Cabrini, we are not going to arrest our way out of our racial issues. It goes deeper than that.