The vandalism at University of Virginia’s black cultural center didn’t inspire the usual national moral panic, but it is notable for something else.
The crime occurred in August. Not until last week did we learn that the perpetrator, police allege, is black. Her name: Zaynab Bintabdul-Hadijakien.
Which means that the authorities didn’t want the public to know the identity of the individual charged with tossing rocks at the university’s Luther Porter Jackson Cultural Center.
“Hate,” of course, was the implied motive. And just as surely, hate — or at least racial hatred — had nothing to do with it. It was garden-variety vandalism with a garden-variety motive: anger.
Empire Impregnable
The story begins on August 19, when U.Va. cops received a report of “destruction of two glass window panes from thrown rocks” at the cultural center.
Though cops quickly determined the vandalism was unrelated to race, students melted down.
The student council passed a resolution that “stresses the importance of Dawson’s Row as a space for Black students, emphasizes the representative body’s solidarity with the Black community and requests the University releases updated information and transparency regarding the investigation,” the campus Cavalier Daily reported:
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at U.Va. also condemned the vandalism via an Instagram post Aug. 20.
[Council member Tyler] Busch highlighted the historic importance of this space.
“Dawson’s Row is a very historic place on Grounds — for Black students it is a safe haven,” Busch said. “When [it was vandalized], students weren’t really made aware … so we’re really calling for some clarity, especially seeing as this is a place that is very much a home and very much a personal thing for Black students here.”
The campus NAACP rushed out an Instagram post.
OAAA has acted like a home away from home and a place for Black students to be Black students. The office has constantly poured into Black students to allow us to survive. No stone thrown with malice will knock down the empire and strength The Office of African American Affairs has created.
As of November, the College Fix reported, cops still hadn’t released the identity of a suspect on September 3. Citing student confidentiality, U.Va. refused to identify her.
Last week, citing a police report, the Fix fingered Bintabdul-Hadijakien, who probably “carried out the attack as retaliation against the interim director of the center, Michael Mason, who also oversees psychological services, according to the report and Mason’s comments.”
More details suggest that Bintabdul-Hadijakien, high school valedictorian in 2020, needs a check up from the neck up.
“When served with a warrant, the suspect said she was ‘innocent’ and was being targeted by the university police, but also asked the cop to shoot her,” the Fix reported:
Another part of the police document reports that an officer responded to a woman in “crisis” at the student health center. She expressed “anger, frustration and concern” about Mason, the report stated, leading law enforcement to see her as a suspect.
Mason told police during an initial interview that there were several individuals he thought might have been targeting him, including a former staff member and a student. He said that he possibly was the target due to his work with the counseling center.
Hate Hoaxes Multiply
This “incident” didn’t spiral into the usual hysteria, but it’s part of a pattern of college hates hoaxes.
Last year, graffiti at Albion College contained these messages:
- “Die N***ers Please!”
- “Albion is racist. We do exist KKK;”
- “KKK;”
- “KKK White Power.,” and
- a star of David with the Satanic 666
“Hatred and injustice have no place at Albion, and will not be tolerated,” the school warned, with threats of criminal charges and expulsion if the culprit were a student:
We cannot become a true community of belonging until everybody feels safe on campus, and it is our responsibility to continuously reaffirm our commitment to anti-racism through both words and actions.
The culprit was black.
In 2017, a black student confessed to writing racist graffiti at the Air Force Academy.
But perhaps the most famous — and costly — hate hoax of late occurred at Oberlin College in 2016, when campus leftists, the student senate, and the school itself smeared Gibson’s bakery, a family-owned store.
A store employee and family member caught a black student, accompanied by two friends, trying to shoplift wine and pursued them out of the store. After the students beat up the employee, a Gibson’s-is-racist smear campaign began.
The family sued and won a $36.6 million defamation judgment against Oberlin. In September, the school surrendered and decided to pay the bakery.
Last year, a black high-school student staged a “prank gone sideways” by labeling water fountains “white” and “colored.”
