Yet again, “racist” graffiti that sent a college campus into a hysterical spasm of self-loathing and recrimination was nothing but a hoax.
This time, the scene was Albion College, a 1,500-student private liberal arts college in Albion, Michigan. And once again, the culprit behind the fake “racist” messages was a black student.
The student confessed. He could be prosecuted. But academia refuses to learn a simple truth. If society were “systemically racist,” as the radical left in general and college professors and students in particular claim, then hoaxes that supposedly prove it would be unnecessary.
Obvious Hoax
The trouble began at Albion on April 2, when the graffiti was “found” inside a stairwell in a campus building. Among the sentiments the mystery “racist” expressed were these:
- “Die N***ers Please!”
- “Albion is racist. We do exist KKK;”
- “KKK;”
- “KKK White Power.,” and
- a star of David with the Satanic 666
Immediately, Albion administration went to DefCon1, breathing threats of prosecution and promising to salve the wounds of the hapless “victims.” Something had to be done. Night riders in MAGA hats might be running amok on campus in pickup trucks. “We stand together with our Black students, alumni, faculty, staff and broader community members in condemning the recent acts of racism on campus,” the school tweeted on April 5:
Hatred and injustice have no place at Albion, and will not be tolerated.
We are currently investigating who is responsible for the racist graffiti in our residential buildings and we will seek criminal charges against those involved.
If they are Albion College students, they will also immediately be subject to the student conduct process — including the potential for suspension or expulsion.
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.
Oops
Two days later, the school claimed to have identified the student, but curiously enough, didn’t divulge the student’s race. “Earlier today, we identified the individual responsible for the racist and anti-Semitic graffiti in Mitchell Towers,” the school tweeted. “The student, who was acting alone, acknowledged their responsibility for these incidents.”
Noting that it had booted the student off campus, the school explained that the campus was a dangerous place for minorities:
But we know the acts of racism that have occurred this week are not about one particular person or one particular incident. We know that there is a significant history of racial pain and trauma on campus and we are taking action to repair our community.
Albion, the school averred, will “heal.”
Why black and other minority students would attend a college with a “history [of inflicting] racial pain” is anyone’s guess, but anyway, the school was, again, uninterested in reporting a key fact: the student’s race.
MichiganLive.com obliged. “Albion police brought the 21-year-old Black male in for questioning on April 6, according to Chief Scott Kipp,” the newspaper reported:
The student admitted to creating most of the graffiti, and video evidence from Albion’s Campus Safety Department confirms the statements made by the student, Kipp said.
Notably, Albion’s Twitter thread did not say lies and hoaxes “have no place at Albion, and will not be tolerated.” Nor did it say whether the hoaxer will face “criminal charges” and the “student conduct process — including the potential for suspension or expulsion.”
Hoaxes Abound
Such hoaxes are commonplace. In 2019, University of Michigan’s hospital mistook a knot used to tie fishing lures for a “noose,” and in 2018, cops busted hoaxes at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and Goucher College in Towson, Maryland.
In 2017, a black cadet at the Air Force Academy prep school confessed to perpetrating a hate hoax that sent the superintendent into hysterics.
Recent off-campus hoaxes were perpetrated by NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace and has-been actor Jussie Smollett. Late last year, cops collared a hate-hoaxer who wrecked his car with graffiti to commit insurance fraud.
Wilfred Reilly, the author of Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left Is Selling a Fake Race War, reported that less than a third of 346 hate-crime allegations he studied were real.
Reilly identified at least 400 hoaxes between 2010 and 2017.
