Editorial: ‘Not in my town’ is perfect response to racism

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Several hundred Bowling Green State University students spent most of last weekend raising more
than $300,000 for the local Children’s Miracle Network Hospital.Unfortunately, a handful of other BGSU
students spent last Thursday evening posting racist comments on Twitter in response to a Black Student Union
social event.The countless hours students invested into making the annual Dance Marathon a huge fund-raising
success are reflective of the average BGSU student’s commitment to volunteering for the benefit of the
community. And members of the Black Student Union deserve praise for responding to the racist tweets by
taking the high road, following the lead of their president, Tiffany Smith. She suggested that BGSU students
respond to tweets of hate by tweeting "Not in my town."Smith’s suggestion is one that people of
all ages should adopt in response to any racist emails, texts or tweets they receive.The rapidly expanding
methods of communicating through the various social media unfortunately have allowed racists of all
generations to spread their hatred with relative ease to many individuals at a time.Only last week a federal
judge in Montana, Richard Cebull, announced he will retire due to the backlash to his forwarding a racist
joke about President Barack Obama’s mother.All of us have relatives, friends, co-workers, neighbors, high
school classmates and acquaintances from all walks of life who seem to take warped delight in spreading
their racist views.Too few of us, myself included, take the initiative in answering such Cebull-like
communications with "not-in-my-town" responses. Most of us don’t want to offend these people.To
quote my 8-year-old granddaughter: "Seriously?" They think nothing of offending us.They were the
ones who went on the offensive, and Tiffany Smith has given us all a very mature way to defend ourselves
from such assaults – not in my town.To Tiffany I say, I’m glad you are in my town.

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