We clearly don’t know what to do. In lieu of the recent horrific racist chalking found at Moody Music Building on Tuesday, a tepid email was sent to us by UA President Robert Witt. To no surprise, his email was completely vague and extremely passive, chiding us for something any sane human should already know.

So, we don’t know what to do, because we’ve tried to prevent this. It’s nearly impossible to go to The University of Alabama and not think about George Wallace, segregation and security guards blocking Foster Auditorium. And yet now, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the very same racism that we so pride ourselves in saying we’re past as a culture.

When a similar incident to this occurred earlier this year, we stressed the theme of conversation and understanding. These are great ideas in concept, but the trouble of the matter has always been that some people just can’t be reasoned with, even today.

The chalking depicted the words of an old racist country singer named Johnny Rebel who crafted these bigoted songs way before any regular students (and a number of professors) were even born. That says to me that the writer of this was out for a statement or some sort of attention. Maybe the writer likes firestorms and horrible music.

Regardless, this problem hits at something systemic: our methods of teaching tolerance aren’t working, and it’s not because the message is poorly told, but rather because a few receiving that message don’t care.

So, I’m going for a simple solution. If you cannot grasp the concept that hating a person for the color of their skin is wrong, then get out of here. We don’t need you in this community, and we certainly don’t need you on this campus.

President Witt, you shouldn’t be the passive father confused as to why his son is running around stealing other people’s toys. You were given a situation that required you to show immediate action, not a passive email. You didn’t do that.

This keeps occurring, and it is not just because a few bad eggs decided to be white supremacists for a day. This campus deserves a stronger effort from you to prevent this – not to tell your children to prevent this and watch as they steal another toy.

Passive nature leads to this occurring roughly once a semester these days. Passive nature probably led to the carving of the n-word in Rose Towers that I had to see all sophomore year. And passive nature has led us to today.

We can’t stand for this, which is what we said the last time this occurred. And yet because of our system, we do. Students are far too aware of their surroundings here. It is impossible for me to believe that an educated human is blissfully unaware of racism for any reason other than his or her own selective blindness.

And being blissfully unaware doesn’t change a damn thing.

Trey Irby is a junior majoring in English.