Something interested happened yesterday. Just as a trio of young black kids in Oklahoma randomly murdered an Australian track runner and illiciting an international incident, this happened elsewhere in the country:

We rarely hear the tales of school-shooting heroism directly from the heroes, tragically, because the heroes rarely live to tell them. Dave Cullen’s haunting “Columbine” tells the poignant story of computer teacher Dave Saunders, who was shot while shepherding his students to safety and died after the students worked hard to save him. After the Sandy Hook shootings, the courage of principal Dawn Hochsprung and teachers like Victoria Soto broke our hearts – but we heard them from survivors and friends and family, because the women were among Adam Lanza’s victims.

That’s part of what makes the story of Antoinette Tuff so compelling – but only part of it. Tuff is, of course, the bookkeeper at Ronald McNair Discovery Learning Center in Decatur, Ga., whose work talking shooter Michael Brandon Hill into surrendering to police Tuesday was captured live on a stunning 911 tape that’s gone viral. The fascination at the heart of Tuff’s tale, the reason it’s riveting, is the way she used compassion and empathy to disarm a mentally ill man intent on killing. “Was the potential there to have another Sandy Hook? Absolutely,” the local police chief told reporters as he praised Tuff.

It really only took a couple minutes after the Oklahoma incident to hear and read comments like "Where are Jesse and Al?" One friend of mine - I still have a few conservative friends - talked about the lack of anything being said about this incident when George Zimmerman had never said anything racial at all. The story of the Oklahoma murderers even showed that it very well was racially motivated.

Given the horror of both situations, the actions of Antoinette Tuff are pretty awesome. These are hard times and this country may be falling apart - it's falling back in to many of its ugly habits that we thought were forgotten when things were more plentiful. Race isn't real but it nonetheless has something to do with everything in this country - we might just get through it if we keep women like her active in our society.