Bob Somerby's been advocating a bit of withholding judgment until facts are in, and presents 2 pretty compelling instances. 1 was a piece of tape over the face of black professors' photos, the 2nd was a noose hanging at Duke.

In the first case, there's been activism taping over the college's seal (covering up a founding family's slave holder past), an obviously relevant detail that wasn't always reported, though it was noted the photos weren't vandalized (e.g. scratched, broken, et al). One of the taped over black professors notes:

KENNEDY (11/27/15): Last Thursday, on my way to teach contracts, I received an email from a student who alerted me to the defacement. I saw the taped photos, including my own, right before class. Since then I have been asked repeatedly how I feel about having been targeted by what some deem to be a racial hate crime. Questioners often seem to assume that I should feel deeply alarmed and hurt. I don’t.

The identity and motives of the person or people behind the taping have not been determined. Perhaps the defacer is part of the law school community. But maybe not. Perhaps the defacer is white. But maybe not. Perhaps the taping is meant to convey anti-black contempt or hatred for the African-American professors. But maybe it was meant to protest the perceived marginalization of black professors, or was a hoax meant to look like a racial insult in order to provoke a crisis, or was a rebuke to those who have recently been taping over the law school’s seal, which memorializes a family of slaveholders from colonial times. Some observers, bristling with certainty, insist that the message conveyed by the taping of the photographs is obvious. To me it is puzzling.

Assuming that it was a racist gesture, there is a need to calibrate carefully its significance. On a campus containing thousands of students, faculty members and staff, one should not be surprised or unglued by an instance or even a number of instances of racism. The question is whether those episodes are characteristic or outliers.

The 2nd case of the Duke noose was a foreign student doing selfies with friends to invite others to "hang out" together and forgot to take down the noose - extended apology here - not that that apology & explanation has gotten everywhere the initial scandal did.

Obviously these 2 cases do not exculpate the numerous racist beatings & murders, including the scandalous long hidden video of the police murder in Chicago, but they're a reminder as tensions escalate that not every perceived slight is an actual slight, and that we need to separate the real affronts and attacks from those with less proof. We may suspect things, and not all are disproved as readily as the noose instance, but like the wise Harvard prof notes, there's a need to calibrate carefully the significance, and extrapolating that, to carefully calibrate our response.

Add to this the litany of GOP slurs and slander on the campaign trail, we know that they love to find a tiny mistake from the other side and use it to excuse all their behavior. They'll do this anyway, but no need to give them more ammo than they already have. And in any case, falsely accusing people of actions or intent is seldom a good idea or strategy.