The outrageous attack during the Democratic Party of Evanston’s interview of Fifth Ward Aldermanic candidate Carolyn Murray was, as she herself said, “an attack on us.” The intruder into the Zoom session repetitively used words intended to demean Black people, including Ms. Murray, and ended with a promise of four more years for the current U.S. president.

Fear and hatred too often bring people down to the lowest, basest forms of communication. Race-baiting and personal vitriol may have become more prominent recently, but they do not fail to shock. And if shock is the endgame, they (whoever they are) have achieved that goal, but in the end they have debased themselves.

These recent verbal assaults must be the final alarm to us all to be more vigilant. Horrific ugliness is seeping into our community: a towel with the stars and bars emblem of the confederacy/white supremacy draped on a fence at Lighthouse Beach; angels in a memorial at St. Nicholas Church to victims of gun violence beheaded; the Black Lives Matter sign at Northminster Presbyterian Church vandalized twice. 

People who resort to incendiary language and violent actions do so to foreclose conversation. They seek humiliation and abasement of their target and a feeling of moral superiority for themselves. They do not deserve further comment.