Too deep in the morass of news ranging from bad to awful to make the cut, there was a stabbing at an AutoZone in Columbus, Georgia. Had it been at a protest or riot in Portland or Kenosha, it might be the subject of infinite discussion on social media, but it was off the map and few noticed it. But it’s worthy of notice.

Columbus Police are looking for the person responsible for attacking an AutoZone employee with a knife Tuesday morning.

The incident happened on at the AutoZone located on 32nd Street at around 8:26 a.m. According to police the suspect entered the store and attacked the employee with a knife in an unprovoked incident.

The suspect is described by police as a slender Black man, with short hair, possibly having a goatee. He is wearing a dark gray shirt and dark pants, along with a pair of slides.

On the surface, it appeared to be a fairly pedestrian crime. Maybe a robbery. Maybe something else. Crime happens. Crime has always happened and will always happen, no matter what anybody says, because people are flawed. For all the rosy aspirations, never in human history have we managed to figure out how to prevent people from being people. This isn’t to be defeatist about crime, but to be real. We can reduce it, but we will never eliminate it. But I digress.

Images of the guy who was believed to have stabbed the employee resulted in the arrest of a 19-year-old named Jayvon Hatchett. At his first court appearance, this was reported to have happened.

Columbus Police Sgt. R.S. Mills gave testimony in court about the case.

Mills told the court that when he Hatchett why he stabbed the AutoZone employee, Hatchett said he “felt the need to find a white male to kill” after watching videos of police brutality happening across the country.

To be clear, Hatchett might be the wrong person and/or Sgt. Mills might be lying through his teeth. Or any number of other things, like a beaten confession or mental illness, could be involved here, making this both more and less than it appears on the surface. But assuming, arguendo, that this is all accurate, it reflects a microcosmic example of the broader actions happening elsewhere.

Inflaming passionates and stoking racial hatred has proven a remarkably potent weapon. What did the store owners, the building owners, do to anyone to justify having their businesses torched? They’re not racist cops. They’re secondary pawns in a game to pressure government to capitulate to the demands, even though there aren’t really any demands one can point to, of groups of angry people.

Mobs take comfort in their anonymity, surrounded by others who validate their outrage and destruction no matter how mindless or pointless, such that no one is individually accountable for their choices. And the target of their fury isn’t any individual, any real living, breathing person who has children to feed, hopes and dreams, struggles they’ve overcome, good things they’ve quietly done for others. Or even bad things they should be ashamed of. They’re shadows, easily sacrificed because no one in the mob has to look them in the eye, look at a picture of their kids, and tell them they’re about to ruin their lives.

But here? Here was a person by himself, just one guy, filled with that passion, that rage, that racial hatred stoked by the bombardment of outrage and the evidence that makes all of us seethe. But without the moderation that comes of realizing that people aren’t just racial cartoon characters on Youtube videos.

What did the guy in AutoZone do to his attacker? He was a white guy at a moment when passion compelled the attacker to take out his outrage on a white guy. Any white guy. Not a human being, but just a random white guy. He looked into the eyes of a person and saw only race. And lest the point be missed, it’s no different than if the attacker was white and the victim was black.

This is the burning of buildings, the looting of stores, except not by a faceless mob, but just one person whose passion was so inflamed that he could be moved to do this to another human being just because of his race. This is what your smug righteousness can do, is doing, and if you believe your tribe is more moral and decent for it, you’re lying to yourself. Tell it to the guy who was stabbed for being white.