Perhaps the most tiring aspect of our current cultural moment is the constant search for racism in order to justify the worldviews of a select few. We’ve seen hoax after hoax exposed over the last several years, from the Jussie Smollett boondoggle to numerous “noose” accusations (including on construction sites as if ropes are routinely hung in those areas). That’s not to say that no racism exists (and it always will at some level), but when acts of racism have to be fabricated so often, we are clearly doing better as a nation than some claim.

Well, another episode happened last night in which media figures rushed to Twitter to claim a man was shouting the n-word during a Colorado Rockies broadcast.

There was some racist person screaming the N word at the top of his lungs at Brinson while he was at the plate. Came through on TV clearly. Terrible. Rockies need to find this bastard and do bad things to him.

— Craig Mish (@CraigMish) August 8, 2021

Disgusting. Please find him. https://t.co/46WhsiLfCj

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 9, 2021

Nightengale would go on to post that the man heard yelling on TV should be thrown in jail. Now, while I’m against the use of racial epithets, we do not imprison people for saying naughty things in this country, or at least we don’t do so yet. This isn’t Europe and hopefully, it never will be. But the illiberalism is apparent in these people and they never seemingly understand the unintended consequences of what they are calling for.

Anyway, the story went viral. Numerous other “journalists” commented and the man was trashed for the better part of 12 hours as a disgusting racist that should be hunted down and punished. Because our society is so reactionary, no one seemed to bother to stop and ask “Wait, did he actually say it?”

The answer is no, he was not shouting the n-word on a baseball broadcast for the world (and the hundreds of people seated around him) to hear.

It sounds like the fellow in Denver may have been yelling “Dinger,” not what folks originally heard, at least to many who listen. MLB has been looking into it but so far no one nearby said they heard a racial epithet. So that may actually be positive news. https://t.co/VQyQYp7hg3

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 9, 2021

This is just embarrassing. The man was calling for the Rockies’ mascot, which is named Dinger. That’s why not a single person sitting near him claims to have heard him use the n-word.

Despite the unequivocal evidence that this was a made-up scandal, if you read the replies to the above tweet, most people are still insisting the man said the n-word. Their “proof” is that it’s what they hear in the video.

Let me explain something. The mind has a way of hearing what you tell it to hear. There are many mind-twisters where a piece of audio is played and subtitled in a way that makes you hear something that it’s not actually saying. This was a favorite technique on those “ghost hunting” shows where they’d play some garbled static but would tell you what it’s supposedly saying. Sure enough, you’d start to hear what they were claiming.

In this case, a whole lot of people were told they would hear the n-word before every pressing play. Because of the similarities between the n-word and the name Dinger, it was easy for people to trick themselves into hearing what they wanted to hear, not what was actually being said. That’s why those in the crowd didn’t hear the n-word. They were not predisposed to hear it so they heard the actual word, in this case, Dinger.

But woke-ism is a disease, and that means they will never admit this was yet another made-up racial incident. Instead, they’ll keep doubling down because, in their eyes, racism is everywhere and is part of everything. It’s a really sad existence when you think about it.