Alfred Joyce Kilmer is best known for his 1913 short poem, “Trees”:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Fortunately for the poet, he didn’t pen those lovely words today, lest he be considered a racist. (He could, of course, be retroactively considered as such by the present-day race merchants who make up the identity politics crowd.)

That’s because just about everyone is now so fearful of racism allegations — no matter how untethered from reality — that making a tree a mascot has become a concern because, of course, black Americans were once hanged from trees. Ergo, Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School in Portland, Oregon, recently delayed a vote to adopt the evergreen tree as its mascot over fears said mascot would be associated with lynching.

This is but the latest example of the logical extrapolations of racism becoming far-fetched to the point of being totally removed from sanity, reason and common sense. It’s nothing new, as in recent years the following — not an exhaustive list — have been in some way, shape or form declared racist: King Kong, science, Netflix, robots, proper grammar, Hawaiian shirts, free speech, the Masters, sleep, math and infrastructure.

Paradoxically, this racial grasping at straws does more than just about anything to undercut the left’s preferred political narrative of a nation suffused with systemic racism. After all, that it takes so little these days for individuals, institutional structures and everything in between to be tarred as racist is a powerful indication systemic racism is not a major problem in America.

Racism, to the extent it does exist, is no longer overt, but is now largely invisible. In other words, racism has dramatically declined to the point it’s no longer easy to find direct evidence for it. But proponents of systemic racism keep desperately looking for it and finding it, but only when wearing special race-colored glasses not available to the general public.

It’s also worth noting that in a truly racist society, minorities wouldn’t fabricate hate crimes (Jussie Smollett), and white people wouldn’t assume the identity of a race that’s not their own for the perceived advantages (Rachel Dolezal).

Those dedicated to the doctrine of forever racism aren’t troubled by the contradiction that charges of racism have multiplied even as laws and policies outlawing racism and discrimination have been instituted and expanded, and clear evidence of racism has declined.

It would be poetic justice if such folks were to make like a tree — and leave.