Learning to respond to offensive -- even hateful -- speech should be part of the college experience.

The first column I ever wrote for my college newspaper was to protest a speaker who'd been invited to present "the other side" about the war in Bosnia, which in the '90s was as terrible a mess as Syria is now. He was a defender of then-Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, who was later indicted for genocide and war crimes in the Balkan war.

I was horrified that the university was giving a platform to propaganda being used to carry out ethnic cleansing. My column said as much, and I got my first lesson in public pushback from the fraternity hosting the speaker. I decided to attend the lecture; my disgust was justified when the speaker said the Breadline Massacre, which had killed scores of innocent civilians in a market, had been staged to create worldwide sympathy for the victims.

It didn't occur to me to boycott or stage a protest since I've long believed in the disinfecting power of sunshine coupled with the power of the pen.

A recent response by students at St. Louis University demonstrated another effective approach.

Months ago, SLU's College Republicans invited Allen West, a former congressman, retired lieutenant colonel and provocateur, to speak on foreign policy. As part of the process of bringing a speaker to campus, the group submitted flyers to advertise the event. When those flyers indicated a talk about "radical Islam," university officials asked them to stick to the proposal they had originally pitched and gotten approved.

West threw an online fit soon after in response. His post on his personal website said that he was being censored. He slandered the Muslim Student Association (MSA) as a "stealth jihad radical Islamic campus organization" connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Members of the MSA at SLU met with university officials and the College Republicans to explain how his baseless lies smeared them and added fuel to a tense political climate. They pointed out the connection between the vilification of a group and rising acts of violence against that group.

University President Fred Pestello released a statement saying he condemned the claims made against students, and that he stood in solidarity with the MSA and all SLU students. But, he added, it was important to "expose all ideas and positions, provocative or pedestrian, to critical inquiry."

It's through civil engagement that truth emerges, he argued.

Now, every institution has its sacrosanct issues off the table for public discussion. For example, SLU did not extend the same freedom of discourse last year to a former law professor who had been invited by SLU law students to talk about reproductive issues, including abortion. That event was moved off campus because it reportedly conflicted with the university's values.

And suppose an invited speaker had maligned the Catholic Students Association as being involved with the clergy sex abuse scandal. Would the university have still given him a platform to promote such ideas?

It seems unlikely.

In this case, the decision worked out to the MSA's benefit. The Muslim students reached out to the rest of the SLU community. They asked them to wear white shirts, fill the rows in the auditorium and silently walk out before West's speech began.

Hundreds of their peers responded.

West was not silenced. No one tried to shout down his hateful attacks. They simply walked away from his bigotry.

Maariya Ahmed, a senior at SLU and co-president of the MSA, said she had been nervous before the event. The students' reaction moved her.

"Seeing how the university, the community of SLU stood behind us, it was so beautiful. It really restored my faith," she said. Co-president Azfar Shaik said the turnout was humbling, but that he wasn't too surprised by the overwhelming show of support.

"This was an attack against SLU and the ideals it holds," he said.

The university president followed up with a message that said he "beamed with pride for how our students integrated the Jesuit ideal of 'cura personalis' into lived experience through a showing of courage, strength and solidarity."

"Last night, we were truly one SLU," he wrote.

The students exercised their own freedom: To protest peacefully and powerfully.

To stand with those who had been unfairly targeted in their community. To make a statement without saying a word.

I did a double-take while driving by the group of protesters at the corner of a busy intersection near a strip mall.

"Quick, take a picture," I told my daughter, who I was driving to a theater class. About 10 people were standing on either side of a large Black Lives Matter banner. They were holding signs that said: "Racism is not patriotism," "Pro-black does not mean anti-white," "We stand with Charlotte," "Stop killing children" and "White Silence = Violence."

All the protesters were white.

I was in a predominately white, affluent area that votes deep red. This is Todd Akin country, home base of the Missouri Republican representative who lost a senate race to Claire McCaskill when he said that women who are victims of so-called "legitimate rape" rarely get pregnant. It's also within 10 minutes of Ballwin, Missouri, where a police officer was shot in July.

It's the last place I'd expect to see anyone demonstrating in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Later, when I examined the picture I'd had my daughter take, I found a link to the group's Facebook page: West County Community Action Network -- We Can. Who were these fish out of water, and what were they trying to accomplish?

The group started nearly two years ago with a group at Emerson Unitarian Universalist Chapel in Chesterfield, Missouri, who felt compelled to act after Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Mike Brown, an unarmed black teenager.

"I got woke," said Jake Lyonfields, 24, a health care consultant who was raised in the county and worships at Emerson. He marched in the streets of Ferguson, but he realized he wanted to speak out in his own community.

One of the organizers, Lauren Lyerla, 51, says the group has been holding vigils weekly in various parts of west St. Louis County since October 2014. There are about three dozen active members in the group, which has expanded beyond the church, and about a dozen show up for the weekly protest.

"It can be really painful to hear every week the racist things being said to us," Lyonfields said. They estimate that about of the quarter of the reaction is negative. People might make an obscene finger gesture or yell at them as they drive by. Only a few people have gotten physically in their faces with insults.

"My favorite is when they say, 'All lives matter, a-hole!'" Lyerla said. Others question why they are even trying to raise the issue in their outlying suburban communities. They think, "I'm far enough out west that I don't have to look at it or think about it," she said.

But the dedicated activists also hear some supportive comments. Some people bring them hot chocolate in the winter and Gatorade in the summer. Others, like plant engineer Nicole Greer, see them and feel compelled to say more.

When Greer, who is African-American, first spotted the group, she told her 19-year-old daughter, Syndi Jackson, that they had to go express their gratitude.

"These people are out here going hard for us," she told her daughter. Their interaction led to both of them joining as volunteers and now leaders within the group. She said a passerby shouted "white power" at her when she joined a vigil.

The members decided to take their activism beyond the street, and started doing research on local police departments and school districts, reading up on policies and disciplinary data. They attend school board meetings to advocate for ways to break the school-to-prison pipeline, which begins with black and brown students being disproportionately suspended from school.

"Ferguson is everywhere," Lyonfields said. "The data shows it."

Greer said that her daughter was a top performer in a predominately white school district and they had to deal with issues related to race.

"I know there are issues because we have lived them," she said.

Group members have had several meetings with local police departments, one of which has agreed to include implicit bias training in the training protocol for its officers.

"Most white people in West County were entirely ready to let the race question drop once the (Darren Wilson) non-indictment announcement came," Lyerla said. People asked her why they were still out there. She said that an aspect of her own privilege is that other white people may listen to her more than they will people of color.

"I have access to a person's attention," she said. She sees her job as continuing to listen to African-Americans' experiences and amplify their voices.

"We provide some discomfort to some people who are entirely too comfortable in their white privilege," she said. "And maybe we provide some hope to those who agree with us and felt entirely alone out here."

Oftentimes, jumping to conclusions can make a person look ridiculous. Sometimes, the consequences are far more dire. But it's more entertaining to start with a trivial example.

Last month, the staff at Des Peres Park near St. Louis moved the picnic tables for a summer evening concert. Around the same time, fencing went up around a few trees to prevent further damage caused by excessive climbing.

The climbing had not been an issue before people started collecting those virtual monsters in the mobile game craze of the summer.

Immediately, the complaints started arriving through the city's website and on its social media page. White-hot Poke-rage prompted some to write that the "ill-timed" changes were "possibly retaliatory" strikes against Pokemon Go players. They decried it as "a wrong-headed move by the city," designed to push people out.

Slow your roll, Bulbasaur chaser.

Brian Schaffer, director of parks and recreation in Des Peres, reassured those who messaged that the park routinely moves the tables for all concerts. He had the fencing around the trees adjusted so there was more room to walk through them.

"It's nice to have people out in the park," he said, and people have different ways of enjoying it. In fact, when the benches were put back in place, Schaffer made sure more picnic tables were added where the Pokemon Go players had been congregating.

Even by suburban standards, it was a minor brouhaha, quickly resolved.

I wouldn't accuse the players who protested the changes of paranoia. There have been business owners who have complained about damage left behind by visitors cruising for the virtual creatures that appear in the smartphone game. Several sites around the country have gotten themselves removed from the app's locations. A Chicago lawmaker had proposed certain areas be off-limits to protect natural habitats and nesting grounds from getting trampled.

It's understandable that some players might get rankled or have questions about an unexpected change in a favored hangout. But it's the way in which a small group of people responded that is indicative of our times: React first. Assume the worst. Question later.

We live in an age of assumptions and instant judgments.

We've lost the ability to wait for information to form opinions and react. It may be partly because of a new information structure that allows the instant, rapid-fire spread of nuggets -- true or untrue -- coupled with talking heads who must fill hours before any real information is available.

The ease of spreading misinformation has, at its worst, endangered innocent lives or cost private citizens their reputations. We've seen this happen via social media during national tragedies, when people are desperate for information and the internet is rampant with people willing to exploit that for their own agendas.

Adding to that, the ability to fire off an angry missive has never been so simple. An angry tweet or online comment takes even fewer keystrokes than an enraged email.

Parents might recognize this behavior: Toddlers, tweens and teens often react this way to simple misunderstandings. The outsize reactions, accusations and distorted thinking are part of typical developmental stages we guide our children to grow out of. We try to teach them to ask a question rather than make an accusation. To check multiple, reliable sources for information. To be patient while situations unfold.

But what do we do when so many grown adults have forgotten or discarded these lessons?

We used to urge people to be civil to strangers because it was the right thing to do, or because it's how we would want to be treated. Now, perhaps we have to appeal to self-interest: Minimize your chances of looking like a fool.

Don't assume the parks are pushing Pokemon Go away.