We all need to step back and take a breath.

Relax. Let the air in, and let it out.

It’s important when the tension is high to remain focused, to remain calm, remembering we’re at an institute of higher learning.

None of us would be here if we weren’t capable of being rational. And this is a true test of rationality.

Monday’s arrest of Deantrious Mitchell is a tough one to swallow.

Mitchell captivated the campus last month with his now apparently fictional tale of being racially assaulted.

By all indications, all official indications that is, it didn’t happen.

Many of us feel betrayed. Many of us feel angry. And many of us probably want to lash out, to act on those knee-jerk emotions.

But we can’t.

Violence — in this case, in almost any case — isn’t going to help.

It will hurt. It will hurt people. It will hurt image. It will only make a bad situation, a truly unfortunate situation, worse.

As members of the Iowa State community we’ve got a choice: We could let this situation get the best of us, let it further divide us into blacks and whites, males and females, foreign students and resident students, fuzzy-hair people and crew-cut people, smokers and non-smokers and just about any other divide.

Or we could learn from it. We could use it to shed light on a clear problem of race relations. We could ask the right questions: What drove Mitchell to lie? What good can come out of this? How can we help make this a more tolerant campus? How can we prevent similar situations?

It’s easy to be mad. It’s easy to further the divide using Mitchell’s arrest as a crutch. It’s easy to blame. It’s easy to hold the individual up as representative of the whole.

What’s hard is understanding. What’s hard is forgiving. What’s hard is not letting emotion get the best of you. What’s hard is looking on Mitchell’s arrest as an opportunity to further rational discourse, to air our problems and vent our frustrations.

An irrational, knee-jerk reaction has the potential for unpredictable trouble, the scope of which could be huge.

A rational, well-thought-out reaction has the potential to see the good in a bad situation.