Too bad, it seems, that the Big XII didn’t do their due diligence. They could’ve asked any and all of BYU’s old conference mates. All would have told them to avoid BYU, or put big contingencies on membership.
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So much of the tolerance for it is learned behavior.
Case in point, my 13 year old came home very pissed off today. She said that a group of kids offer her $40 to say the n-word on the bus. Then derided her as a “coward” for not doing it.
Those kids might not be hearing that language directly at home, but I strongly suspect it’s not being actively discouraged either.
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Hmmm…they sound like future byu students…
TIC folks…
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You very well may be correct. To be fair, how often is the N word used in pop culture? It’s well overused around here, but not by whites. It is normally used as term of “endearment” amongst friends. But listening to some music, whether I want to or not based upon some auto sound systems, the N word is every 4th or 5th word depending upon song or artist.
Now just to throw a thought out there. Wasn’t it Morgan Freeman who was asked how to end racism? I think he said, don’t talk about it. I don’t agree with the don’t talk about it part. I will say, smack that crap down, but don’t dwell on it. I hope that makes sense. We can’t ignore it, but we can’t let it be the center and end all be all of societal discussions.
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Big 12 has to be having some buyer’s remorse.
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I hope that the Big XII kept their receipt. They could return the kitties if they did.
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Update from ESPN. Not sure I’d be as nice as Rachel Richardson (Duke volleyball player). She’s a more forgiving person than I am.
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I can tell you there’s a great sense of relief / joy that happens for many minorities when others speak up for them.
The reaction my wife got for her (very tame) Black Lives Matter talk at the local park - where she talked about going to segregated schools and the history of real racial violence in her home town - moved her to tears.
“Growing up, as a little girl in the 60s, I never imagined white people actually cared. We were in our part of town and that’s the way it was. It’s so reassuring to see the honesty and sincerity and connection, when you’ve experienced something else.”
EDIT - I can say my kids have had a much different experience. They go into the bigger world with confidence. They’ve had some isolated incidents here and there, but those experiences don’t confirm expectations. My wife is fine, too. Eventually we outrun whatever issues we had in childhood… hopefully.
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My bet is that they are likely hearing it (or overhearing it) at home. Once people arrive at their front door and are safe inside their four walls, I believe that they spew a lot of toxic garbage that would be frowned on in the public forum. My wife has come home telling stories of things her students (second grade a few years ago, sixth grade now) have said that are not likely of their own invention. Maybe they are repeating things they hear from their peers, but their peers are hearing it at home. It might be hidden, but I completely agree that the “I’m not racist, but…” crowd is VERY alive and well.
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This topic is a good example of how it’s hard to compartmentalize other things from spilling over into sports.
For those who haven’t participated in our long running threads on politics and economics - don’t blame you for steering around these topics on a sportsboard, BTW - in the field of Economics we study how a lot of undesirable behavior bubbles up from broadening inequalities.
It’s well established that a wide swath of US workers have lost ground, starting around 1980. We’re seeing the results in social disruption. That’s the Readers Digest version, but suffice it to say a lot of this is predictable and well understood.
More than anything, it’s time to circle back to Utah sports and get amped up for Game 1!
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Read that this morning. Makes things even murkier. They need to get to the bottom of this so any guilty parties are dealt with and any innocent parties are exonerated.
The charitable explanation is “a couple of bad apples…”
Agree Holmoe should stay above board and let others look at the video. They’re getting ready to be in a Big Boy conference, they need to step up.
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I’ve only started hearing and reading about the story over the last two or three days. I’ve been buried in a huge project at work, and traveling quite a bit. I also don’t follow local news closely.
The only thing that would’ve averted a lot of this disaster would have been if fans sitting there had immediately taken care of the situation, and the person doing this had been thrown out and promptly banned. It’s depressing and revolting to me to know that did not happen.
Going forward, BYU needs to take some action to educate their fans. Utah County is such an interesting place. I avoid it whenever I can. I don’t even like driving through there. What happens amongst my co-religionists there (and other places, in my experience) is that they have developed an inner sense of persecution. For example, I’m sure somebody, somewhere, in comments to a news story or elsewhere, has said something along these lines: “This happens everywhere but when it’s BYU they really come after us. We have to meet an unfairly high standard.” Well, BYU is always saying how wonderful everything about their school and community is, how they always live higher standards, their students are more righteous, they are a divinely approved university, and all of that. And then they complain when they are held to a high standard. Sorry, folks, but you can’t have it both ways
Anyway, I hope that going forward people in a position to make a difference will try to do just that.
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Agree. Find out what really happened and who is the culprit, then take appropriate action. I guess it’s safe to say that someone made those racist statements.
Yeah, but Provo or BYU police dept? Probably doesn’t hear ‘racism’ since … jokes aside, would be good to ID who said slurs with any video evidence (no way it wasn’t happening). How many nearby fans are going to be willing to share and rat out a fellow fan. Should have told him to knock it off early, but as discussed, for some reason, folks don’t speak up or just chuckle and write it off as ‘oh, that person’s a little looney’. I wonder how they picked out the person that they banned - just finger pointing [edit: in the article it says it was the fan that approached her after the game - also uncalled for, so ban should stand I think]? But video shows he wasn’t shouting anything during serves (but what about before?). In any case, it was the student section (the banned person was not a student) so maybe this goes deeper and if it was a student, I think more than a ban on sporting events might be a strong message (or opportunity for training, reconciliation, agent for change on campus).
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I sense a three Nephite story with a twist is about to materialize.
"I turned around to thank the three men who silenced the heckler and they had vanished "
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I know some people want to excuse this behavior as “it’s only one person,” but what kind of institution has a culture that ferments this kind of behavior? It’s BYU.
And this isn’t a one-off incident. It’s gone on for years, even back to when I was a student at the U, back in the late Cretaceous.
There is no excuse for what was said. There is no excuse for the inaction of BYU students, security, and management. There is no excuse for the bogus response afterwards.
This is the kind of school that BYU is. I know many of you are LDS, and some of you want to overlook it or lessen its importance, but come on. It’s individual racism and it’s institutional racism.
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Not to pick at it but are some of the fans of BYU also fans of the Jazz? There is something really weird in our culture where people feel entitled to be their worst self when they buy a ticket. If you go to racial slurs you are vile. I understand some people will yell at a referee or other fans and players and those people are usually called Buckeye or Alabama fans (A$$HOLES).
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uh, yep (to your first question)
The rep of Jazz fans really isn’t the greatest.
Although, the Ute/Jazz fan seems like good people and apparently has a soul, no matter what some people say about his kind.
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