I saw an interesting reddit post this week that pointed out what a bad 72 hours the Church, and particularly BYU, had been having in terms of PR failures. I thought I’d share the list and add a wee bit of personal commentary, but I promise to end on a positive note.
- BYU decides its faculty has no right to private conversations with their bishops
- A picture is released of Nelson posing like Jesus
- BYU trashes an LGBTQ group’s resource pamphlets after agreeing to give them to freshmen
- BYU fails to stop racist heckling at a volleyball game with Duke
- It’s revealed the General YW President’s DIL murdered her own son and got away with it
BYU, Strike 1
As one commenter put it, for a Church so invested in the Tabernacle Choir, it sure can be tone deaf. In response to last week’s horror show in which the Church (via its legal firm Kirton-McConkie) defended a bishop who did not report seven years of ongoing child sex abuse as being under the umbrella of “priest-penitent privilege.”
While it is correct that Arizona does not require mandatory reporting (nor is reporting prohibited), neither does the Church mean what other churches mean when it comes to confidentiality. One of the most obvious breaches of confidentiality is that all faculty and students at BYU are subject to having the private disclosures made to their bishops being reported directly to the university, which can result in expulsion for students or faculty being fired (or not getting tenure).
The problem with that is that it’s so incredibly subjective, or as we like to call it in the bloggernacle, leader roulette. A bishop can (at his discretion) withhold endorsement on various grounds, with dire financial and career consequences to the so-called “penitent,” to name a few:
- if the bishop thinks you are a “doubter”
- if the bishop thinks you are critical of church leaders or policies, even if that’s just because he loves something that you begrudgingly keep silent about
- if you say anything at Church that the bishop doesn’t like
- if the bishop questions whether you are paying what he deems a sufficient tithe
- if ward members disagree with / complain about your statements or views or politics, and the bishop agrees with them or takes them at face value
For sure people are going to be fired because overstepping bishops with too narrow a view of what orthodoxy and orthopraxy are required and refuse to endorse. I know of cases in which this type of threat has happened. It’s not a new thing. At all.
What is new is that BYU has changed its application process this week to require that anyone applying for a job at BYU agree up front to waive their “right” to priest-penitent confidentiality. Now that they’ve said priest-penitent confidentiality can be invoked to protect a bishop from being sued for keeping the most egregious sex abuser’s confidence, they want to be clear that a bishop also can’t be sued for getting you fired by revealing information shared and refusing to endorse you.
To be clear, that’s been happening for a long time. It’s just hypocritical. Now, to cover their bases, Kirton-McConkie has gotten them to add a waiver to new applications. You literally cannot apply unless you affirm that anything you say in a bishop’s office can be used against you, and that requirements in endorsements are subject to change (including more stringent requirements on your beliefs and actions as your employment continues).
Nelson as Jesus?
A picture of Pres. Nelson in front of the refurbished DC temple in a pose that looks quite a lot like the new Church logo he approved has caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Was this intentional? Does our heart surgeon Church president have an actual God complex? You decide.
BYU, Strike 2
Not much more I can say about this one than Elisa said so well in last week’s post. The Church is absolutely hell-bent on shoving LGBT students either back in the closet or out of the university. They are going to lose this fight, obviously, but first they are going to lose a whole lot of church members, and the majority of this current generation.
BYU, Strike 3
This is another one where I felt like I was reading a headline from the 1970s. BYU used to have a serious race problem. Guess what? It still does. The racist heckler was apparently not a student, just a BYU volleyball fan who thinks the ‘n’ word is acceptable when hurled at the opposing team, and whose comments did not result in anyone kicking him out until a day later, presumably after permission to address racism could be obtained from someone with more authority than the coaches, the refs, the security, and the other spectators. Did they have to check with Kirton McConkie? I actually wonder if that’s why nobody did the right thing.
When I was a kid in Primary, we used to sing songs like “Dare to do right” and “Choose the right, let the consequence follow.” I never hear those anymore, but you know what I hear almost every week? “Follow the prophet.” When you abdicate all your moral reasoning to authority, this is what you get. Morally flaccid bystanders.
The real problem BYU has with race is that despite identifying that it has a problem with racism in the recent study that was commissioned, it’s pretty clear that the univisity, and the Church backing it, are so entrenched in conservatism that they think the bigger problem is weeding out liberal ideas and “wokism,” and that racism is just “a few bad apples.” When you’re led by people who believe that apologies are somehow unmanly or problematic, don’t expect a lot of improvement.
YW President’s Tragedy
This story is honestly just horrifying all around. Five days ago, Bonnie Cordon mentioned her grief at the passing of her grandson Derek who “stopped breathing” in Feb of 2017 in a faith-promoting story about being inspired by a scripture on a whiteboard at Primary Children’s Hospital on a church assignment while she was still wracked by grief. Why she chose to share this story is hard to fathom because public records indicate that it was ruled a homocide due to child abuse by her daughter-in-law, but the case did not result in a charge or conviction. The injuries sustained by her dead grandson were deemed to be caused by “shaken baby syndrome.” The parents’ claims that he just “stopped breathing” were not consistent with the medical examiner’s findings.
Was she sharing this five and a half year old story because she wants to draw attention to the fact that her daughter-in-law didn’t go to jail for murder? As the blameless grandmother, my heart goes out to her for her loss. It’s just not clear why this is fodder for a faith-promoting story. I have to think her son is probably not thrilled to have this dredged up again. Or maybe she intends public scrutiny of their actions. It doesn’t feel like the kind of press the Church should be seeking by publishing this story on its site.
Positive Note
I said I’d end on a positive note, so I will. The Killers are touring their new album, and if there’s one bright spot in the Church it’s that Brandon Flowers is one of the most talented singer/songwriters the world has produced, and he’s still an active, believing member. This show was phenomenal! Seriously, they are just so good. Johnny Marr from The Smiths was the opener. This was just hit after hit, and they didn’t even touch a lot of their classics.
Brandon Flowers’ lyrics often have religious subtext to them. Fire in Bone started with a recount of the Prodigal Son. The song Dying Breed includes this line that sounds familiar to Book of Mormon readers: “There’s gonna be opposition / Ain’t no way around it.” And their latest album Pressure Machine is all about life, growing up in Nephi, Utah. Here are the lyrics to Terrible Thing from that album:
The parking lot is rammed with shotgun pickup trucks
At the Jones’ Rubber plant where all the guys end up
Beer-drinking boy scouts living life like they ain’t stuck
On these quicksand streets with their girls in a sling
I’m in my bedroom on the verge of a terrible thing‘Round here, we all take up our cross and hang on His holy name
But the cards that I was dealt will get you thrown out of the game
Hey momma, can’t you see your boy is wrapped up in the strangle silk
Of this cobweb town where culture is king?
I’m in my bedroom on the verge of a terrible thingI close my eyes and think of the water
Out at the Salt Creek when I was youngDown at Old Mill Park, half the town’s in tow
To crown the Bathing Beauty of the rodeo
While her mother fights back proud tears, a young cowboy gives the nod
The chute opens, bull draws blood, and the gift is accepted by God
The chute opens, the bull draws blood, and the gift is accepted by God
In this barbed wire town of barbed wire dreams
I’m in my bedroom on the verge of a terrible thingI close my eyes and think of the water
Terrible Thing, Brandon Flowers (The Killers)
Out at the Salt Creek when I was young
I close my eyes and think of the water
Out at the Salt Creek when I was young
So that’s been quite a week, or actually less than a week. Someone observed that these horrible PR moves just don’t click if you’re “all in,” and I suspect that’s right. After all, the instinct is to deflect blame by seeing any criticism as unfair or anti-Mormon bias, re-casting the Church as the victim of bad PR, not the generator of bad PR. And I’m sure some of the reporting about religion in general can be unfair. But it also seems that we’ve got some really serious blind spots going on here, and a lack of willingness to face up to things. That’s how I see it anyway. What do you think?
- How has your view of negative PR cycles changed over time?
- What do you think of these specific negative stories?
- Have you seen The Killers in concert?
- Are we human or are we dancer?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
It has been a couple bad days.
I do want to point out, though, that Shaken Baby Syndrome is the Satanic Panic of parenting. It’s an evidence-free hypothesis that doctors have invoked (and continue to invoke) when a baby dies and they can’t explain it. The Innocence Project writes about the travesty that it represents here: https://californiainnocenceproject.org/2019/05/shaken-baby-syndrome-not-scientifically-validated/
Does child abuse ever cause the death of an infant? Yes. But as soon as I see “shaken baby syndrome,” my assumption is that, in fact, there was no abuse. And the failure to charge–by an institution (prosecutors) strongly biased toward charging–strongly suggests that the unfortunate death was not homicide.
Sam, surely there are spurious cases of shaken baby syndrome. This is not one of those cases. The autopsy report lists a right subdural hemorrhage, right cortical contusion, bilateral optic nerve hemorrhages, and cervical spinal cord hemorrhages. The autopsy cause of death was blunt head and neck trauma, and the manner called homicide.
food allergy, that sounds remarkably close to the symptoms and autopsy that is in the Suzanne Johnson case that the Innocence Project mentions. But again, Shaken Baby Syndrome is not a thing, and the fact that a medical examiner calls it homicide, but the DA chooses not to prosecute, suggests strongly that it wasn’t. (My understanding is that federal prosecutors will only file charges if they’re 110% sure they’ll win; state and local DAs, by contrast, will file charges against the proverbial ham sandwich.)
Was the death tragic? Absolutely. Could it have been homicide? Sure. But am I going to trust a law enforcement agency’s allegation? Absolutely not, under any circumstance.
I agree calling it “shaken baby syndrome” is probably not accurate. A better term would be beaten baby. But the autopsy findings are not “symptoms,” they are objective signs of trauma that caused death. As you know, “homicide” is not a crime but a manner of death specified by a pathologist. A prosecutor’s decision of what to do about it doesn’t change the manner of death.
Was the Nelson picture chosen by the editor to venerate or mock him?
I’m glad Bonnie Cordon had a healing experience. I don’t think her grandson’s tragic death should never be mentioned, and it’s ok to gloss over circumstances. But in reading her account, I’m most struck that she should have had more time off “work” to deal with her grief instead of being pushed back into an “assignment”.
Mormonism is all about privilege. Different kinds and in different places. You don’t realize what or where until you don’t have it. But when you do…. Bring on the second anointing. You’re golden.
Those song lyrics hit very close to home. I’m not from Nephi, but I worked near there for a short time and was in town regularly. When you get a feel for a place, you always wonder how accurate it is. I guess there’s another vote in my corner.
It’s all about your privilege. Everywhere you go in Mormonism.
I second Sam’s skepticism on shaken baby syndrome. If someone wants an easily digestible run-down of the controversy, see the episode of the podcast You’re Wrong About on the subject. Obviously the story as has been presented looks terrible, but we need to put it into context. Just because a medical examiner see objective signs of trauma and then labels it “shaken baby syndrome” doesn’t mean anyone purposefully (or accidentally) inflicted any injury on the child.
The injuries sustained by Derek Cordon in the coroner’s report are medical facts. The parents could not provide any credible explanation about how he sustained those injuries that led to his death, and the circumstances of Derek’s transportation to the hospital are highly suspect.
One of the darkest days of my life was when my son was still born. Something went wrong during delivery and we went home from the hospital to plan a funeral. Sis Cordon’s “faith” promoting story was already bad enough before learning of the full extent of the tragedy. I am sure her son and his wife are still broken because of it and her use of this is tasteless and sad. I don’t know what happened that night or why they were or were not charged with any crime and I don’t need or want to know. I hope that they get some actual therapy instead.
As a society, we have had some effective educational campaigns that protect children and adults, including using seatbelts, placing infants on their backs to sleep, and never shaking a baby (which is unlikely to be beneficial, and may cause harm).
Could we create a campaign educating caregivers to never place their hand on a child’s mouth to get the child to stop crying?
It would particularly benefit infants, who are described as “obligatory mouth breathers”.
This is tragic at many levels. There didn’t appear to be malice, premeditation, or intent. Referring family for therapy, as stated at the end of the report, seems appropriate.
I just came here to applaud your choice of words by saying “morally flaccid bystanders”. Bravo!
As folks have noted, it’s been a bad week. I’ll leave the shaken baby syndrome discussion to folks who have a more solid legal background than I, though the injuries as described in the redacted report seem impossible not to have been inflicted by someone bent on doing intentional harm. The Cordon talk about it is, to me, a really bad look. As someone has stated above, President Cordon is certainly entitled to process her grief anyway she likes, even if it’s in a church talk. But the glossing over of details and the continuing Mormon pathology involved in taking anything bad and turning it into good usually involves obscuring the true facts around the bad thing that happened. I think that’s one reason this one is getting so much pushback; not to mention that the injuries described are horrific. I’m not an attorney, but I don’t think there’s any way one could read that list of injuries and not think that they were caused with the intent to do harm.
As far as racism at BYU, the volleyball incident itself has had a fair amount of discussion so far, and I hope that steps are taken to deal with incidents like this more swiftly and decisively in the future. Again, as some folks here an elsewhere have mentioned, this isn’t an isolated incident or problem. One of the big issues, I think, beyond the conservatism of the church and the way that influences leaders’ thinking, is something that hawkgrrrl mentioned a few posts ago in one of her comments: The foundational text of Mormonism is, among other things, a story of one supposedly more “righteous” race conquering a supposedly “wicked” one. To quote hawkgrrrl:
“The BOM states that white settlers were chosen to populate the current United States and be “God’s people,” in part because the indigenous people had become wicked, bloodthirsty, and dark skinned, believing the “wrong traditions” of their fathers. This is not subtle once you know what WCN is preaching. It makes it hard to read the BOM without seeing it as a sort of White Christian Nationalist manifesto.”
And that is the problem. Racism isn’t just baked into the various church hierarchies, structures, conservative thought, etc., it’s baked into Mormonism’s foundational text; a text that can easily lead to racist thinking and interpretations. A text that indeed, invites (some might say “encourages”) such interpretations. And since I can’t envision a world in which church leadership would condemn the Book of Mormon, I’m highly skeptical of just how much institutional work will be done to really address the larger and more systemic issues involving race in the church and its institutions.
As far as the LGBTQ stuff, we are by now very familiar with this pattern. BYU or the church proffers an invitation or a change in policy that seems to put LGBTQ people on almost equal footing with others, then it is withdrawn, clarified or erased. This pattern is so predictable, I wonder if it’s just now baked into how the church deals with LGBTQ people: get called out about behaviors/policies/beliefs that are discriminatory, make a few noises or empty gestures designed to placate the LGBTQ population, then, sooner or later (usually sooner) withdraw support, “clarify” policy or say your words were misinterpreted, then have things go back to business as usual. I’ve often wondered if the pattern is so predictable because there are a few actually moral, empathetic people in church leadership who push to make some accommodations that benefit the LGBTQ population and then, once the change is made, the Q15 gets complaints from prominent conservative members, then decides to change things back.
None of what I mentioned above gives me any hope, though despite the fact that I don’t like the Killers’ music, I do think it was great that they invited a cancer patient onstage to drum for them: https://abc30.com/amp/clovis-teacher-the-killers-on-stage-cancer-lincoln-elementary/12179069/
Three cheers for the small victories of empathy and kindness.
“I do want to point out, though, that Shaken Baby Syndrome is the Satanic Panic of parenting.”
Is this supposed to be for real?
I don’t know a single parent who worries about Shaken Baby Syndrome. If we are talking about Sudden Infant Death I could agree with Sam that too much “advice” has made new parents constantly reminded and unnecessarily paranoid of avoiding the unusual incidence of SID. But Shaken Baby Syndrome? Who worries that they will shake their baby until their spine hemorrhages?
This argument sounds like a rather desperate attempt to avoid reality.
I’m going to say something that some of you will agree with but that nobody else probably wants to say: I have really enjoyed the bad news for the Church over the last few days. Why? Because these news items have nothing to do with anti-Mormons or folks attacking the Church. This is all self-induced. A BYU fan yells the N-word at a BYU sporting event. BYU makes a new policy that strips away clergy confidentiality for its employees. A Church leader gets exposed for exploiting a family tragedy without providing a crucial detail. I love this stuff and I hope and pray (kind of) that all my TBM friends and family are noticing.
I died of secondhand embarrassment when they did the photo taking the keys from Peter when the Rome temple was dedicated. I have to think the similarity to the Christus statue was intentional.
I don’t know who decided white suits on men were dignified and spiritual. To me they look like they should be delivering milk in glass bottles.
Used to be the Church could issue a poorly written PR spin and make the bad news go away. Not so much any longer. People are realizing institutional Mormonism is nothing more than a façade. During the past week, I have received comments/questions from business colleagues around the world – all of it negative. Makes me wonder when the critical mass of negativity/truth will have any effect on lay members.
I’m waiting for JCS to make a nasty comment about the Killers.
Joni: “I don’t know who decided white suits on men were dignified and spiritual. To me they look like they should be delivering milk in glass bottles.”
Agreed! White suits look ridiculous in any setting, except perhaps delivering milk or selling fried chicken. I also agree that the photo op was intentional, and very much represents the way Pres. Nelson thinks of himself and how he wants the world to view him. I don’t think the newspaper editors intended to expressly mock him with that photo, but rather allow readers to make up their own minds about him from how he chooses to carry himself. I think he has a bit too much ego to comprehend the poor optics.
As for the volleyball incident, I think its being treated too much like an isolated incident rather than the systemic failure it actually was. While I would like to believe that most people in the BYU community are decent, non-racist folks, it turns out that life in an insulated mostly-white culture bubble makes people ignorant of racism and clueless about how to respond to it. Furthermore, rather than dismissing the heckler as a “bad apple who does not represent us” (as many BYU fans seem eager to do), consider that an abhorrent person like him did not come from a vacuum, but perhaps was brought up in a church with its own unreconciled problems with racism. If BYU considers racism unacceptable (as they did repeatedly in the damage control press releases) then this guy apparently did not get the memo before he decided to attend the match, because BYU clearly has been failing, over and over, to make that position clear or back it up with meaningful action.
Sam, et al: I will post the link to the You’re Wrong About podcast episode mentioned above about why shaken baby syndrome can be overdiagnosed. It’s a great podcast, and well worth a listen (all of their episodes are worth a listen). https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shaken-baby-syndrome/id1380008439?i=1000465289966
I don’t think we know or can know what happened exactly. As I recall, the “overdiagnosis” problem is often linked to recovery efforts by caregivers whose efforts obscure what really happened by damaging the body further. The redacted medical report doesn’t read like that at all, but it’s telling that no charges were brought. I also have some questions about the gender role assumptions that push women and men into roles that aren’t suitable, under the assumption that “women are naturally nurturing.” No, parenting is incredibly hard. Men have just delegated it for centuries rather than help out as equal partners. While we don’t know the parenting arrangement in this horrible tragedy, the father is cited for “neglect” for not noticing his wife’s actions, but the wife is cited for “homocide.” How often is that gender role dynamic the case in these types of reports? Usually.
My bigger concern with the story is what Brother Sky points out, the pathological need to twist tragedy into faith-promotion (and in a way that kind of throws up our hands and implies that laws and errors don’t matter–everything is part of God’s plan), and what HokieKate says about the inhumanity of sending her to a children’s hospital while she was still grieving in this way. The human mind is always able to twist things into a path forward, but whoever asked her to do that is not very empathetic. We’ve all seen tone deaf assignments in the Church couched as revelation by the one extending the request, as a way to avoid dealing with a complex issue.
Honestly, though, that story makes me physically ill. I actually feel sick to the stomach just thinking about it. It’s all too upsetting.
But the Killers concert was phenomenal. So good we’ve actually looked at tickets in other cities to possibly go again. They play tonight in SLC for those who can go. I do think it’s admirable that Brandon Flowers is plumbing the depths of the working class side of his Mormon upbringing and finding the pathos and beauty there to share with the world. I tend to think of Mormons as nearly always upper middle class, so he reveals some things that are new to me, but universal to all of us.
I’m not JCS, but on their behalf The Killers are the poor person’s U2.
Oh, and the whole BYU no confidentiality thing is not only embarrassing, but actively harmful. It’s incomprehensible that the church talks about the importance of counseling with one’s spiritual leader and then has its flagship educational institution basically turn the bishop into a snitch. How in the world is this even legal? I know BYU is private, but holy crap. In my view, the church can now never talk about how important the process of repentance and confession is. This destroys the integrity of that process (as if it had any in the first place) to such a degree that the church has no leg to stand on. How can you say you value the mental/emotional/spiritual well-being of your employees when you’ve turned the bishop into a tattletale?
The church is moving to total control. It’s only a matter of time. The evil of RMN is almost unsurpassed.
Brother Sky,
The BYU no confidentiality policy suggests there is no confidential confessional process as there is in Catholicism. The Church is trying to maintain that there is in the Arizona case, but jerks it away from faculty and students in the BYU situation. We can’t have it both ways, can we?
Old Man: It’s pretty obvious the throughline between the AZ case and the BYU waiver is that protecting the Church from litigation is the only imperative. And no, we are nothing like Catholics when it comes to confession. If you think that our “confidentiality” means anything more than “whatever the bishop thinks is confidentiality,” well, I have some swamp land in Florida to sell you. (I’m sure you do actually realize this).
Old Man: Correct. And also, even if the church could technically argue (inconsistently, as you point out) that there is no confidential confessional process, how is that supposed to help anyone except the church? I mean, as soon as we get into this kind of hair-splitting, it’s obvious that the church doesn’t take confession, repentance and spiritual growth as seriously as it takes BYU’s draconian attempts to bully and control faculty. THAT’s the real problem, IMHO.
The picture of RMN isn’t anything to worry about. Sure it’s not the best choice of cover photo for the print edition of the Church News, but I’m sure there was no intention at all to show him imitating the Christus pose. He’s walking arm in arm with his wife and he’s got his arms open to say hello to the crowd, that’s it, that’s all there is to it. Sometimes an unintentionally goofy picture is just an unintentionally goofy picture. The online edition of that story has that photo pretty far down, and leads with a different photo.
I would also add that the Duke volleyball team responded to the repeated racist taunts and threat of violence with dignity and class. I hope we all model our responses to racism on the example the Blue Devils set. However, the initial student and administrative response to this incident clearly points to some thinking we all should seek to abandon. Call out racism when it happens!
Some of you need to check your biases. I’m not one to come to a knee-jerk defense of any Church leader, but the reality is the idea of “shaken baby syndrome” is extremely problematic, has never been scientifically proven, and has long been used by the criminal justice system to persecute innocent parents. Obviously the Church has had a horrible couple of weeks for PR, and we’re all looking for another reason to be mad about leaders, but some skepticism on this particular controversy is warranted. Don’t just believe what you want to hear without strong evidence.
Yikes! Seeing this laid out in one place makes me sick to my stomach. I found comfort in Jana Riess’ article “Mormonism’s tortured genius.”
Alice, “Who worries that they will shake their baby until their spine hemorrhages?” Me. When I finished reading the report findings, I immediately asked my husband how hard that child would have had to be shaken to produce that much trauma because I didn’t want to cause harm to my toddler while dancing in the kitchen. Her grandson was 2, btw. Not an infant. I also worry about accidentally dropping my child over the side of a railing or running them over with my car. Maybe it’s just my anxiety but talking to other moms, I know I’m not alone.
It seems like Bonnie Cordon could have said, “after a family tragedy” without bringing up her grandson specifically. I don’t understand how people still don’t get how the internet works. Details always emerge.
A bad week indeed. Thanks for making me aware of many stories I hadn’t heard of. I hadn’t heard of BYU waiving rights to clergy-follower privilege. Indeed, now BYU professors have to be even more careful about what they say. But the purge of BYU has been going on for quite a few years now. The church is trying to make sure that only the ‘church-broke’, those who are completely reliant on the church for their financial and family support, occupy positions at BYU now. This will heighten the cost of coming out as a doubter, which many BYU professors undoubtedly are. Many of the current doubters are accomplished enough that they can find comparable jobs outside BYU, and can feel more free to push the boundaries a bit at BYU, knowing that there are options if the administration comes after them for things they say. But the new generation of BYU, the church leaders want them more heavily vetted and reliant. Consequently, education will suffer. For the more qualified folks will look elsewhere. There was once a path open for me at BYU. It became available when I was going from being an NOM to a full doubter. I’m glad that I didn’t pursue it. I couldn’t imagine being a BYU professor now.
I was also unaware that Bonnie Cordon’s grandson’s death was claimed to be a homicide by the medical examiner. I’m not sure how to weigh in on the issue. I can’t understand why Cordon’s son and/or daughter-in-law haven’t been charged. Certainly something questionable. However the complicated details of the issue are, the story isn’t shedding a great light on the Cordon family. The OP is correct in that regard.
The racist heckler shed further negative light on BYU culture for sure. For it forced into relevance what messages and images BYU students will join in to reject, and apparently someone saying the n-word at a black athlete during a game is not one of them. Sad indeed. It is almost as if anti-wokism has made people more tolerant toward blatant displays of racism. Truly a shame. Truly a negative mark against the BYU student body and the athletics staff. I have announced my decision to boycott all BYU athletic events because of this.
Haven’t seen the Killers live. However, I did see another high-profile Mormon live: Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons. They played Rice Eccles earlier this month, and had the venue had a roof, it would have been blown off for sure. What a show! I think sound system technological improvements have made live concerts increasingly better. Additionally vocal training and vocal trainers have gotten better and have figured out how to work with pop and rock artists to maintain their voices and sounds, even finding ways in which heavy metal singers can repeatedly perform healthy and sustainable ways of screaming (there is a way to do it and it is a very difficult art form to master). Vocal trainers used to be kind of exclusive snobs working only with traditional singers (opera and Broadway-style). I know first hand, for I took singing lessons 20 years ago for three months with a traditional vocal coach who had sung in the Motab who taught me how to sing Broadway. I wanted to learn to sing hard rock and metal, but she was clueless about how to help me, and clueless about what those genres had to offer (nevermind that these genres have literally hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide) thinking that classical music and musical music were the only legitimate art forms (it was a truly insufferable experience). But YouTube and the popularity of rock music has caused a blossoming in vocal training. And the leading performers today have undoubtedly benefitted from these new kinds of coaches. During the Imagine Dragons show, Dan Reynolds talked about his experience at BYU. He wrote his first hit, “It’s Time,” in his dorm room at BYU. His Loveloud concert series worked wonders for acceptance of LGBTQ+s and even had the open support of the LDS leaders. No uneasy feat. The guy is a true legend.
A correction to my earlier comment that women were more likely to be blamed for “shaken baby syndrome.” I relistened to the You’re Wrong About podcast episode (seriously–please go listen to it), and apparently 57% of those charged were men, perhaps due to the stereotype that men don’t know how to be caregivers, and the next largest group of those accused were minority nannies, particularly when English is their second language. As I said, we can never know what actually happened here.
Back to the heckler, here’s the thing, if you use the word “Mormon,” you’re going to get an unpleasant lecture from the very same people who are going to ignore racist slurs. Why is that? Because the word “Mormon” has been declared evidence of one’s institutional disloyalty, modeled by the prophet as something unacceptable to us, while anti-racism has not been given the same modeling, priority, or focus. In fact, I would bet you that it’s much easier at BYU (right now anyway) to be “tattled” on for so-called CRT or being too woke than for saying something racist or insensitive. We are outlawing the wrong things.
Matthew, please read the autopsy report. The following is unbiased information: Derek Cordon, a 2.5 year old boy (not a baby), was killed by “blunt force trauma” (not shaking). Please stop trying to confuse the story with this shaken baby red herring. Toddlers do not suffer subdural hemorrhages, brain contusions, and hemorrhages of the optic nerves, retina, and cervical spinal cord from being shaken. Blunt force trauma. As in car accident, falling from height, beating, etc.
The term “Shaken Baby Syndrome” is outdated and has been replaced by “Abusive Head Trauma.”
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/news/Pages/AAP-Updates-Policy-on-Abusive-Head-Trauma.aspx
I don’t get why the Church keeps making these obvious unforced errors. They seem to operate on a “do as I say,” rather than “do as I do.”
Too insular? Too lockstep?
I have no words of my own for all this other than, unlike Josh h, it makes me sad that the average member either has no idea about any of these things because their media of choice doesn’t cover it, or they are very quick to dismiss it as much ado about nothing. I’m exhausted trying to convince people they should care about this stuff.
As for the Duke incident, if you follow Sistas in Zion on social media, their response to this is incident is spot on. The church is very very good at removing dissenters from GC. They have experience dousing rabble-rousers. Because this instance was against an individual and not the church, a sense of urgency was not required.
On top of this all, I was also referred to the Netflix documentary Untold this week and learned the story of Mormon member Manti Te’o, which is another quite bizarre tale involving the Church indirectly. The story is very strange (how do you date someone for four years that you not only never met in person but never even facetimed?) but does at least offer a somewhat happy ending in the way the involved parties are trying to move forward with a resolve to do better.
your food allergy, you’re still making a lot of assumptions that the child was intentionally abused. This would be a serious criminal matter if true, which is why I’m telling everyone to exercise caution here. When a child suffers an injury the scrutiny is often on parents as potential abusers, but unless there’s solid proof of that, you can’t jump to that conclusion. We need to be mindful of the ways the criminal justice goes after parents unfairly. There are also biases in the way autopsies are conducted, as there are biases throughout the criminal justice system, so you can’t necessarily call the report “unbiased.” We really don’t have enough information to make a judgement, although it’s notable the parents were ultimately not charged.
Legit question: if I have a (non BYU) graduate degree can I leave BYU off my resume? Or maybe say something like “Fulton School of Engineering?”
I didn’t know Brandon Flowers was still active. I thought that Pressure Machine sounded like a faith transition album.
@John W, I was at that Imagine Dragons concert too. They put on a great show.
his is a great digest of the recent spate of dumpster fires, and succinct commentary. Nicely done, hawk. As it happens, yesterday I received the shirt I ordered from the Black Menaces. The shirt and the irony both fit perfectly; I love them. Today, I was stopped in my tracks once again by another James Baldwin quote in the form of a video clip on my social media. It’s from a 1961 panel discussion at a NYC radio station, “The Negro in American Culture” and it distills one of the main underlying problems that runs as an undercurrent through all of the above issues.
” It’s a great temptation to… simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because in fact, it isn’t the way it works.
A complex thing can’t be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity, and hope to get that complexity across.”
To my knowledge, Baldwin has never been called and/or ordained as a prophet, but to the degree that he blurts so much plain raw truth about things I am questioning, seeking answers to, and receiving zilch from church sources, and he does this through writings and recordings made 60-ish years ago, (he died in 1987) and these ideas are germane to my current little confusions, I posit that there is a measure of prophecy and revelation in play. YMMV.
I see a recurring problem with oversimplification or something like denial of complexities in 4 of the 5 faux pas cited above. Priest-penitent privilege isn’t simple, nor is racism, queer phobia, and tragedy in general misapplied as something positive, with a poor result. (or whatever that mess devolves into. It’s certainly more complex than I can sort out.) And they’re dumpster fires because they’re not being dealt with truthfully in all their complexity, and it pisses people off for legit reasons. There are a thousand plus ways to go off the rails trying to avoid complex stuff, and I don’t have the time to analyze the cited ones here, especially when there are better commenters doing exactly that. But I wholeheartedly agree with JB, that it’s dangerous to simplify things that ought to be faced in all their messy complexity, it’s dangerous for leaders to feed their flock on simple pablum without nutrition, and then abandon them when the complexities combust. We waste our time that would be better spent learning to navigate the real, complex world, when we deny that messy complexities within problems deserve to be seen and addressed in their truth, according to the people who suffer them.
Also, I don’t see any reference to the Christus in that photo of RMN. Instead, what comes to mind is that he’ll soon invite all who are present to join him on the veranda afterward for virgin mint juleps served by the Relief Society.
The only real negative for me in the post is experiencing anew what a dinosaur I am in the world of music. And all this time I thought myself part of the hipster cognoscenti.
MDearest, We have a saying in our family that “Life is messy.” Dumpster fires indeed.
Matthew, When did I assume abuse? I am simply pointing out that a dead child with blunt trauma to the head (agreed on by the ME, a separate neuropathologist, and the pre-mortem hospital CT scan) demands an explanation. Apparently the parents didn’t offer one. The person closest to all the medical and investigation data and with the relevant experience and training, the ME, considers it a homicide. This case stinks.
That time Brandon Flowers came face to face with Richard Dawkins on Swedish TV to be told he belongs to a faith with foundations in fraud and malarkey. He hardly had time to engage, but his brief comments did not acquit his knowledge of his own faith all that well.
https://www.nme.com/news/music/the-killers-brandon-flowers-looks-back-at-surreal-on-screen-row-with-richard-dawkins-3020303
I honestly don’t understand Matthew’s position on the death of the grandchild. To not bring homicide charges with injuries this serious raises lots of other questions. They seem serious enough that, were they not deliberate, then they would appear to be accidental to the point of negligence. The amount of bias required to dismiss such dramatic injuries would seem to suggest a level of fraud on the part of the ME or someone. It seems like someone in that story should have been prosecuted for something, no?
Elisa: I too thought Brandon Flowers was inactive, but I was mixing him up with Dan Reynolds in my mind (the loss of him is an unforced error if ever there was one–he only left to protect his kids from all the rampant, church-sanctioned queerphobia.)
Jaredsbrother: Yes, the Dawkins interview wasn’t a high note. I think the best way to understand his faith is in terms of having lost his well-loved mother, as well as his own deeply spiritual / repentant persona.
Chadwick: we don’t disagree
Angela, not a high note, but also not really fair, as Dawkins seemed to acknowledge himself when Brandon left to warm up the band. He kind of got hijacked. As far as I’m concerned, anyone that can write Mr. Brightside can believe anything he wants.
jaredsbrother, look into the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome (now called abusive head trauma by some) and how it has been weaponized against innocent parents. Alternative explanations are frequently ignored. Medical examiners are not immune to biases that have long influenced how SBS/AHT is identified and how parents are judged to be guilty of inflicting abuse on their child. Even the doctor it originated with has said it has gone too far and it’s used dubiously. I get that unexplained fatal injuries are deeply suspicious, but there just isn’t enough evidence for us to make a judgement. Maybe Bonnie Cordon bringing it up will prompt more scrutiny and we’ll get more information, but until then, we can’t say that her daughter-in-law murdered her child, and that’s not generally the default assumption that should be made anyway given the history.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/29/137471992/rethinking-shaken-baby-syndrome
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/12/shaken-baby-science-has-been-discredited-and-many-convictions-must-be-reconsidered.html
I think part of the volleyball incident can be explained by the fact that Mormons are taught to be nice, not necessarily respectful or kind. Kindness and respect for others involves standing up for the underprivileged, lessons Mormons should be taught, but generally aren’t.
Mormons are also taught to avoid confrontation (because conflict is of the devil or something). Confrontation is only allowed when standing up for the Church or Christ (or when wearing your MAGA hat at the US capitol). Confronting a man yelling spewing racist slurs at an opposing team? That’s one toe towards Satan’s playground
But then I imagine what if the black athlete played for BYU. (I know, a ridiculous hypothetical). I’m sure if the slurs were directed at BYU, the stadium would have jumped to defend their precious cougars. I also wonder if BYU would have acted with as much restraint as Duke
Seriously, I just wish Duke had refused to play the second night’s game.
@Toad, after I had been working about 13 years, I had a boss tell me his opinion was I could remove my education from my résumé entirely. Education is super important when you first start working but after a while is less important.
In your case, clearly you got an undergrad degree or you wouldn’t have an advanced degree.
After this week, I have removed BYU from LinkedIn and my website.
I do have the privilege of being in the second half of a solid career. Nobody will care.
I think BYU is heading towards fundamentalism and their degrees will some day be worthless, unless there is change from the top.
I agree somewhat with Pontius Python – It looks like RMN was walking out with his wife and spread his arms in welcome for the photographer. I also agree that it’s not the best choice for a photo because it does mirror the logo and reinforce the idea of his smugness in his position. Given the keys photo with Peter in Rome and his long experience with the media, it’s not unreasonable to assume he knew exactly what he was doing. What actually bothered me about the picture was the fact that all the men were wearing their white suits for the dedication, but there’s his wife (the female!) in her blue and black outfit clearly excluded from the men’s club.
Something happened to that little boy, and the parents are refusing to say what it was, so there is a big problem. Yes, we don’t know exactly what happened, but a child doesn’t get that many and that serious of injuries falling out of bed, or some other minor mishap that the parents might not have noticed. So, there is some kind of coverup of something pretty significant. A child is dead and the parents are failing to offer any explanation.
Matthew, In your trying to say that this isn’t shaken baby syndrome, you are seeming to forget that *something* killed that child and the parents or somebody is lying about it. You can’t just sweep a dead child under the rug without leaving a pretty big lump. That is why so many people keep arguing with you.
As a social worker, yeah, I saw shaken babies. But the thing is, they were shaken as infants, not two year olds. An infant’s head is heavy in proportion to the body, so it flops back and forth much more than a toddler’s would, thus causing serious injuries to the base of the neck, right where the part of the brain is that controls breathing. Second point is, the mother being an average female doesn’t have the upper arm strength to shake a two year old that hard. Not to cause that amount of injury. There were multiple injuries, not just injuries at the front and back of the base of his neck. It just doesn’t sound to me like shaken baby syndrome.
But the other had admitted to shaking him a little, so some body jumped to the conclusion that he was shaken hard enough to cause the injuries, and with what little I know, I doubt it very much.
I don’t have a guess what happened to this child, but this business of just letting it go bothers me a great deal.
If these parents were welfare parents or people of color, or anybody except the children of someone important, they would both be in jail. That fact bothers me too. The authorities have a tendency to lock up the poor and anyone who can’t hire a good lawyer, and just fail to bother prosecuting those with enough money to hire a good lawyer. In this country, we have two sets of justice. One for the poor, where people can be accused too easily of child abuse or anything else and convicted too quickly, and a second for the rich, where people like tRump can commit crime after crime, and never pay any consequences. It is disgusting..
It’s looking more and more as if the volleyball incident didn’t happen. Maybe a little patience and humility will be called for in the future.
mac, can you elaborate?
@Jason. Nah…Coldplay are the poor persons U2. And the Killer are just….killer. Wish they were playing near me.
And while I’ve got you….that pic of Rusty cracks me up. Not as much as the one that looks like he’s tugging on Peter’s peter (or pulling his finger…you choose), but it makes me laugh nonetheless. The guy is a runaway narcissist.
@familywoman
The 2nd thing about the photo that hit me too – the men in white and Wendy clearly not.
I left a couple comments regarding the Killers that are in moderation, perhaps due to URL links. Do with them as you will.
This is just one of many places online that have evidence that the BYU heckler thing was all a hoax.
I agree with the comments and bad looks over the last 72 hours. However, if you are going to think critically and investigate facts (even if you have to admit you were wrong) I think it’s very unlikely that the volleyball incident happened. BYU has looked extensively at the video footage and not seen any evidence of what was claimed. There also have been no student videos or corroborations that this took place. In this day and age with everyone filming all the time, that kind of behavior would have been caught on video and called out by at least one other person in the student section. All we have is Lesa Pamplin’s accusation, which sounds really made up.
Umm ok, so are you all just calling Rachel Richardson—the volleyball player herself—a liar? Or do we need a white person to corroborate her testimony before we’ll believe it?
https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/34488855/duke-volleyball-player-rachel-richardson-praises-byu-ad-actions-racial-slur-incident-involving-cougars-fan?platform=amp
not a liar
not actively/intentionally making stuff up to make the other team look bad
but maybe unintentionally imagining bad things that weren’t actually happening
in the pressure of the game, the heat of the moment
one slur that she hears and nobody else does, ok maybe that’s just sensitive hearing
but the story that the racist heckling greatly intensified as the remainder of the game went on – that should be easy to corroborate
and there’s no a/v evidence of the increased racist heckling later
or corroboration from other people present
so it could have been imagined in the stress of the game
which doesn’t make her a liar
if she’s just honestly reporting what her sensory/neural pathways told her
which she is
but a friend of mine on vacation was once convinced he saw two helicopters in the distance about to crash into each other
until he put on his glasses
and realized they were two squirrels on a fence
he was honestly reporting what his sensory/neural pathways told him
but there were no helicopters
just squirrels
i think maybe something like that happened here
no disrespect intended to anybody
in this w&t comment
or in the whole story
just a series of unfortunate events
as it were
I did a media bias fact check on TBDaily News, a website I had never heard of, and found that it is a far-right news site that regularly promotes conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and misinformation. It is rated the same as Newsmax. And I remember disgraced former Fox News host Eric Bolling, who is now at Newsmax, promoting the idea (seemingly somewhat reluctantly, because he has now been demoted to be a groveling lapdog desperate to take any far-right grifter job that a fake news site will offer him) that Obama was one of the “reptilian” people. So that shows you just how far and loony Newsmax is and by comparison, TBDaily News appears to be. So I rate the calling of BYU racist heckler incident a hoax a hoax. Andy Ngo similarly has a long history of pushing fake stories. He is a dishonest grifter through and through. Not to be trusted in the least. But I’m open to new evidence emerging that does show the BYU incident to be a hoax. But knowing how conspiracy theorist grifter sites operate, they always take potshots from the sidelines and make outrageous claims of “false flag” and “hoax” with little to no evidence, and then when someone tries to hold their claims to scrutiny, they retreat to somewhere else on the sidelines and take different potshots. Again, with no evidence and under no scrutiny.
So, sorry Jane. My sense is that you got duped. Big time. Sure you thought you were “doing your own research,” but I don’t think that you have actually researched the issue well enough. Paranoid suspicion of mainstream sources, but extreme naive gullibility in the face of alternative ill-reputed sources. Doesn’t make sense. Severely trust imbalance.
I just read excerpts from the police report of the BYU incident in the Deseret News. I’d like to know what your thoughts are on this article. The article appears slanted, but we may need to tap the breaks on accusations of racism due to this incident. There is no real evidence that the event occurred outside Ms. Richardson’s testimony. And the alleged perpetrator likely has mental health issues (Asperger’s?). He was also seated near a Duke administrator who has made no comment substantiating Ms. Richardson’s experience. Duke players and coaches were positioned between Ms. Richardson and the alleged perpetrator have also not confirmed her account. The same perpetrator has friends on the BYU team and stated that he mistook the Duke players for the BYU players when he approached the Duke players in a manner in which the Duke players perceived as threatening.
I do know that Asperger’s patients often exhibit slurred speech and are lacking in social skills. It is possible that Ms. Richardson misheard his shouts and that his approach was justifiably deemed threatening by players from a team that did not know him. If it is true that Asperger’s was part of the equation, it would explain why those seated around this individual, including a Duke administrator, did not take him seriously. But that a player on the court could hear portions of his taunting and honestly mistake his shouts as racist and threatening.
I hope that caring and compassion are used in everyone’s assessment of this incident.
Bonnie Cordon told this story as early as 2017 at BYU Women’s Conference that I attended,
5-months after the tragedy. She emotionally shared details of them going through airport security with an empty car seat and security asking them where the child was; “he died”, they said. Bonnie shared this “faith promoting” story even then of receiving peace, praying at the hotel while her grandson was hospitalized when he “stopped breathing” and passed away. It really is so out of taste, in view of the circumstances, to publicly use this story. The mother was arrested and the grandson didn’t just stop breathing. Nowhere in the ME report is the non-medical term of “shaken baby syndrome” used. The non-accidental injury indicated trauma. I as a grandmother would not want to peddle that as a faith-promoting family story in any circumstances, but perhaps it can pass for disassociation or spiritual-bypassing—“spiritually” capitalizing on a family vacation tragedy in what had to be emotionally traumatic for all involved. This is emotional and spiritual disassociation and immaturity at its finest.
It’s not called Asperger’s anymore, it’s called Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD or just autism.
And everyone on the spectrum is different, but my autistic son (who’s currently a senior in high school so not that much younger than the college kids at this game) not only would never use the word, but would call out somebody else for saying it. And when I say ‘call out’ I mean ‘humiliate. ‘ Having autism gives him a black and white worldview, and he absolutely cannot tolerate or nuance bigotry of any kind. Like literally his brain does not process it.
To those who doubt the BYU racist story, BYU put out a statement that the fan had been banned from attending future athletic events. Was this a lie?
MTodd… the guy they banned was shown to not have done it. And was only identified after the game by Duke bc he approached the team.
MTodd, he appears to have been banned, but it appears now that he may not have been the person shouting the slurs.
https://www.sltrib.com/sports/2022/08/30/fan-who-was-banned-by-byu-does/
Elisa, I am a huge fan of all of your contributions to this site, but I don’t think your most recent comment is fair. I don’t know if the player lied, but in the reading I’ve done on this, I am not aware of another witness who also heard what Rachel did. If there are other witnesses (white or not), please correct me. In the meantime, the school appears to have banned a person from sporting events who apparently wasn’t in a position to say the horrible, reputation-destroying things he is alleged to have said (sounds like he wasn’t in the section when Rachel first heard the slur and was on his phone the second time she heard it). Have horrible, racists things been said at BYU–including from the pulpit? Absolutely. Is BYU worthy of heightened scrutiny around issues of race? Yep. Is it also fair to ask whether this specific group of real BYU students has been treated fairly in this situation without being accused of also being a racist. I think so.
John W,
Many of the facts that the articles claiming that this racism story is a hoax use are repeated in mainstream news sources, notably the SL Tribune. The Tribune has not historically shown a huge pro-BYU bias.
On the other hand, the original article came from the Washington Post. They have participated in one of the biggest news hoaxes in recent history. They published hundreds of articles about the 2016 Trump-Russian collusion theory over 2 years that turned out to be a baseless hoax started by Trump’s opponents.
At this point there is no evidence that the BYU team, administration, or student section fans ignored racist heckling. There is one player who claimed it, but may have misheard innocently or may have better hearing, or may be maliciously slandering BYU. If you completely discount the possibility that it is a hoax, you are ignoring current facts and lots of past behavior.
I second Joni’s comment. I have a nephew on the spectrum as well. If this individual is able to attend UVU then I would also presume he would still know the difference between appropriate words and not appropriate words. Additionally, this word wouldn’t even be in his vocabulary if it wasn’t in his community.
It’s sad if this incident is true, and it’s also sad if this incident turns out to not be true.
Sam Brunson at BCC wrote a post that includes links to several incidents of racism in Utah athletics in the recent past. So it does still seem our faith community has work to do.
@MTodd… It’s in dispute (and now even doubtful) that the fan truly made racist comments. It’s not in dispute, however, that the fan approached the opposing Duke player after the game. And approaching a visiting player (even if misidentified as a BYU player) is reason given for the ban. Is the fan a scapegoat? Are such bans routinely given to other fans who approach opposing players? I don’t know.
@Elisa… There’s plenty of middle ground here and no need to conclude the Duke player lied exactly. This may not be another hate hoax a la Jussie Smollet. But it should be clear that BYU fans and officials were NOT insensitive or just stood idle in the face of hearing racial taunts–as some of the Duke player’s comments (and her family members) claimed. For those interested, the entire volleyball game is on YouTube. And you can find the spots where the Duke player is serving the ball. At no point during her serves do the nearby fans or other Duke players even flinch or otherwise react like one would if racial slurs were being hurled about. BYU fans, game officials, and even other Duke players, weren’t insensitive to racial taunts; they simply didn’t hear any.
This is reminiscent of another recent sports story wherein some believed they heard a Colorado Rockies fan yelling racist slurs a black baseball player. However, it turns out the fan was simply shouting at a mascot named Dinger. Perhaps this volleyball story is similar? Perhaps it’s all a sad mistake rather than anything malicious.
For me this whole story is turning out to be more interesting for what it reveals about our culture, the development of morale outrage, and virtual mob behavior than BYU volleyball fans and racial insensitivity.
Trying this again but without the embedded link… [Mods, feel free to delete if duplicate comments appear]
@MTodd… It’s in dispute (and now even doubtful) that the fan truly made racist comments. It’s not in dispute, however, that the fan approached the opposing Duke player after the game. And approaching a visiting player (even if misidentified as a BYU player) is reason given for the ban. Is the fan a scapegoat? Are such bans routinely given to other fans who approach opposing players? I don’t know.
@Elisa… There’s plenty of middle ground here and no need to conclude the Duke player lied exactly. This may not be another hate hoax a la Jussie Smollet. But it should be clear that BYU fans and officials were NOT insensitive or just stood idle in the face of hearing racial taunts–as some of the Duke player’s comments (and her family members) claimed. For those interested, the entire volleyball game is on YouTube. (Google the phrase “Duke vs BYU Aug. 26, 2022 NCAA”). And you can find the spots where the Duke player is serving the ball. At no point during her serves do the nearby fans or other Duke players even flinch or otherwise react like one would if racial slurs were being hurled about. BYU fans, game officials, and even other Duke players, weren’t insensitive to racial taunts; they simply didn’t hear any.
This is reminiscent of another recent sports story wherein some believed they heard a Colorado Rockies fan yelling racist slurs a black baseball player. However, it turns out the fan was simply shouting at a mascot named Dinger. Perhaps this volleyball story is similar? Perhaps it’s all a sad mistake rather than anything malicious.
For me this whole story is turning out to be more interesting for what it reveals about our culture, the development of morale outrage, and virtual mob behavior than BYU volleyball fans and racial insensitivity.
Re: my comment, I was responding to claims made in the comments that there’s no evidence for what happened and that the only person who claimed this happened was a woman who wasn’t there (Rachel’s godmother), which of course ignores the testimony of Rachel herself. That was happening both in the comments here and in other conversations I was a part of (including people who were texting me all morning before I wrote that comment attacking me for posting about the story on social media when there’s “no evidence” that it’s true).
I think we as a society have got a problem with believing women and believing people of color, and I was trying to highlight that in light of comments claiming that the only account we have of this is Rachel’s godmother. I wasn’t trying to call out anyone specific as racist (I didn’t @ anyone, which was intentional) but highlight a problem in the way people here (and elsewhere) were talking about the evidence. If I came across as name-calling or personal attacks on commenters, that wasn’t my intent and I am sorry.
In an earlier comment, I wrote: “But I’m open to new evidence emerging that does show the BYU incident to be a hoax”
Indeed I have found it reported on SL Tribune and other reliable local Utah media sources that the BYU police has found no evidence that a person used a racial slur at the volleyball game. But that begs the question as to why Jane didn’t refer us to other reliable media sources but instead posted screenshots of Twitter feeds of some of the smarmiest skeeviest internet trolls out there. Why not just refer us to KUTV or the SL Tribune, Jane? I mean, why don’t we report stories or try to correct OPs by using fringe Marxist-Leninist blogs or the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer when it available on the NY Times? Still, the allegation is that the incident is a “hoax,” a word that suggests that Rachel Richardson and others concocted the whole incident to gain attention for themselves. Look, Richardson and the Duke team identified the person in question. The person in question admitted that he did contact Richardson after the game by the team bus, but claims he did not say “watch your back,” but thought that he knew her from somewhere else. I find it highly doubtful that Richardson AND other Duke players who corroborate her account simply misheard words. However, what appears to be the case is that the allegedly racist slurs hurled at Richardson weren’t apparent to too many spectators. My guess is that we have a more sophisticated racist on our hands who cleverly launched repeated racist attacks against Richardson in a highly disguised way, but unfortunately too disguised for investigators to be able to corroborate with additional evidence. This hypothesis fits a pattern. Racists often operate in such a way where they knowingly can maintain plausible deniability. They engage in racist attacks against minorities and then try to gaslight the victim afterwards into thinking that they were overreacting and making up allegations of racism. And the racism deniers and promoters of fake racism (the idea that the real racism is anti-white “racism” and Critical Race Theory), such as the fringe sources cited by Jane and commenters like el oso, are ever so eager to eat this up and say “aha!!!, I caught you stupid antiracists being phonies yet again” all while ignoring the mountains and mountains of evidence of racism that occurs on a daily basis. Racists regularly attack black players at spectator events, and at games held in Utah as well. However, I now believe that the BYU volleyball coach should bear no responsibility for ignoring the incident. She plausibly could have just been fully unaware of its occurrence.
el oso, if you’re the same el oso who regularly comments on W&T and BCC, you have a long history of hit-and-run and drive-by comments and promoting conspiracy theories and distortions that you fail to back up when pressed on. And now you’re just appearing out of the woodworks to try to score some cheap points against commenters you dislike. Nice try. You routinely cry wolf like a fake victim if someone so much as disagrees with your loony assertions. I remember you promoting the idea that Bill Gates was behind COVID. How has that turned out for you? Are you still on ivermectin?
Roll Call, 8/18/2020
“ The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released the final report on its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, finding numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Moscow posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat.
“We found irrefutable evidence of Russian meddling,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement, directly refuting President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that Russian interference was a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.
The committee, however, did not find any evidence of a coordinated scheme between the Trump campaign and Moscow, Rubio said.
The nearly 1,000-page report outlines the “breathtaking level of contacts between Trump officials and Russian government operatives that is a very real counterintelligence threat to our elections,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement. “
Correcting erroneous statement from @el oso. NOT a Washington Post hoax.
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/08/18/senate-intelligence-committee-russian-interference-2016-election-report/
It gets more confusing about the BYU-Duke game:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-banned-byu-game-does-221314984.html
John W,
I have been reading W&T since it started and participating in comments occasionally. Your memory about our discussion regarding Gates and Covid is faulty. I pointed out to you that just because Gates is rich and smart does not mean that he had the best ideas about Covid response. He had a financial incentive to recommend some of the policies that he did (lockdowns, business disruptions, etc.). He has certainly benefitted financially from these policies. Microsoft stock was below $140 in mid-March 2020. It had more than doubled by the summer of ’21 and is still up around 90% as of close of the markets on Friday. Some of the policies lead to widespread small business failures as one negative impact. Another negative impact of policies that Gates recommended is the severe decline in academic performance that has been reported widely recently. I read about it in that Ultra-MAGA right wing rag the NY Times. My predictions about negative outcomes from following the Gates policies and his financial benefit seem to be confirmed.
I did not need to take any drugs when I caught Covid 2 years ago. I was back working outside in less than 48 hours after treatment with vitamins and minerals. I have tested negative for Covid 4 times in the past year, my natural immunity must be pretty good.
I pointed out that the Washington Post was part of the Trump-Russia collusion hoax from 2016. Just because Trump and his inner circle had contacts with Russians does not mean that they colluded to help his campaign. Trump also had lots of contact with British, French, German and other foreigners since he and his advisors were involved in international business. Also, Hillary and her inner circle also had contact with Russians and others. The hoax part was believing that the Hillary produced Steele dossier was real and writing about it uncritically for 2 years. They also published about the FBI investigation for years even after there was solid evidence that they had lied to the FISA court to continue their surveillance. The “conspiracy-theory laden” sources that were cited earlier were years ahead of the Post on this story, the Hunter Biden laptop story and several others. Note that surveys after the 2020 election showed that Trump would have gained 3-5% among voters that had not heard of the Hunter Biden story.
el oso, yes that’s exactly the Bill Gates conspiracy theory you were hyperventilating about. Geez, give you enough rope and you just hang yourself. And you add icing on top with your obsession about Hunter Biden’s laptop. COVID has killed 6.5 million people worldwide, and over 1 million in the US, by the way. I mean, if we find an old laptop of the child of a politician, we are just entitled to know the contents in that laptop. There is no right to privacy. And if anyone just hacks into the email of any politician or aide, we are entitled to know all those emails. And we all know that if any story of information leaks of politicians emails and their children’s laptops undoubtedly contains a window into just conspiracy after conspiracy after conspiracy. But Trump? No, he’s not involved in any skullduggery or scams or conspiracies. That’s all just hearsay. Allegations about his involvement in unethical and criminal behavior are all media-concocted lies. Conspiracy-mongers about Hunter Biden’s laptop are all victims of Twitter censorship and all kinds of other private forms of censorship. How dare private social media platforms not air and boost conspiracy theories to try to undermine the Democrats and promote our omniscient and omnipotent god Trump who will save us from the woke culture by owning the libs oh so deliciously. Woe are the Trump supporters. Constant victims of all sorts of liberal censorship and woke culture. The good news is that now we know that the Democrats can pursue endless contacts with the Chinese, North Koreans, and Russians prior to elections and if it so happens that one of these foreign entities tries to interfere in US elections that the Democrats couldn’t possibly be held at fault. Nothing wrong with foreign contact, right? Have some Democratic aides set up back channels with the US’s geopolitical foes for Biden and others. Nothing wrong with that. Hey, obstruct a little justice while you’re at it Joe. Special counsels can’t indict sitting presidents. Pardon people who go to bat for you and take the falls. Make all your attorneys get attorneys and some of them serve some prison time. Hey, you’re always innocent, Joe. Can’t be indicted. Heck, Joe Biden should change his campaign strategy. He should be calling leaders of all sorts of foreign countries and threatening to withhold congressionally approved financial aid to them unless they promise to investigate his domestic political opponents. Nothing wrong that. Biden and other Democrats should be using campaign money to pay off porn stars that they sleep with while their wives are pregnant. Nothing wrong with that. They should be going around boasting about sexually assaulting women. Just locker-room talk.
The lows you stoop to never cease to amaze me.
Sister Cordon relates her daughter-in-law’s experiences getting answers to prayer on her mission:
(Scroll down to “Prayer is a Source of Solace”)
https://www.thechurchnews.com/2020/2/4/23215865/sister-cordon-byu-devotional-prayer
Vending machine dinner appointment God?
The person yelling the N-word was a made up story so you should probably take that down. This that being said I think the church has a real problem looking like they are racist. I think the large majority of members are not racist.