They had just explained what it meant to each of them to be black and an immigrant. Then the five panelists at a Brigham Young University event sat quietly as they waited for the audience questions to come in.
Anyone in the crowd could send one by typing it into their phone on the event page. And each time someone did, an anonymous question would pop up for everyone to see. The screen was quickly filled.
“What is the percentage of African Americans on food stamps?”
“Why do African Americans hate the police?”
“Why don’t we have any white people on stage?”
Some in the largely white audience laughed. Those on the panel did not.
Some students of color, though, say it’s not the first or the worst example of racism on campus. BYU is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I don’t like giving these bigots a platform,” said student Grace Soelberg about the offensive questions, “but I feel it’s necessary to show that racism is still holding strong in this world and in the LDS Church, and turning a blind eye to it and sweeping it under the rug is only going to make it worse.”
Students of color have reported being targeted. Tellas she has been called the n-word. And some have noted their belongings were vandalized. Others have discussed micro-aggressions, including their white peers asking them uncomfortable questions about their hair or where they’re from.
“This is no longer a safe space for black students,” Tellas said.
White students on campus, she said, repeatedly “get away with attacking our safe black space because they are not punished.” She hopes the school will change how it handles racism and that future events on sensitive topics won’t allow anonymous questions.
Leslie Hadfield, an associate professor in the Department of History and the Africana Studies at BYU, said the event started off with a good-humored tone and a discussion of empathy. But the audience questions were “clearly meant to antagonize and demean black people.”
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
“We are aware of an incident last night on campus where racist, anonymous comments were submitted at a public panel discussion about race and immigration,” the university said in a statement. “We reaffirm BYU’s stance of condemning racism in any form. We are committed to promoting a culture of safety, kindness, respect and love.”
But BYU officials also said they could not discipline anyone because the school could not identify who had submitted the offensive questions.
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Can't take racism out of Mormonism, folks. You'd have to get rid of the Book of Mormon and other scriptures.
If you look at the picture accompanying the article it would seem there were no issues with the event. I think BYU could've discussed it a bit in the article, and used it as a good learning opportunity.
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
Perhaps the worst part is everyone in their should have been pissed at the questions, but apparently people laughed. I mean it's likely a couple of people trying to be jerks who wrote the questions, and that sucks. But, again, worse is that people thought it was funny, everyone didn't stand up and say "F-you, idiots".
Perhaps the worst part is everyone in their should have been pissed at the questions, but apparently people laughed. I mean it's likely a couple of people trying to be jerks who wrote the questions, and that sucks. But, again, worse is that people thought it was funny, everyone didn't stand up and say "F-you, idiots".
I thought it had gone well but only after did the panel see the troubling comments?? Hmmm....
Meadowchik wrote:I thought it had gone well but only after did the panel see the troubling comments?? Hmmm....
I didn't read the Washington post story at first. I see what was going on. The questions were put on a screen for the audience and moderator to see. The moderator asked the questions. But those questions that were offensive, were apparently ignored by the moderator when they came up but apparently when they came up some students laughed. The panelists didn't see the offending questions until at the end the moderator showed them the rest of the unanswered questions, or something.
One of the panelists describes how she was being vulnerable and felt good about her participation, but seeing the questions afterward really hurt her. That makes sense.
Whose brilliant idea was it to project questions without screening them? Unbelievable. Simply awful.
I recall the debacle of BYU professors putting on a discussion of Martin Bernal's Black Athena. African American students and faculty came to gain insight into how the Greeks were influenced by Africa. Instead what they got was essentially a chilly, arrogant, and inaccurate takedown of Bernal's work. Most discouraging.
One of the professors on the stage was, as I later became aware, essentially a white supremacist. I recall hearing him lament that white Americans would still have their slaves "if it were not for the damned Yankees." This is one of the people who gleefully took up the task of telling black people that their ancestors were not relevant in a discussion of Hellenic antiquity.
It is enough to make a person puke. Racism is stupid. Racists make me sick. BYU should be ashamed to have allowed such a thing to happen. Why? Because only by being passively racist or oblivious would you not know what a room full of white kids in the era of Trump might send up to that screen. It is the lazy racism and ignorance that allows the aggressive racism to flourish.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
To my shame, I'd never heard of this work. I appreciate the reference.
It was definitely a controversial book. Martin Bernal was not a classicist, and I think there is much in the book that one can rightly take issue with. Unfortunately, the controversy drowned out the questions. The knee-jerk reaction against it can be attributed to persisting racism.
What emerged out of the controversy was strong evidence of eurocentric bias among classicists.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Meadowchik wrote:I thought it had gone well but only after did the panel see the troubling comments?? Hmmm....
I didn't read the Washington post story at first. I see what was going on. The questions were put on a screen for the audience and moderator to see. The moderator asked the questions. But those questions that were offensive, were apparently ignored by the moderator when they came up but apparently when they came up some students laughed. The panelists didn't see the offending questions until at the end the moderator showed them the rest of the unanswered questions, or something.
One of the panelists describes how she was being vulnerable and felt good about her participation, but seeing the questions afterward really hurt her. That makes sense.