This week, dear Mormon Matters readers, Ask Mormon Girl takes a foray into the wild world of sports.
Perhaps you’ve heard about the unruly behavior San Diego State University Aztec basketball fans directed at Brigham Young University on Saturday, January 23, when a few dozen SDSU fans dressed up as LDS missionaries (complete with name tags and bike helmets), held signs taunting illness-stricken BYU guard Jimmer Fredette (“Jimmer, which one of your wives gave you mono?”), and compensated for their 71-69 loss by chanting “You’re still Mormon!” at departing BYU players and fans.
The episode caught national attention when Sports Illustrated’s Seth Davis called the Aztec fan behavior “classless.” Two days later, the Deseret News picked up the story, and the following letter appeared in the askmormongirl@gmail.com inbox:
Dear Mormon Girl:
Don’t you live in San Diego? Don’t you work at San Diego State University? Can’t you control your people???!!!
Signed,
J. D.
Yes, J.D., it is true that both my husband and I are full-time employees of San Diego State University, where we have grown to love the beautiful campus and its diverse, bright, hardworking students (many of them first-generation college). I adore the Aztecs who populate my lecture halls, especially when they manage to restrain themselves from thumb-typing illiterate little screeds into their magic phones and focus on the assigned reading.
But in the world of the sports arena crueler speech customs reign. And my visiting teacher, a multi-generation local, tells me that SDSU animus towards BYU is deep and longstanding. It gets unruly down here at the southwestern fringes of the Book-of-Mormon-belt, where we Mormons are numerous enough to constitute a definite element of the cultural landscape but still few enough to be a small minority. And I bet many folks are feeling a little tender about homemade signs with polygamy jibes and anti-LDS chanting given that only a year has elapsed since the difficult days following the passage of California’s Proposition 8.
Among the Cougar faithful, reaction to the SDSU incident has broken two ways: some giggle at the missionary dress-ups and dismiss the harsher jibes as regular trashtalking, while others call it “hate speech” and say it would have never been tolerated if the targets were, for example, gays or lesbians or Jews.
Not so fast, I say: the question of what exactly constitutes “hate speech” deserves sober reflection, and anyone who thinks that gays and lesbians and Jews have it easy should sit down and study the latest California hate crime statistics. Personally, I’d feel more comfortable using the term “hate speech” if someone could identify for me a way in which Mormons are today systematically and structurally discriminated against as Mormons on the basis of our Mormon identity alone, besides encountering bias when one of us runs for president. Does the simple fact of being born Mormon make it statistically more likely that we’ll be turned down for an apartment or a mortgage, or incarcerated, or targeted for public beating, or die an early death? No, no, no, and no.
And yet, even as I was preparing to finish this column, my husband (who is Jewish) came home this afternoon and related the conversation he had with our neighbor (also Jewish), an SDSU basketball fan. “I can’t stand that Jimmer Fredette,” the neighbor complained. “Man, I hate the Mormons.”
Did neighbor Aztec fan mean he actually hated the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Did he mean he hated me? Or me and my husband’s children? Or was there in his speech a quiet transformation of Mormons into mascots, a metonymic substitution with ugly side effects? Do people say “I hate the Catholics” when they root against Notre Dame? I don’t think so. I don’t know. I’m not sure I have a good handle on the strange, complex, and shifting place we Mormons occupy in American society, and I study religion and race for a living.
So, J. D., you asked mostly in jest, “Can’t you control those people?” And my unexpectedly serious answer is nope, no one can. All we can control is the way we react to them.
As clever and giggle-worthy as the missionary dress-up routine was, no one likes to hear the name of their religion hurled as a taunt, especially Cougar fans who look forward to BYU games as a chance to bleacher-bond with the grandkids and other Mormons.
But it helps to remember that the word Mormon was used in the 1830s as a pejorative and has since become a word that we’re proud to own.
And in this we do have a clear common experience with other American minorities, including Black folks, Jews, women, and gays and lesbians, who know that the quickest way to neutralize a word designed to wound is to take it back and use it yourself–with pride, with style, and with flair.
So if this Mormon Girl were in the bleachers that night (I was just across the freeway at my daughter’s preschool benefit) and she heard the “You’re still Mormon!” jeers ringing across the arena, her very first instinct would have been to tuck her Young Womanhood medallion inside her blouse, shout out something in the key of J. Golden Kimball, and huck her leftover nachos at the offending Aztec fans.
Then, mustering a modicum of self-restraint, she might have quietly devised a clever counter-taunt, something along the lines of: “That’s alright! That’s okay! We’ll baptize your dead someday!”
Finally, reaching deeper, she would have resolved that the best response to the accusation “You’re still Mormon!” is a resounding “Yes, I am!”
Readers, what would you say?
Send your queries to askmormongirl@gmail.com, or follow askmormongirl on Twitter.
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“That’s alright! That’s okay! We’ll baptize your dead someday!”
Classic, I love it!
I would have been wearing a University of Utah shirt anyway…
“Does the simple fact of being born Mormon make it statistically more likely that we’ll be turned down for an apartment or a mortgage, or incarcerated, or targeted for public beating, or die an early death? No, no, no, and no.”
This statement is mostly true, but as someone who has been denied fellowships, systematically harassed, and threatened (I think a joking comment about burning my parents’ house down counts) for being LDS, I would definitely be more prone to expand the definition of hate speech. If it’s hate speech to bring up the negative stereotypes of other racial or religious groups, it’s hate speech for anti-LDS statements as well.
There is definitely more veiled LDS-hating going on than any of us would like to admit. During our corporate recruitment a few years ago, someone made a negative comment about a candidate (also a friend of mine). He listed fluency in Russian and had a two-year gap in his educational history. One of the hiring managers made some anti-LDS statements and other hiring managers agreed. The candidate received and accepted the offer, but I would have had to say something if he had not gotten an offer.
This is really unfortunate to hear.
I went to a game when BYU played the University of Virginia several years ago. I heard some UVA fans heckling the BYU people saying they didn’t know what it was like to be with a woman. (Slightly ironic given the name Virginia has at it’s root virgin.) Just saying.:)
As one of my French Colleagues told me years ago, ” It is better to be loved than shot at!” It is also better to be noticed than ignored! So I chalk this up to that. I think the missionary garb is hilarious. The other stuff, is, well, just kinda stupid.
But, I would really like to ask your Jewish neighbor (also from whence I came) if he really hates Mormons.
I had an experience years ago with a friend of mine whose Dad hated everyone not a WASP. When I asked him if that meant he hated me because I was Jewish, he said, ” Not you, Jeff, you’re different.” I didn’t want to know how I was different. I figured I’d just savory that one.
What goes around, comes around?
While I agree with Jeff in that it is best to look at the garb with a sense of humor, I think it is important for the school administrators to understand that missionaries are “ordained ministers”, or at least that’s what my visa said when I went on my mission. Sports venues are places where people can view their spectator role is to disparage and demoralize the “mascot” of the other team. Basketball fans, in particular, feel they have a role in being a distraction to the visiting team, causing them to lose their concentration. Players certainly use these tactics themselves. Coaches have to work to teach their players to push the limit without going overboard. They also have to teach their players to ignore the attempts to push their buttons. Fans, whether student/alumni/visitor need to learn the same lessons.
I have a few observations. I think the missionay schtick is funny. the ‘i hate mormons’ talk is not.
I attended the las vegas bowl last year between ucla and byu. I sat in the ucla section, with ucla qb (and mormon) ben olson’s family. (ben played his frosh year at byu.) I was rooting for ucla, but found it really bothersome when ucla fans started chanting ‘we have morons, er mormons.’ such comments are outside of sportsmanship. unchallenged, they can lead to violence and hate speech.
now, ben’s family said both byu and utah fans were guilty of poor sportsmanship too. the much publicized max hall incident of utah fans pouring beer on his family, and the byu football fan who talkled the utah cheerleader show there are bad apples everywhere. I went to the byu-utah basketball game saturday and was surprised at how vocal the byu fans booed the utah cheerleaders prior to the game.
I don’t mind good natured ribbing, but when someone says ‘i hate…’ that is crossing the line into hate speech.
typo above. the chant was ‘we hate morons, er mormons.’
Excellent article! My response may have included something about the fact that we won because we keep the word of wisdom
Yes I’m proud to be a Mormon boy! Better than being a bigot!
I’m just excited “Mormon” or BYU is mentioned in Sports Illustrated!
Austin Collie is playing in the Super Bowl! Woohoo.
Sports (competition) and religion (brotherly love) are a funny mix of ideas.
What about that New Mexico girls soccer player that pulled a BYU soccer player’s hair in a “classless” display of sportsmanship?
Man…the Southwest doesn’t like us, do they?
This statement is mostly true, but as someone who has been denied fellowships, systematically harassed, and threatened (I think a joking comment about burning my parents’ house down counts) for being LDS, I would definitely be more prone to expand the definition of hate speech. If it’s hate speech to bring up the negative stereotypes of other racial or religious groups, it’s hate speech for anti-LDS statements as well.
Except I’ve had job offers withdrawn, been refused lunch and had other things happen because I’m LDS. When I was in Wichita Falls, the LDS military widow around the corner had her house painted over with religious insults based on her being LDS. She eventually moved from the community.
While I agree with Jeff in that it is best to look at the garb with a sense of humor in reality, that is just the way adolescent sports fans are, regardless of their chronological age.
“Does the simple fact of being born Mormon make it statistically more likely that we’ll be turned down for an apartment or a mortgage, or incarcerated, or targeted for public beating, or die an early death?”
I would add that none of these things necessarily compels a conclusion that institutional discrimination exists.
For example, one can have a higher risk of incarceration, without being discriminated against, if one belongs to a demographic group that commits more crimes. Ditto being turned down for a mortgage: If your demographic group has lower than average creditworthiness, it will have lower than average success in obtaining mortgage credit. Or at least that was true until everybody did away with mortgage standards altogether, with crashalatious results.
Conversely, the fact that Mormons tend to be successful, doesn’t rule out the possibility that we’d be even more successful (because of the positive habits ingrained by our tradition) if not for discrimination.
I thought the missionary thing was pretty funny, and I gave the SDSU students props for a good sense of humor. Sure, they took it too far, but that kind of trashtalking isn’t uncommon in intercollegiate athletics. I think it’s a molehill.
I agree with Kevin Barney. Ask Steve Kerr or anybody who has played against the University of Maryland about real taunting.
I’ll admit I was at the BYU/U Men’s Basketball game over the weekend and loved it. Now I didn’t hear anything directed towards the cheerleaders, but then I wasn’t listening for it either.
Unfortunately sporting events seems to bring out the worst in both sides. When I was told about the fans dressing up as missionaries I must admit I thought it was clever. I’m quite sure that if we could return the favor we would, but when SDSU comes to town what will I dress up as?
Great post and keep up the good work.
I love your response chant, Joanna. Which brings me to a question. What if one didn’t want to be baptized as a dead person? Like, if I had a granddaughter who became LDS and she wanted to retroactively baptize me, could I stop it from beyond the grave? Secondly, if one’s dead are baptized in another religion, does that “count” or do they need to be re-retroactively-baptized as LDS?
On another note “Jimmer Fredette” is one of the best names I have *ever* heard.
-Mary
I once worked with an old white baptist preacher. His first question upon meeting was to ask which church I went to. He, of course, hated Mormons. After a painful week of ignoring his escalating rude comments and then going home wanting to strangle him, inspiration hit. The next day, when he came at me with his first obnoxious comment of the day, I replied, ” Look Jack. I’m not trying to convert you. Actually, I don’t worry about converting anyone. I know if we don’t get you in this life, we will in the next. So no worries.” I flashed my best smirky smile and walked away. That was his last comment about Mormons to me and I was fine with that.
I have also decided my (brilliant!) reply is great for dealing with overwrought missionaries who come over for dinner and want to beat us to death with our responsibility to convert all our neighbors. It really takes the pressure off and lets friendships with non-members develop normally.
“If we don’t get you in this life, we’ll get you in the next.” (As I rub my hands together and give a sinister cackle)
Anyone think that the idea of baptizing Holocaust survivors and victims has anything to do with Mormon Girl’s Jewish neighbors antipathy? Adding smugness to that might silence people temporarily but it can’t help a whole lot in the long run.
Let’s face it, all the sore points the San Diego students poked at are grounded in reality and the image the church promotes. It may not feel good when someone else mirrors it back but there is consequence to things like baptizing other people’s dead and interfering with people’s full marriage equality. If we don’t find a way to deal with it now, it’s only going to get worse when the Perry v Schwarzenegger draws more heat and light to it. We’re looking at the future, folks, ’cause that younger generation is exactly the group that don’t see gay Americans as the enemy and are drawing conclusions about an orchestrated institutional approach to discrimination.
I left the word “verdict” out of the phrase Perry v Schwarzenegger verdict. It will be coming down in a month or so and won’t be silenced as the proceedings have been.
Well said, Alice. Very well said.
“Yes I’m proud to be a Mormon boy! Better than being a bigot!”
Um…a bigot is a person who is intolerant of other people’s lifestyle, choices and beliefs. I’m sorry, but the irony in this statement is hysterical. Just sayin’.
Austin Collie is going to play on Sunday? Sinner.
“Austin Collie is going to play on Sunday? Sinner.”
My former wife was a registered nurse who often had to work on Sundays. Was she a sinner, too? ..bruce..
Alice, your assumption is that callow twentysomethings will stay callow twentysomethings forever, with twentysomethings’ one-dimensional stereotypes of the reasons thoughtful people decline to redefine marriage. It may be taking longer for people to grow up these days, but grow up they eventually do. And when people do grow up, their consensus seems to be for absolute tolerance of people’s private sexual arrangements (as long as it doesn’t scare the horses), but also for the common-sense recognition that whatever you want to call a committed relationship between two people of the same sex, and whatever that relationship’s similarities with a marriage, there remain significant enough differences that calling the different arrangements by the same name simply isn’t justified.
Perry v. Schwarzenegger will not impose gay marriage. The district court judge may rule for the plaintiffs — I think he’s already grossly aired in admitting irrelevant testimony concerning the subjective intent of some Prop. 8 voters, based on a thumpingly wrong interpretation of what the Romer v. Evans holding actually involved — but not even the Ninth Circuit is going to ignore precedent that obviously.
By “silenced,” I assume you’re referring to the decision to adhere to the U.S. District Court’s local rules, and rejecting the trial judge’s improper attempt to unilaterally rewrite them. The rule of law is a real pain sometimes.
“aired” = erred. Argh.
Sport taunting is not a reason to get too upset. Its part of sports. You yell stuff at the other team from the stands.
Reading deeper meanings into frat boys mouthing off at a game is a waste of time. They also paint themselves team colors and been known to streak at halftime. Sometimes they even go shirtless at football games in freezing weather.
No one cared when BYU had lousy teams.
I would like to see the California San Diego Mission attend next year’s game…
Yes, I am!
Sounds pretty good.
P.S.
I was definitely harassed in the Army because I was a Mormon. Similarly, I was denied entry in a teacher training program, because they said they didn’t want any Mormons (some years later a younger representative of our faith did make it in despite making his background clear).
Velska — Schools of education are notoriously not just anti-Mormon, but anti-anything-but-flaming-left-wing. Conservatives just don’t have the “temperament” to be change agents (which apparently is the most important description of a teacher these days, rather than “can actually teach stuff”.)
What does “You’re still Mormon” mean? I’m too old to catch the popular culture reference.
#23–yes, your wife was a sinner. Now can you read “sarcasm’?
From what I can tell of Ulysseus, he doesn’t seem like one to judge.
The ironic thing in all this: If it doesn’t matter if people are Mormon in this life (ie. 99.9% of the world) because we’ll just get them in the next life, why do we even send out missionaries for people to dress up as?
As far as my response to the folks at the game, I would have laughed and gone up to them pretending to ask investigator questions. It’s all in good fun. And it also goes to show we haven’t progressed too far from the Romans over the past 2000 years.
And it also goes to show we haven’t progressed too far from the Romans over the past 2000 years.
Well, maybe just a bit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots
“Does the simple fact of being born Mormon make it statistically more likely that we’ll be turned down for an apartment or a mortgage, or incarcerated, or targeted for public beating, or die an early death? No, no, no, and no.”
.
But it does mean we’re excluded from adopting Haitian orphans. “LDS families are not eligible for this program” (See 8th bullet point under Family Requirements here:
http://www.dillonadopt.com/Haiti-A.htm#Family_Requirements). Note that combining the 8th and 10th buleet points means this group also denies us US citizenship.
17.
Mary, yes, we beleive that each person has the ability to accept or reject Christ’s gospel — including baptism — before and after death. We believe that we only are giving them that choice when we perform baptisms for deceased persons. In this vein, we also believe that it is denying them a choice some likely want to make to accept the offered baptism when someone else seeks to prevent it.
manaen – that is outrageous! Did you write to ask the organization why they have specifically chosen to discriminate against LDS families? (Of course LDS families can adopt, just not through this NPO).
I wonder if LDS Family Services arranges adoptions into non-LDS families.
# 38 It’s usually because the LDS Church is not considered Christian. Before my wife and I were married she was denied a job at World Vision because she’s LDS. Nothing personal.
kuri – not sure, but Dillon is a non-denominational organization, giving preference to Christian and Jewish families. The only specific prohibition they cite is that LDS are ineligible. That’s a very specific discrimination. If they only accepted one specific religion, that would be different.
Hawkgrrrl,
I’m sure GBSmith is right about the reason. They probably single out LDS because they get a certain amount of inquiries from Mormons. They don’t mention it specifically, but I bet they also discriminate against Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of the Unification Church, and any others who are the “wrong” kind of Christian. And they certainly discriminate against gay Christians and Jews, as well as all Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, Scientologists, etc.
For the most part, I wouldn’t take too much said by anyone at a sporting event too seriously as most of it is infantile, in poor taste or vulgar. I do have to laugh at Mormons taking criticism so seriously. While acts of vandalism and implied or actual violence against persons is against the law and should not be tolerated, it is important to note that no homosexual persons or groups have been convicted of or even had charges of any illegal act made against them in the legal system. None. It is obvious that some people taped signs to the LA Temple gates, and other minor acts of vandalism against Mormon property were reported, but nothing has been proven to be the acts of any homosexual groups or persons. To hear Mormons tell it, you all are being persecuted because those whose equal protection under the law you destroyed in CA have dared to answer back loudly. How dare they. If you think things have been loud up to now, believe me you haven’t seen anything yet as this fight is far from over. If you can’t stand the heat, you should have stayed out of the kitchen.
You all need to read some of the Hockey Mom stories here in Canada. A little name calling and verbal jeers is all your dealing with down there?! Ha!! we have parents slashing tires, fistfights in the stands and physical threats and actions against officials for not doing a better job in protecting their children from hooligans on the other teams. Banning from all further spectating and forceful removal to jail cells is almost the norm at little league hockey here in Canada’s maritimes.
How to respond when haters are talking anti Mormon smack? It depends…
If you are a BYU fan, then it is generally best to just ignore the idiots and politely cheer for your team. Try not to judge the other team based on the worst of their fans.
If you are a fan of SDSU/Wyoming/CSU/NM/other, then you should yell something like: “Hey, I’m a Mormon!” This tactic works best if you are sporting your team colors.
I tried this tactic at a Wyoming vs. BYU football game.
Idiot Wyoming fan: “Kill the Mormons!”
Me [proudly wearing Brown and Gold]: “Hey, I’m a Mormon.”
[silence in the crowd]
Me: “Kill the Cougars”]
Reformed Wyoming fan: “Kill the Cougars!”
[Cheers from the crowd]
Regarding Mormons taking offense at sporting events, here’s another twist on the art of inoffensive insult. There are numerous nations in the world that have “desecato” or insult laws. If the news media say anything that a national leader finds offensive, the offender is promptly thrown into jail. In Thailand, almost any disparaging comment about the royal family is taken very seriously by the authorities.
I was teaching my college students (in Kyrgyzstan) about these laws, and I cited a recent example when a newspaper editor in Kazakhstan was arrested for calling the Kazakh president a “goat.” When I asked my class if they agreed with me this was clearly an overreaction, one of my students, an Afghan, said “NO! He deserves to be flogged!” When I asked him why, he explained to me the offensiveness of being associated with any hooved creature.
I think we all need a generous dose of good humor and tolerance.