Friday night, some assholes at Brigham Young University shouted racial slurs at Black volleyball players during a volleyball match on its Provo, Utah, campus. Yes, this is 2022, but even kids born after 9/11 are capable of racism.
Duke sophomore Rachel Richardson is the only Black starter on the Blue Devils team. She’s also just 19. She claims she and her Black teammates were “targeted and racially heckled throughout the entirety of the match.” The racist slurs and remarks soon “grew into threats which caused us to feel unsafe.”
“#morethanavolleyballplayer”
— rachel richards (@rachel richards) 1661705258
Richardson released a gutting statement that called out the BYU officials’ failure to respond or stop the game.
Both the officials and BYU coaching staff were made aware of the incident during the game, but failed to take the necessary steps to stop the unacceptable behavior and create a safe environment. As a result, my teammates and I had to struggle just to get through the rest of the game, instead of just being able to focus on our playing so that we could compete at the highest level possible. They also failed to adequately address the situation immediately following the game when it was brought to their attention again. No athlete, regardless of their race should ever be subject to such hostile conditions. God has called each of us to be members of one body, while we may have our differences they should never divide us (Romans 12: 4-5).
According to Richardson’s godmother Lesa Pamplin, she was "called [the n-word] every time she served. She was threatened by a white male that told her to watch her back going to the team bus. A police officer had to be put by their bench.”
Richardson called her father, Marvin Richardson, as soon as she was on the bus after the game ended. Marvin Richardson said they spoke for hours, until past 2 a.m., and her emotional distress was obvious as soon as he heard her voice.
“We were up well into the night here,” Marvin Richardson said. “Just trying to make sure that we were able to support her and listen to her and be there for her.”
Duke players reportedly heard multiple racial slurs from the BYU student section, but they could only clearly identify one perpetrator, who was later banned from all athletic events on campus. He was apparently not a student, just a racist fan.
“BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe addresses fans in attendance before tonight's game.”
— BYU Women’s Volleyball (@BYU Women’s Volleyball) 1661664729
Before Saturday’s game, BYU Athletic Director Tom Holmoe repudiated the "egregious and hurtful” remarks without actually calling them "racist.” He said he met Saturday morning with Richardson and her coach. There was big “credit to her people” energy in his comments.
“If you would have met her, you would have loved her, but you don’t know her, and so you don’t feel that way,” Holmoe said. “As children of God, we are responsible, it’s our mission to love one another and treat everybody with respect, and that didn’t happen (Friday). We fell very short. We didn’t live up to our best."
I don’t think Richardson should have to proactively meet every white fan before a game to avoid racial slurs. Besides, even the best charm offensives have historically failed against racists. White folks were awful to the wonderful Josephine Baker.
BYU is an overtly religious school, but racism has long found a home within religion. That’s not surprising to those of us who grew up in the Bible Belt.
While unable to attend future games, the racist fan might feel sick pride in perhaps contributing to BYU’s three-to-one win over Duke. However, the true victory that night was Richardson’s.
"Although the heckling eventually took a mental toll on me, I refused to allow it to stop me from doing what I love to do and what I came to BYU to do: which was to play volleyball," Richardson said. "I refused to allow those racist bigots to feel any degree of satisfaction from thinking that their comments had 'gotten to me.' So, I pushed through and finished the game."
Richardson is a 19-year-old woman who plays sports, yet all the Republicans who insist they want to “defend women’s sports” have seem to have remained silent about what she endured. Apparently, if there’s no trans woman to bully, they aren’t interested.
[ ESPN / News Observer ]
Follow Stephen Robinson on Twitter.
Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .
Yr Wonkette is 100 percent ad-free! Please subscribe, donate, and otherwise help keep us alive and kicking!