By Vicki van den Eikhof

Lace on Race Center for Racial Equity Board Member

When a Black woman claims she was called the n-word in a public place and nobody else says they heard it, did it really happen? And what’s the best way to respond?

Recently, at a women’s volleyball game at my alma mater, Brigham Young University-Provo, a Black player from the visiting team claimed (here and here) that someone from the crowd was yelling racial slurs at her. At some point, a police officer was placed next to the team bench. Apologies were offered to the player from the BYU-Provo coach and athletic director. A (non-student) fan, one identified by the player, was banned from all sports games. According to a report filed by the officer (here and here), he didn’t hear any racial slurs, just the usual raucous cheering, typical of almost any college sports game. The university continued to investigate the incident and, after reviewing video, interviewing people, and reading the officer’s report, determined that there was no evidence that the events described by the opposing team’s player happened (here). The banned fan was unbanned.

I have no desire to prosecute the facts here. When it comes to my lived experience, relationships are not based on facts as much as they are influenced by the meaning we give to the facts and the meaning we give to the responses of the other party(ies). I’m interested in big questions: What kind of relationship currently exists between BYU-P and the BIPOC community? What kind of relationship would BYU-P like to have with the BIPOC community? How can this relationship goal be achieved? 

To be transparent, I haven’t been a student at BYU for about three decades. I’m not personally familiar with the kinds of things BIPOC students on campus, or in the community, experience with BYU today. I am a white woman. I am also a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the sponsoring institution for BYU, and have studied quite a bit about the racial history of the church. I am not a current student or administrator at BYU and I can’t provide definitive answers to these questions. Still, I do follow current events, and being a member of the church and BYU-P alumna, I offer my perspective here for your consideration.

The history of BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with regards to race is fraught. Church founder, Joseph Smith, admitted Black men and women to the church and ordained Black men to the priesthood from the beginning (1830). This was accepted practice until 1852, when the next church president, Brigham Young (and the namesake for BYU), made an announcement at the Utah Territorial Legislature that Black men would no longer be allowed to receive priesthood ordination (and by extension, their families were denied important temple rites). Brigham Young had political reasons for the decision he made, but he explained it using theological ones, and these are the justifications that persisted in the culture and teachings of the Church through the years. 

Although the priesthood ban was lifted in 1978 (when I was seven years old), many justifications for it continued to be taught. In 2013, the Church published an essay called Race and the Priesthood with this statement: “Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.” This statement was made publicly available in 2013, however, at least one teaching manual published as recently as 2017 seemed unaware of it and perpetuated some “disavowed” ideas. For all these reasons, and many others I can’t address in this limited space, many BIPOC people, and especially Black folks, find their relationships with the Church and/or BYU and the people in them, to be sources of pain, or at the very least, exhaustion.

There are some people who are exploring the experiences of BIPOC at BYU. The Black Menaces are “a coalition of students from various universities across the nation fighting to empower marginalized communities through social media”, mostly on TikTok and Instagram. The group was started at BYU-P. They are known for their candid interviews of students and staff on campuses across the nation. They ask questions such as: How often do you think about race? Do you think reverse racism exists? Do you know what Junteenth is? Can you define systemic racism? Do you think your university is inclusive? When I watch some people struggle to respond to a Black man asking if they believe systemic racism is real, I can understand why BIPOC students might not feel a deep sense of belonging at BYU. I am one of those white (former) students and I can feel my own brain doing the calculations: If I say what I really think on camera, will I get in trouble with some authority figure? If I say what I think the authority figures want to hear, will I offend the person asking the question? Or vice-a vers-a. 

Partly in response to stories like these, BYU established a Committee of Race, Equity, and Belonging (CoREB), which conducted a study regarding the experiences of BIPOC students at BYU. Based on the findings of the study and the recommendations of the committee, BYU recently opened an “Office of Belonging” and also created a new administrative position, Vice-President for Belonging. These are definitely positive steps. But all this is just for students of color who are attending BYU. It says nothing about what BIPOC visitors to the campus might experience. I think it’s fair to say that, based on the history, the relationship between BYU and BIPOC communities has the potential to carry a lot of negative meanings. I also think that the study conducted by the CoREB and the creation of an Office of Belonging and a new vice president position says something about the kind of relationship BYU would like to have with these communities. At least on paper, it looks like BYU is making an effort to improve its relationship with the BIPOC community. “…the office will not only be core to BYU’s efforts to root out racism but also to help combat ‘prejudice of any kind,’ including that ‘based on race, ethnicity, nationality, tribe, gender, age, disability, socioeconomic status, religious belief and sexual orientation.’” Only time will tell how well they carry out their mission. Meaning-making in relationships takes two sides. If only one side gets to create the meaning, the relationship isn’t going to last.

All relationships have an inherent tension to them. Everybody has two fundamental needs that sometimes feel conflicting: The need to belong to the group (social acceptance), and the need to belong to themselves (autonomy). Reconciling these two needs is the process of a lifetime. If my need to belong to the group causes me to act in ways that are inconsistent with how I view myself or who I really want to be, there will be tension in my relationship with the group, or with myself, or with both. When children are young, and dependent on a group to meet their physical and emotional needs, they are highly motivated to conform. Their autonomy is limited by their immaturity and conforming is the higher priority. But as we grow, we learn about who we are, who we want to be, and what we believe. During adolescence and young adulthood, the need for autonomy and individuation becomes more prominent. Sometimes the need for autonomy/individuation is so great, and the pressure to conform is so overwhelming, people will walk away from a group that has played a huge role in their identity up to that point. They may feel that they can’t make decisions with integrity as long as they are part of the group. Leaving the group, however, always comes with a cost. When they leave, people will need to find new ways to belong to others in order to meet that need. There are legitimate reasons to leave a group that used to serve us (perhaps our physical and/or emotional health is at stake). And there are legitimate reasons to stay in a group when it conflicts with our need for autonomy (we might truly value the good that has come to us from our participation in the group). The great thing about relationships is that they inevitably pressure our growth. If we are willing to stay in the relationship, and do the work to reconcile these two basic needs for both parties, we will find ourselves in qualitatively different relationships, with more beauty, love, and peace than we could imagine before.

Reconciling these two basic needs is a developmental process that all people go through as we mature. But there are many social and cultural influences that complicate the process. American culture puts a high value on autonomy, which makes a lot of sense when you think about the national history that we are taught (cowboys, pioneers, rugged individualists, etc.). But we sometimes overemphasize autonomy at the cost of community. Do we also recognize the heavy reliance of our nation on slave labor–and not just in the past, but in the present? This is the opposite of autonomy and rugged individualism, and failure to recognize it is willful blindness. Do we recognize the high priority that BIPOC cultures often place on community? Because of their marginalized status, these cultures have been shaped to prioritize community and helping each other. A failure to recognize the dual nature of this struggle will make it easy for us to prioritize individualism at the expense of community, as well as misunderstand the priorities and motivations of BIPOC communities and individuals. And an educational institution that is founded on a religion that follows Jesus would do well to be cautious about prioritizing individualism over community.

This is where I see an opportunity to think differently about this incident at the BYU women’s volleyball game.

If BYU wants to have a good relationship with the BIPOC communities, they will have to carefully balance autonomy and community. Relationships require us to seriously consider the experiences of those around us, even if we don’t agree with how they experience us, or the world in general. We have to take a moment to put aside our drive for autonomy (to do what we want), and consider the value of the relationship (belonging to a group). 

This requires self-confrontation. Self-confrontation involves looking at how I/we contribute to a dynamic in a particular relationship. It can help to ask questions like these: Why would a rational person behave this way around me?  What am I pretending not to know about my role in this? How is this situation benefitting me? (Can I hide behind labels I’m applying to myself or the other?) What can I do right now to make the situation better? The answers to these questions help raise our level of intelligence about the world–we comprehend more truth–which in turn will allow us to take actions that better align with who we say we want to be, with the values we claim for ourselves or our community. I’m hopeful that the CoREB study and the changes that are being implemented at  BYU-P are indicative of the university asking these kinds of self-confronting questions. Of course, asking the questions and acting on the answers are two different things. As well, getting an entire university staff and student body to ask these kinds of questions are magnitudes of difference from asking them privately of our individual selves.

It’s easy to categorize someone as “other”; to think to ourselves, “They’re the ones who are blind to the truth, who are crazy!” In reality, everything we do makes sense to us, even if it doesn’t to those around us. The least we can do, if we want a relationship with someone (or some group) is to try to understand why their choices/actions make sense to them and to analyze the ways we contribute to any negative dynamics. Are we willing to acknowledge that the other party does indeed act in ways that make sense for the context they are in? Exercising healthy curiosity is key to understanding the other person’s context.

When a Black woman claims she was called the n-word in a public place and nobody else says they heard it, did it really happen? And what’s the best way to respond? If I want to have a relationship with this Black woman, I will need to put myself in her shoes (or, more accurately, in her mind); try to understand her point of view and why it makes sense in this situation. I will want to make sure I don’t add insult to injury with my response. If I can’t accept that her actions make sense for the context she finds herself in, she would likely be better off to not be in a relationship with me.

In the end, the Duke volleyball player seemed satisfied with BYU’s response to the situation, so I will also be satisfied. I will, however, continue to observe how the school’s leadership responds to such situations, and to the needs of marginalized communities on campus, whether they are visitors or students. I am grateful to those who are willing to be vulnerable enough to share their experiences, even when they know many people will assume the worst of them. I appreciate the work involved in bringing marginalized voices to the forefront so they can be heard by the rest of us. I will do my best to confront myself in racial dynamics, rather than assume the other party(ies) are unreasonable or lying. I do believe it is what Jesus would do.

Vicki has an MS in sports medicine (University of Oregon), which has come in handy a couple of times. She currently spends most of her time fundraising for public school arts education when she’s not doing mother, wife, and board member things. She has been a life-long, committed member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is a BYU graduate in Physical Education. She and her husband of 31 years have four children.