Racial Slur at BYU Game - Real or Hoax?

[Kenngo1969]

I reiterate what I believe I said earlier (or, if I have forgotten that I did not say it here but in another forum first, here is what I said elsewhere): If everybody (including certain powers-that-be at BYU) is so damn convinced that Rachel's Truth is THE Truth, then what BYU should have done is said, "We do not tolerate racism, anywhere, at any time, under any circumstances, by anyone associated with this University.  We are convinced that no one would lie about an incident such as this, and since Ms. Richardson says she heard what she heard 'clearly and distinctly,' we call on everyone who also heard what Ms. Richardson heard to come forward.  If no one comes forward by [insert date here], we will cancel the remainder of the BYU Women's Volleyball season."

Don't just slander one young man, wait a few days, say, "We've done all we can do and our investigation is concluded."

If BYU, its students, and so on, ad infinitum and ad nauseam, really is racist, cutting away a miniscule amount of tissue isn't going to do anything to halt the progression of the cancer.

Radical surgery is required.

Fair?

Nope!  (Neither is slandering one young man for, purportedly, actions that were much more widespread ...)  So ...

Spread the pain.

Spread ...

the ...

pain!!!

 

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Kenngo1969

[Calm]

I have no problem at all believing she could have distinctly heard something and still be mistaken. I hear my name being called all the time when it is either impossible or highly unlikely (it gets really creepy when it keeps happening in the middle of the night) as well as other words and especially music. Sometimes it is repetitive. I know part of the reason is my tinnitus and my brain trying to impose order on that chaos, but I have read stuff that suggests it can happen to anyone…sometimes it is just hearing your own pulse that can cause one to hear music or words, but also especially in a crowd.

Words misunderstood once are easily misunderstood again. Remember people who are positive they can hear messages in records being played backwards. For many hearing it played again makes them more certain it is there, not less. They are not lying. They hear those words in the sense that their brain tells them that is what the sounds mean even if the actual sounds do not match.

Her sense of increased tension in the student section was most likely a result of her own and her teammates’ unsettleness. 
 

I know what is being yelled, but unless I remind myself to think of the words with an accent and repeat that as I listen, I slip back into hearing “lactates in pharmacy” over and over even though that makes no sense.  If you do search on “auditory illusions in crowds”, other videos may come up.

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Calm

[Calm]

Here is an article on the illusion of stable sounds:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12893-0

”Illusory texture biases subsequent texture statistic estimates indistinguishably from actual texture, suggesting that it is represented similarly to actual texture. The illusion appears to represent an inference about whether the background is likely to continue during concurrent sounds, providing a stable statistical representation of the ongoing environment despite unstable sensory evidence.”

This has audio samples where you can test yourself if you continue to hear sound samples when it changes to white noise.

http://mcdermottlab.mit.edu/textcont.html

I do in each case, but a few fade pretty quickly and make it through halfway, though most I can hear as if covered by the white noise. I wonder if there is any pattern to who hears noises persistently or not. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Calm

[provoman]

42 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

 

So the Athletic Director does not present any evidence but will asserts that the review by BYU is wrong - even though the athlete identified that others on her team heard it also. 

Uber Alles false accusations; because “If It StArTS A cONvERsATiOn, ThEN mISsIoN ACcOMpLIsHEd”

[jkwilliams]

12 minutes ago, Calm said:

Here is an article on the illusion of stable sounds:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12893-0

”Illusory texture biases subsequent texture statistic estimates indistinguishably from actual texture, suggesting that it is represented similarly to actual texture. The illusion appears to represent an inference about whether the background is likely to continue during concurrent sounds, providing a stable statistical representation of the ongoing environment despite unstable sensory evidence.”

This has audio samples where you can test yourself if you continue to hear sound samples when it changes to white noise.

http://mcdermottlab.mit.edu/textcont.html

I do in each case, but a few fade pretty quickly and make it through halfway, though most I can hear as if covered by the white noise. I wonder if there is any pattern to who hears noises persistently or not. 

Thomas Kuhn noted that what we perceive is constrained by our expectations, so absent any reason otherwise, we tend to see, hear, and interpret (the latter being most import, IMO) what we expect. It's quite easy to imagine that Ms. Richardson had been told that BYU has a fraught history with race (it does), and therefore expected to hear racial animus. I don't think we'll ever know. I attended my first BYU sporting event 41 years ago, and since then, I've never heard a single racist comment from any BYU fans. As I said, a friend of mine, who went to a different school, had a different experience. So, my baseline assumption was that, if true, this was an outlier. That it can't be substantiated by audio or video evidence tells me that Ms. Richardson was mistaken. But I cannot join the chorus of people saying she deliberately lied to make some kind of political "woke" statement. We simply cannot know that, and we likely never will. 

[Calm]

And just for fun, here are examples of other auditory illusions…

Fun site:  https://www.illusionsindex.org/illusions
 

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/skipping-pylon
 

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/mcgurk-effect

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/shepard-scales

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/sound-induced-flash

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/binaural

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/rissett

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/bistable-audio

[smac97]

Statement from BYU: A STATEMENT FROM BYU ATHLETICS REGARDING THE INVESTIGATION OF THE AUG. 26 VOLLEYBALL MATCH

ESPN: BYU says it found no corroborating evidence of racial heckling toward Duke women's volleyball player

USA Today: BYU says it has 'not found any evidence' that fans used racial slurs towards Duke player

From CNN: BYU says investigation did not find evidence of racist heckling at volleyball game

National Review: BYU Investigation Finds No Evidence That Fans Hurled Racial Slur at Duke Volleyball Player

Sports Illustrated: BYU Says It Found No Evidence of Racist Heckling at Duke Volleyball Match

Associated Press: BYU investigation finds no racial slurs against Duke player

Fox 13: Ban lifted off BYU fan accused of taunting opposing player with racial slur; investigation yields no evidence

Yahoo News: BYU says it didn't find evidence a fan racially heckled a Black female Duke volleyball player

Deseret News: Intensive BYU investigation finds no evidence of racist slur beyond Duke player’s statement

Props to BYU for seeing this through, and for its diplomatic approach.  From the above statement:

Quote

Our fight is against racism, not against any individual or any institution. Each person impacted has strong feelings and experiences, which we honor, and we encourage others to show similar civility and respect. We remain committed to rooting out racism wherever it is found. We hope we can all join together in that important fight.

In the U.S. legal system, it is quite common for a trial or appellate court to say that it "need not reach" further contested issues where there are more preliminary and/or limited grounds to resolve the dispute (see, e.g., here).

Here, I think BYU can appropriately "need not reach" the issue of whether what Rachel Richardson said and did amounts to a "race hoax."  They have withdrawn the ban on the UVU student and apologized to him.  They have publicly stated that their investigation has yielded "no evidence."  They have reiterated BYU's condemnation of racism (while in the very act of declaring that no evidence of racism was found in this incident).  That is a sufficient closure of this matter as far as BYU is concerned.

For everyone else, though, I think discussion of whether this was a "race hoax" is both appropriate and important.  If we need to be having "discussions" about - as Richardson put it - "dealing with racism," then I think such discussions should include false allegations.  Tawana Brawley.  Crystal Mangum.  Jussie Smollett.  

Dr. Wilfred Reilly has aptly noted that "{h}ate crime hoaxes, like Jussie Smollett's alleged attack, are more common than you think," and that they "damage good race relations":

Quote

Doing research for a book, Hate Crime Hoax, I was able to easily put together a data set of 409 confirmed hate hoaxes. An overlapping but substantially different list of 348 hoaxes exists at fakehatecrimes.org, and researcher Laird Wilcox put together another list of at least 300 in his still-contemporary book Crying Wolf. To put these numbers in context, a little over 7,000 hate crimes were reported by the FBI in 2017 and perhaps 8-10% of these are widely reported enough to catch the eye of a national researcher.

 

Why do hoaxers hoax? In some cases, the motivations are tawdry and financial. Jussie Smollett allegedly wanted to make himself a sympathetic figure to boost his salary.

However, the motivations of many hoaxers are honorable if misguided. In college campus hate hoax cases (Kean College, U-Chicago), the individuals responsible almost invariably say that they staged incidents to call attention to real incidents of racist violence on campus. Certainly, the media giants that leap to publicize hate crime stories later revealed to be fakes, and the organizations that line up to defend their “victims” — the Southern Poverty Law Center, Black Lives Matter, CAIR — think that they are providing a public service by fighting bigotry.

However, hate crime hoaxers are “calling attention to a problem” that is a very small part of total crimes. There is very little brutally violent racism in the modern USA. There are less than 7,000 real hate crimes reported in a typical year. Inter-racial crime is quite rare; 84% of white murder victims and 93% of Black murder victims are killed by criminals of their own race, and the person most likely to kill you is your ex-wife or husband. When violent inter-racial crimes do occur, whites are at least as likely to be the targets as are minorities. Simply put, Klansmen armed with nooses are not lurking on Chicago street corners.

In this context, what hate hoaxers actually do is worsen generally good race relations, and distract attention from real problems. As Chicago’s disgusted top cop, Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, pointed out yesterday, skilled police officers spent four weeks tracking down Smollett’s imaginary attackers — in a city that has seen 28 murders as of Feb. 9th, according to The Chicago Tribune. We all, media and citizens alike, would be better served to focus on real issues like gun violence and the opiate epidemic than on fairy tales like Jussie’s.

And here:

Quote

Mr. Reilly eventually compiled a database of 346 hate-crime allegations and determined that less than a third were genuine. Turning his attention to the hoaxes, he put together a data set of more than 400 confirmed cases of fake allegations that were reported to authorities between 2010 and 2017. He allows that the exact number of false reports is probably unknowable, but what can be said “with absolute confidence is that the actual number of hate crime hoaxes is indisputably large,” he writes. “We are not speaking here of just a few bad apples.”

The author’s bigger concern, and rightly so, is the growing politicization of hate crimes, especially when they are directed at underrepresented groups and regardless of whether they in fact happened. The sad reality is that there is no shortage of individuals and entities with a vested interest in exaggerating racial tensions in the U.S.—from civil-rights organizations to corporate diversity officers to professors of race and gender studies.

These alleged incidents are invariably seized upon by politicians and activists looking to feed a sacrosanct belief among liberals that discrimination and oppression are the main drivers of inequality. “In the mainstream media we hear almost constant talk about scary new forms of racism: ‘white privilege,’ ‘cultural appropriation,’ and ‘subtle bigotry,’ ” Mr. Reilly writes, yet “a huge percentage of the horrific hate crimes cited as evidence of contemporary bigotry are fakes.”

If “Hate Crime Hoax” merely offered examples to illustrate the extent of this phenomenon—and the book offers nearly 100—it would be providing a much-needed public service. But Mr. Reilly has a larger point to make. The Smollett case isn’t an outlier. Increasingly, it’s the norm. And the media’s relative lack of interest in exposing hoaxes that don’t involve famous figures is a big part of the problem.

Speaking of "worsen{ing} good race relations," see Bsjkki's linked tweet:

45 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

 

From the comments to the above tweet:

Quote

It’s one thing when it’s a he said she said. But when you have hundreds of potential witnesses at the scene and none corroborates a claim such as this, why is it so hard to use common sense and explain that she misheard? Why do we have to go down the rabbit hole like this?
...
Shorter: ‘We don’t mind questioning the character of the fan but don’t your DARE question the character of our athlete.’
...
Wasn’t it hatred when the Duke player lied and pinned her lie on a special needs kid??
...
Good! About time someone stands with Rachel and calls out the lying racist Mormons for their bulls*&t!
...
What does that statement even mean? They stand by their players even if they lied about a racial slur being hurled their way?

Dr. Reilly is right.  We need to account for and address race hoaxes.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

Just now, Calm said:

And just for fun, here are examples of other auditory illusions…

Fun site:  https://www.illusionsindex.org/illusions
 

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/skipping-pylon
 

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/mcgurk-effect

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/shepard-scales

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/sound-induced-flash

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/binaural

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/rissett

https://www.illusionsindex.org/i/bistable-audio

It's not always auditory. How many times have people here (myself included) misread or misinterpreted another person's post? 

[Calm]

Any reason you are only citing blacks who have lied about whites and not whites lying about blacks or other races in your example, Smac?My guess is historically there are a lot more examples out there of the latter.  Plus white on black racial hoaxes are much more likely to receive media attention and get spread far and wide (as fact) than the reverse according to wiki. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Calm

[bsjkki]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

Any reason you are only citing blacks who have lied about whites and not whites lying about blacks or other races in your example, Smac?My guess is historically there are a lot more examples out there of the latter.  Plus white on black racial hoaxes are much more to receive media attention and get spread far and wide than the reverse according to wiki. 

A list of hate crime hoaxes. I will look further. List: 178 Hate Crime Hoaxes :: News Lists (grabien.com)

10 Egregious Cases of White People Falsely Accusing Black People of Committing Crimes (atlantablackstar.com)

Hate Crime Hoaxes and Why They Happen - Wilfred Reilly, Commentary Magazine

"While the current epidemic of hate-based violence in the United States is mostly an epidemic of hoaxes, and any “race war” going on today exists only in the minds of a few radicals, there are disturbing signs that the fakes are fostering real hostility among the races, which could lead to real violence in the future. Consider, for example, the fact that hate-crime hoaxes are increasingly being perpetrated by white members of the alt-right, with the explicit goal of making black people and leftist causes look bad."

..."Judging from my own work as well as that of Fake Hate Crimes and Laird Wilcox, false allegations of anti-gay and anti-Jewish crime are substantially less frequent than fake hate crimes reported by campus activists or people of color. But they are not infrequent. Frank Elliott, the owner of the Oak Park suburb’s well-known Velvet Ultra Lounge nightclub, was arrested in November 2013 and charged with arson and federal insurance fraud after he burned down his own gay club, used spray paint to write anti-gay slurs throughout the fire-ravaged building, and blamed the fire on homophobes."

Edited September 9, 2022 by bsjkki

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, bsjkki said:

 

While calling into question without proof the character of hundreds of people. 

[Analytics]

15 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Dr. Reilly is right.  We need to account for and address race hoaxes.  

Believing this was a "race hoax" seems fanciful. If somebody were inclined to "race hoax", why would she possibly choose to do so when she knows there are hundreds of witnesses to the hoax and knows the whole thing is being recorded? 

I would presume that most volleyball venues aren't anywhere near as loud as BYUs. This was probably a strange environment for the Duke players--much louder and whiter than other places they play. Add to that the altitude and the fact that "cougar" rhymes with that other word, an honest auditory illusion seems much more likely. 

I suppose it's conceivable she engaged in a "race hoax," believing that people would give her the benefit of the doubt, and believing that the loudness made it impossible for anybody to know for sure the insult wasn't yelled. But cynically engaging in a hoax in front of hundreds of witnesses would take massive, massive, balls. Do you think she might be transexual?

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Believing this was a "race hoax" seems fanciful. If somebody were inclined to "race hoax", why would she possibly choose to do so when she knows there are hundreds of witnesses to the hoax and knows the whole thing is being recorded? 

I would presume that most volleyball venues aren't anywhere near as loud as BYUs. This was probably a strange environment for the Duke players--much louder and whiter than other places they play. Add to that the altitude and the fact that "cougar" rhymes with that other word, an honest auditory illusion seems much more likely. 

I suppose it's conceivable she engaged in a "race hoax," believing that people would give her the benefit of the doubt, and believing that the loudness made it impossible for anybody to know for sure the insult wasn't yelled. But cynically engaging in a hoax in front of hundreds of witnesses would take massive, massive, balls. Do you think she might be transexual?

Anything is possible, but as you say, it's too easy to verify one way or the other, so a "race hoax" would be a pretty ballsy move. I can testify to the loudness of the SFH during a volleyball match. It's a small place and usually is packed for volleyball games. 

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Believing this was a "race hoax" seems fanciful. If somebody were inclined to "race hoax", why would she possibly choose to do so when she knows there are hundreds of witnesses to the hoax and knows the whole thing is being recorded? 

I would presume that most volleyball venues aren't anywhere near as loud as BYUs. This was probably a strange environment for the Duke players--much louder and whiter than other places they play. Add to that the altitude and the fact that "cougar" rhymes with that other word, an honest auditory illusion seems much more likely. 

I suppose it's conceivable she engaged in a "race hoax," believing that people would give her the benefit of the doubt, and believing that the loudness made it impossible for anybody to know for sure the insult wasn't yelled. But cynically engaging in a hoax in front of hundreds of witnesses would take massive, massive, balls. Do you think she might be transexual?

If it is not a hoax, then it most probably was misunderstood  words, in which case, the most reasonable thing would be to retract the accusation and make amends 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[Amulek]

42 minutes ago, smac97 said:

That is a reasonable surmise.  For me, though, her accusations are too unequivocal to attribute to her being "sincerely mistaken."

How so? She heard what she heard and then acted accordingly.

If she sincerely believed she heard a racial slur uttered on two separate occasions during the game, then I have a hard time characterizing her as a liar and accusing her of perpetrating a hoax.

Here's kind of how I parse it:

1. She reported hearing racial slurs on at least two occasions during the game.
2. It is either True or False that someone actually uttered racial slurs during the game.
   1. If True, then her report is correct and she is not perpetrating a hoax.
   2. If False, then her report is incorrect.
      1. If her report is incorrect, and she sincerely believes that it is correct, then she is sincerely mistaken and is not perpetrating a hoax.
      2. If her report is incorrect, and she knows that it is incorrect, then she is a liar and is perpetrating a hoax.

You seem to be saying that, based on a preponderance of the evidence, you believe it is not the case that somebody actually uttered a racial slur. And since she reported hearing a racial slur, you then conclude that she is lying and perpetrating a hoax.

I guess I just can't bring myself to get that far.

I mean, if sincerely believing you experienced something that may not have actually occurred makes one a hoaxter, then how would you go about defending Joseph Smith's experience in the Sacred Grove as being something other than a hoax?

 

[smac97]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

Any reason you are only citing blacks who have lied about whites and not whites lying about blacks or other races in your example, Smac?

I previously linked to this list of race hoaxes, which includes, inter alia, the Scottsboro Boys, Emmett Till, Charles Stuart, Jesse Anderson, Susan Smith, Jennifer Wilbanks, Sherry Hall, Maria Daly, Jason Stokes, Sherri Papini, Walker Daugherty, and Breana Harmon.  All of these are examples of race hoaxed perpetrated by white people against black or hispanic persons.

Any reason you are suggesting that I am "only citing blacks who have lied about whites and not whites lying about blacks or other races," Calm?  

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

My guess is historically there are a lot more examples out there of the latter.

Yes. "Historically" there were presumptions in place which, broadly speaking, favored white people over black people.

In recent years, it seems that the tables have turned a bit, such that we are seeing more race hoaxes propagated by black people than in previous years.

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

Plus white on black racial hoaxes are much more to receive media attention and get spread far and wide than the reverse according to wiki. 

Not sure that's true.  Jussie Smollett sure got a lot of attention.  

I think the politicization of race hoaxes is a big problem, in that it has created an incentive for such things, and the same goes for the generalized lionization-of-victimhood trend, as well as the ugly atmosphere prevalent on at many institutions of higher learning.  See, e.g., these remarks by Walter Williams:

Quote

It may be perplexing to some, but I believe that our nation has made great progress in matters of race, so much so that imaginary racism and racial hoaxes must be found. Left-wingers on college campuses and elsewhere have a difficult time finding the racism that they say permeates everything. So they're brazenly inventing it.

Jussie Smollett charged that two masked Trump supporters, wearing MAGA hats, using racial and homophobic insults attacked him. The anti-Trump media gobbled up Smollett's story hook, line and sinker, but it turned out to be a hoax.

A large percentage of hate-crime hoaxes occur on college campuses. Andy Ngo writes about this in his City Journal article "Inventing Victimhood: Universities too often serve as 'hate-crime hoax' mills." St. Olaf College in Minnesota was roiled in mass "anti-racism" protests that caused classes to be canceled. It turned out that a black student activist was found to be responsible for a racist threat she left on her own car. Five black students at the U.S. Air Force Academy Preparatory School found racial slurs written on their doors. An investigation later found that one of the students targeted was responsible for the vandalism.

Andy Ngo writes that there are dozens of other examples. They all point to a sickness in American society, with our institutions of higher education too often doubling as "hate-hoax mills," encouraged by a bloated grievance industry in the form of diversity administrators. These are diversity-crazed administrators, along with professors of race and gender studies, who nationwide spend billions of dollars on diversity and a multiculturalist agenda. Racial discord and other kinds of strife are their meal tickets to greater influence and bigger budgets.

There's another set of beneficiaries to racial hoaxes and racial strife. These alleged incidents are invariably seized upon by politicians and activists looking to feed a sacrosanct belief among liberals that discrimination and oppression are the main drivers of inequality. Jason Riley, writing in The Wall Street Journal says "In the mainstream media we hear almost constant talk about scary new forms of racism: 'white privilege,' 'cultural appropriation,' and 'subtle bigotry.'" Riley mentions the work of Dr. Wilfred Reilly who is a professor of political science at Kentucky State University and author of a new book, "Hate Crime Hoax," that states "a huge percentage of the horrific hate crimes cited as evidence of contemporary bigotry are fakes." Reilly put together a data set of more than 400 confirmed cases of fake allegations that were reported to authorities between 2010 and 2017. He says that the exact number of false reports is probably unknowable, but what can be said "with absolute confidence is that the actual number of hate crime hoaxes is indisputably large. "We are not speaking here of just a few bad apples." But Reilly has a larger point to make, writing, "The Smollett case isn't an outlier. Increasingly, it's the norm. And the media's relative lack of interest in exposing hoaxes that don't involve famous figures is a big part of the problem."

And here: The list of bogus ‘hate crimes’ in Trump era is long

Quote

In the wake of the arrest of actor Jussie Smollett, who was charged with staging his own racist and homophobic attack, here are just some of the other crimes that have been given prominent play by the media since the 2016 election — often accompanied by politicians decrying, “This is America today” — that turned out to be frauds:

• Just before the 2016 election, the 111-year-old Hopewell Baptist Church was attacked with fire and graffiti that said, “Vote Trump.” “The political message of the vandalism is obviously an attempt to sway public opinion regarding the upcoming election,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.). Turns out the arsonist was Andrew McClinton, 48, an African-American member of the church.
• “Heil Trump” and ”F-g Church” were spray-painted on St. David’s Episcopal Church in Indiana after the election. It was the gay organ player who did it. “Over the course of that week, I was fearful, scared and alone, too, in my fear,” George Nathaniel “Nathan” Stang, 26, explained to the IndyStar. “I guess one of the driving factors behind me committing the act was that I wanted other people to be scared with me.”
• Yasmin Seweid, 18, told police that three Donald Trump supporters harassed her and tried to steal her hijab on a No. 6 train in New York City. But the Dec. 1, 2016, alleged hate crime fell apart two weeks later when Seweid admitted she made the whole thing up because she’d been out late drinking with friends and was afraid her strict Muslim Egyptian father would be angry.
• Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti was vandalized for months by graffiti that said, “leave n—-s” and “KKK.” A former student, African-American Eddie Curlin, 29, was eventually caught. “It was totally self-serving,” said Robert Heighes, the university’s chief of police. “It was not driven by politics. It was not driven by race.”
• More than 2,000 bomb threats to Jewish institutions, including the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, were made in the first three months of 2017. “My personal take is it’s a statement of where we are in this country,” Michael Feinstein, the chief executive of the Bender Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, in Rockville, Md., told The Times. In March 2017, an arrest was finally made in many of the incidents: that of a 19-year-old Jewish Israeli-American named Michael Ron David Kadar. Kadar had been rejected from the Israeli Defense Forces over mental health issues and claimed in his defense that he had a brain tumor.
• A few of the threats didn’t come from the Jewish teenager. At least eight were the work of Juan Thompson, 32, who was trying to frame a woman who had broken up with him. Thompson, a black journalist, had previously been fired from The Intercept for making up sources and stories. In response to his firing, he blamed the “white New York media” and claimed his editors were racist.
• Forty-two Jewish tombstones were toppled in Washington Cemetery in Midwood, Brooklyn, in March 2017. While officials were worried it was an anti-Semitic act, after an investigation, the NYPD named another suspect: the wind. “[It was] due to neglect, or weather factors like soil and dirt and wind. There is no evidence to suggest this was a case of vandalism,” a police spokesman said.
• Five black cadet candidates were bombarded with hate speech on message boards at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School in September 2017. It turns out that the comments were written by one of the African-American cadets. CNN commentator Frida Ghitis didn’t think that point mattered much in a follow-up report, saying, “The election of President Donald Trump lifted the rock under which much of the hatred had hidden, allowing it to squirm out into the light.”
• African-American Adwoa Lewis, 20, of Long Island said four teens yelled “Trump 2016!,” told her she didn’t belong here and slashed her tires in September 2018, leaving a note that read “Go Home.” She later admitted to making the story up and putting the note on her car.
• Union Temple in Brooklyn was defaced by messages such as, “Die Jew Rats” and “Jew Better Be Ready” in early November 2018. The culprit? Gay African-American James Polite, who had previously interned for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and was raised by Jewish foster parents. He was charged for hate crimes for the graffiti and setting fires at four other Jewish temples and schools. But friends and advocates say bigotry isn’t to blame; Polite is bipolar and was convinced that the FBI and CIA had taken over the city’s homeless shelter system.
• More than 100 students marched to demand “safe spaces” after “KKK,” swastikas and the last names of four black and Latino students were scrawled in a bathroom stall at Goucher College near Baltimore in November 2018. But it turned out one of those graffiti’d names, Flynn Arthur, 21, was the person responsible. The biracial lacrosse player explained to cops that “he had been drinking and just did something dumb.”
• On Dec. 30, 2018, a 7-year-old African-American girl, Jazmine Barnes, was killed in a drive-by shooting. Witnesses said a white man in a pickup truck was nearby. “We’ve got to call it what it is. Black people are being targeted in this country,” said activist Deric Muhammad. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) insisted, “Do not be afraid to call this what it seems to be — a hate crime,” But the investigation led to the arrest of two African-Americans, Eric Black Jr. and Larry D. Woodruffe, who police believe shot into Barnes’ car in a case of mistaken identity.
• This past New Year’s Eve, three Savannah churches and a civil rights museum were vandalized, raising the specter of a hate crime. But it was an African-American, David Smith III, who had thrown bricks through the doors.
• Video went viral of a Jan. 18 confrontation at the March for Life in Washington, DC, showing a group of students from Covington Catholic HS in Kentucky, some in MAGA hats, in a confrontation with a Native American, Nathan Phillips. “They were in the process of attacking these four black individuals,” Phillips told the Detroit Free Press. “I was there, and I was witnessing all of this … As this kept on going on and escalating, it just got to a point where you do something or you walk away, you know? You see something that is wrong, and you’re faced with that choice of right or wrong.” Other videos quickly proved that Phillips was lying. A group of Black Israelites was taunting the Covington teens with racial insults such as, “Christ is coming back to kick your cracker asses.” And Phillips wasn’t surrounded by the Covington students; he walked into the group and started banging a drum in the face of one of the kids, whose bewildered expression had online commentators quick to label a smirk. A lawyer for a Covington student has filed a defamation suit against the Washington Post for $250 million in damages.

And so as to head up further insinuations of racism, I note that in the above are hoax perpetrators George Nathaniel “Nathan” Stang (white), Michael Ron David Kadar (Jewish), Flynn Arthur (biracial), and Nathan Phillips (Native American).

See also here (from 2021) (emphasis added) :

Quote

Starting in December and then several times earlier this year, Black residents in a Douglasville subdivision started getting strange and worrisome notes purportedly from a white Klansman threatening to kill them and burn down their homes.

 

The menacing author described himself as a 6-foot-tall man with a long, red beard. This was mighty odd, to say the least. Klansmen aren’t noted for being brainiacs, but even the most dimwitted white supremacist would be wary of giving out that kind of identifying information.

In August, there were reports of a vandalism and racial terrorism at the Emory Autism Center in Atlanta. Racial slurs were written on walls near the desks of a couple of African American women and a swastika was scrawled in a hallway near a Jewish man’s office.

The incidents made the news as examples of racism and anti-Semitism run amok during these angry and divided times.

Then, in recent weeks came the rest of the story.

 

In Douglasville, police arrested Terresha Lucas, a 30-year-old woman who lives in that neighborhood. She is Black.

In the Emory case, police fairly quickly closed in on Roy Lee Gordon Jr., a former part-time employee at Emory. He was arrested and charged with second-degree burglary. He, too, was Black.

The reasons for their alleged actions are not yet known. I couldn’t reach either one. Maybe the woman wanted to stir things up in her racially mixed neighborhood. Perhaps the Emory thing was a disgruntled ex-employee wanting to toss a stink bomb into the lap of his former employer. You remember how micro-aggressed the Emory campus got five years ago when someone chalked pro-Trump verbiage on the sidewalks there. Imagine what a swastika and some N-words would do.

...

It turns out such incidents are not uncommon, according to Wilfred Reilly, a political science professor at Kentucky State University, a historically Black institution. A couple of years ago, he published a book called “Hate Crime Hoax” after he researched hundreds of hate crimes and incidents that made the news and found that more than 400 of them turned out to be faked.

Reilly’s book had the good fortune of being released the same time as the Jussie Smollett fiasco, the mother of all hoaxes. In that case, Smollett, an actor, claimed he got thumped at 2 a.m. in sub-zero Chicago temperatures by a couple of MAGA goons who slipped a noose around his neck while shouting slurs at him. The “attack,” while initially drawing wide and intense consternation, drew an immediate side-eye from those with half a lick of common sense. Smollett is set to go on trial next month on charges of disorderly conduct.

“The reality is, in politics, especially on the left side, there is an advantage to claiming victimhood,” Reilly said. The Rev. Al Sharpton sure knows that, having launched a nice career off the Tawana Brawley rape hoax of the late 1980s.

In our discussion, Reilly mentioned Erica Thomas, a Democratic state representative from Cobb County, who caused a stir in 2019 after she was accosted by a fellow grocery shopper irked by her abuse of the 10-items-or-less express line. They exchanged angry words and she later posted on Facebook: “Today I was verbally assaulted in the grocery store by a white man who told me I was a lazy SOB and to go back to where I came from.”

Her post went international and she demanded the man be arrested. “We have to make an example out of this man,” she said.

Well, it turns out the police report quoted a store manager telling them that Thomas, not the man, was the one continually saying, “Go back where you came from!”

Whoops.

”Usually when this happens, there’s a conversation about some issues like racism or homophobia,” Reilly said. “The people doing this are trying to create an impression a lot more of it is going on.”

There is plenty going on, but apparently not enough for some people. The feds say there were 7,554 reported hate crimes in the U.S. last year, an increase of 6% from the pervious year. There are surely many more hate crimes that go uncounted or unreported. But, it also should be noted that there are 330 million Americans.

Reilly estimates perhaps 15% of reported bias or hate incidents are faked. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino estimates it is less than 1%.

...

My thought is that some who perpetuate false cases of bias are like the pyromaniacs who start fires and then quietly return to the scene to watch firefighters extinguish the blaze.

Hate crime hoaxes are often grabbed by those on the right to claim that those on the other side of the political divide are making up such incidents to wield as a political weapon. Or to say racism and bigotry are overstated.

Reilly acknowledges the vast majority of reported hate crimes are probably legit. But, he added, even when an incident is determined to have been faked or overstated, those who are initially angered and offended often don’t turn off that outrage.

The St. Louis area school case proved to be a hoax, Reilly said. “But the students are still protesting because this doesn’t matter. They say this shows racism is still occurring — which, in this case, is a conscious denial of the obvious reality,” he said.

This is nothing new. In 1990, an Emory University freshman who was Black went mute and curled up in a fetal position after finding racist graffiti in her dorm. The case drew wide sympathy and media attention. The then-president of the NAACP jumped in and accused Emory of harboring racists. Later, a GBI investigation determined that the student almost assuredly concocted the accusation during the time she was being investigated for cheating on a chemistry exam.

“It doesn’t matter to me whether she did it or not,” the civil rights leader said at the time about the allegedly faked hate crime, “because of all the pressure these Black students are under at these predominantly white schools. If this will highlight it, if it will bring it to the attention of the public, I have no problem with that.”

I must point out that the faked calls of bias don’t all flow from one side. There’s the infamous case last year of Amy Cooper, a white woman, calling 911 on a Black man in New York’s Central Park after he asked her to leash her dog. She told him, as he videotaped her, that she was going to tell authorities a Black man was threatening her.

His video went viral and she was roundly criticized and fired from her job at an investment firm. She has since filed a lawsuit against her former employer, saying she is a victim of racial discrimination. Because, remember, there’s currency in victimhood.

Amy Cooper.  There's another white race hoaxer I have pointed out.

Do I need to provide more examples?

Thanks,

-Smac

[provoman]

17 minutes ago, Amulek said:

How so? She heard what she heard and then acted accordingly.

If she sincerely believed she heard a racial slur uttered on two separate occasions during the game, then I have a hard time characterizing her as a liar and accusing her of perpetrating a hoax.

Here's kind of how I parse it:

1. She reported hearing racial slurs on at least two occasions during the game.
2. It is either True or False that someone actually uttered racial slurs during the game.
   1. If True, then her report is correct and she is not perpetrating a hoax.
   2. If False, then her report is incorrect.
      1. If her report is incorrect, and she sincerely believes that it is correct, then she is sincerely mistaken and is not perpetrating a hoax.
      2. If her report is incorrect, and she knows that it is incorrect, then she is a liar and is perpetrating a hoax.

You seem to be saying that, based on a preponderance of the evidence, you believe it is not the case that somebody actually uttered a racial slur. And since she reported hearing a racial slur, you then conclude that she is lying and perpetrating a hoax.

I guess I just can't bring myself to get that far.

I mean, if sincerely believing you experienced something that may not have actually occurred makes one a hoaxter, then how would you go about defending Joseph Smith's experience in the Sacred Grove as being something other than a hoax?

 

Video, audio evidence does not support the accusations.

4 witnesses state they did not hear anything

No one from her team has verified her claims.

Out of 4,999 people present, only 1 has made the claim.

 

I am not sure how that compares to Jospeh Smith when two of the alleged individuals present will confirm the event.

[smac97]

32 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

Dr. Reilly is right.  We need to account for and address race hoaxes.  

Believing this was a "race hoax" seems fanciful. If somebody were inclined to "race hoax", why would she possibly choose to do so when she knows there are hundreds of witnesses to the hoax and knows the whole thing is being recorded? 

Because they think that they can get away with it?  See here:

Quote

A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of persons of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into putting up the highest possible social currency in support of the hoax.^[1]

Whereas the promoters of frauds, fakes, and scams devise them so that they will withstand the highest degree of scrutiny customary in the affair, hoaxers are confident, justifiably or not, that their representations will receive no scrutiny at all. They have such confidence because their representations belong to a world of notions fundamental to the victims' views of reality, but whose truth and importance they accept without argument or evidence, and so never question.

Because they have pretensions as to some higher cause, such that the ends justify the means?  

Because in some ways we as a society have, in a desire to be empathetic and demonstrate solidarity, have ended up lionizing victimhood?  In giving it substantial value?  See here (from 2021) (emphasis added) :

Quote

“The reality is, in politics, especially on the left side, there is an advantage to claiming victimhood,” Reilly said. The Rev. Al Sharpton sure knows that, having launched a nice career off the Tawana Brawley rape hoax of the late 1980s.

In our discussion, Reilly mentioned Erica Thomas, a Democratic state representative from Cobb County, who caused a stir in 2019 after she was accosted by a fellow grocery shopper irked by her abuse of the 10-items-or-less express line. They exchanged angry words and she later posted on Facebook: “Today I was verbally assaulted in the grocery store by a white man who told me I was a lazy SOB and to go back to where I came from.”

Her post went international and she demanded the man be arrested. “We have to make an example out of this man,” she said.

Well, it turns out the police report quoted a store manager telling them that Thomas, not the man, was the one continually saying, “Go back where you came from!”

Whoops.

”Usually when this happens, there’s a conversation about some issues like racism or homophobia,” Reilly said. “The people doing this are trying to create an impression a lot more of it is going on.”

There is plenty going on, but apparently not enough for some people. The feds say there were 7,554 reported hate crimes in the U.S. last year, an increase of 6% from the pervious year. There are surely many more hate crimes that go uncounted or unreported. But, it also should be noted that there are 330 million Americans.

Reilly estimates perhaps 15% of reported bias or hate incidents are faked. The Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino estimates it is less than 1%.

...

My thought is that some who perpetuate false cases of bias are like the pyromaniacs who start fires and then quietly return to the scene to watch firefighters extinguish the blaze.

Hate crime hoaxes are often grabbed by those on the right to claim that those on the other side of the political divide are making up such incidents to wield as a political weapon. Or to say racism and bigotry are overstated.

Reilly acknowledges the vast majority of reported hate crimes are probably legit. But, he added, even when an incident is determined to have been faked or overstated, those who are initially angered and offended often don’t turn off that outrage.

The St. Louis area school case proved to be a hoax, Reilly said. “But the students are still protesting because this doesn’t matter. They say this shows racism is still occurring — which, in this case, is a conscious denial of the obvious reality,” he said.

This is nothing new. In 1990, an Emory University freshman who was Black went mute and curled up in a fetal position after finding racist graffiti in her dorm. The case drew wide sympathy and media attention. The then-president of the NAACP jumped in and accused Emory of harboring racists. Later, a GBI investigation determined that the student almost assuredly concocted the accusation during the time she was being investigated for cheating on a chemistry exam.

“It doesn’t matter to me whether she did it or not,” the civil rights leader said at the time about the allegedly faked hate crime, “because of all the pressure these Black students are under at these predominantly white schools. If this will highlight it, if it will bring it to the attention of the public, I have no problem with that.”

The ends justify the means, I guess.

32 minutes ago, Analytics said:

I would presume that most volleyball venues aren't anywhere near as loud as BYUs. This was probably a strange environment for the Duke players--much louder and whiter than other places they play. Add to that the altitude and the fact that "cougar" rhymes with that other word, an honest auditory illusion seems much more likely. 

That is a reasonable surmise.

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

1 minute ago, smac97 said:

Because they think that they can get away with it?  See here:

Because they have pretensions as to some higher cause, such that the ends justify the means?  

Because in some ways we as a society have, in a desire to be empathetic and demonstrate solidarity, have ended up lionizing victimhood?  In giving it substantial value?  See here (from 2021) (emphasis added) :

The ends justify the means, I guess.

That is a reasonable surmise.

Thanks,

-Smac

“The reality is, in politics, especially on the left side, there is an advantage to claiming victimhood,” Reilly said. 

I thought we were supposed to stay away from politics here. Either way, the right has adopted a victim mentality as much as the left. See, for example, January 6, "cancel culture," "the FBI and DOJ have egregiously abused their power," etc. 

[Calm]

14 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Any reason you are suggesting that I am "only citing blacks who have lied about whites and not whites lying about blacks or other races," Calm? 

Because I think you have blinders on in this case and are too focused on only one possibility and are drawn to references that are confirming that perception. 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Calm

[smac97]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

Because I think you have blinders on in this case

I reciprocate the suggestion.  

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

and are too focused on only one possibility and are drawn to references that are confirming that perception. 

I am genuinely trying to focus on the evidence.  See here for perhaps the most concise summary of my position. 

I find Richardson's remarks too unequivocal and declaratory.  It's not just that she thought she heard something (apparently the n-word), it's that she heard it "very distinctly" the first time, and "extremely clear" the second.  

She then went beyond that to make accusations about "slurs and comments {which} grew into threats" that made her and her black teammates feel "unsafe," and about "racial slurs and heckling ... {which} grew more extreme, more intense."

There is also contravening evidence, in that the police officer and four ushers reporting hearing nothing.  Extensive review of recordings have also yielded nothing.

I likewise find the lack of evidence compelling.  Zero corroboration.  Zero.  No public statement from any of her teammates.  Nothing from anyone in the student section.

I am also taking into account her apparent proclivity for racial activism.  And her godmother's comments.  I think these can be at least partially attributed to Richardson, since even the godmother claimed, the next day, that "this incident has only received attention after I tweeted about it."  From this I surmise that she got most or all of her information about the purported incident from . . . Rachel Richardson.

I am open to the possibility that she simply "misheard."  I just find that less plausible, given the specific and unequivocal and emphatic nature of her subsequent (and non-heat-of-the-moment) remarks.  

I took your remark as an insinuation of racism on my part.  That's part of the utility of race hoaxes, I think.  We aren't allowed to question or scrutinize them, since nobody wants to be accused of being racist.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

28 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

“The reality is, in politics, especially on the left side, there is an advantage to claiming victimhood,” Reilly said. 

I thought we were supposed to stay away from politics here. Either way, the right has adopted a victim mentality as much as the left. See, for example, January 6, "cancel culture," "the FBI and DOJ have egregiously abused their power," etc. 

I don't like this stuff at all, regardless of political affilation.

Thanks,

-Smac

[SkyRock]

It sounds like 

1. She comes from a background of anti white racism.   Fort Worth isn't a bastion of race conflict, and most people of all races get along pretty well, but her godmother has expressed anti-white statements in the past, not just on Twitter, is running for office, and once made false allegations of racism against a judge.  Rachel also liked anti-white tweets.

2. Fort Worth does have a healthy anti-Mormon sentiment.  A relative called to that mission was told that it was the capital of anti-Mormonism (outside of Utah).

3. She was likely told that BYU students were racists.   The BYU activists and the "Belonging" report likely contributed.  

4. She went to this loud, up close environment, with screaming fans, and she misheard something, most likely "netter" or something like that. 

5. She immediately heard it as racism, informs the coach, BYU responds, trying to find the person. 

6. Everyone else, including her own team,  heard regular cheering. 

7. She tells her father, who tells her godmother, who posts it on Twitter.

8. Then Rachel, rather than pause and reflect that maybe she misheard something, double downs on her initially  intentionally false allegations. 

9.  Rachel made a mistake, but rather than be humble and admit it, goes for victim points.

10.  The godmother made it into a bigger incident, but Rachel could have minimized it, and admitted she might have misheard something.

Lesson for everyone:  we don't anyways hear and see what we think we do.   Our own  bias often gets in the way. 

[smac97]

34 minutes ago, SkyRock said:

It sounds like 

1. She comes from a background of anti white racism.   Fort Worth isn't a bastion of race conflict, and most people of all races get along pretty well, but her godmother has expressed anti-white statements in the past, not just on Twitter, is running for office, and once made false allegations of racism against a judge.  Rachel also liked anti-white tweets.

2. Fort Worth does have a healthy anti-Mormon sentiment.  A relative called to that mission was told that it was the capital of anti-Mormonism (outside of Utah).

3. She was likely told that BYU students were racists.   The BYU activists and the "Belonging" report likely contributed.  

4. She went to this loud, up close environment, with screaming fans, and she misheard something, most likely "netter" or something like that. 

Is "netter" a term used in volleyball?

34 minutes ago, SkyRock said:

5. She immediately heard it as racism, informs the coach, BYU responds, trying to find the person. 

6. Everyone else, including her own team,  heard regular cheering. 

7. She tells her father, who tells her godmother, who posts it on Twitter.

8. Then Rachel, rather than pause and reflect that maybe she misheard something, double downs on her initially intentionally false allegations. 

9.  Rachel made a mistake, but rather than be humble and admit it, goes for victim points.

10.  The godmother made it into a bigger incident, but Rachel could have minimized it, and admitted she might have misheard something.

Lesson for everyone:  we don't anyways hear and see what we think we do.   Our own  bias often gets in the way. 

Fair enough.  I think this has become a de facto race hoax, but I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and surmise that it did not start out that way.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Amulek]

1 hour ago, provoman said:

Video, audio evidence does not support the accusations.

I'm skeptical about how useful the recorded audio is for determining something like this. Unless somebody was yelling while the crowd was silent I'm not sure how you would be able to tell much of anything.

For those who have watched the recorded game footage, how many individual comments are you able to discern?

 

1 hour ago, provoman said:

4 witnesses state they did not hear anything

I agree. Same goes for the officer - though I don't remember from the timeline whether or not he was positioned there until after the second occurrence or not.

 

1 hour ago, provoman said:

No one from her team has verified her claims.

Which means (at best) that no one from her team claims to have heard the word as well.

However, if it happened as Richardson claims (i.e., while she was serving), that is understandable as she would have been closest to the crowd at the time and may have heard things others farther away missed. Others who were invariably focused and trying to ignore the noise of the crowd and concentrate on the game (which they were losing).

 

1 hour ago, provoman said:

Out of 4,999 people present, only 1 has made the claim.

I agree. And I personally suspect that nobody actually said anything hateful during the game.

But I can accept that she sincerely believes she heard what she claims to have heard during the match.

 

1 hour ago, provoman said:

I am not sure how that compares to Jospeh Smith when two of the alleged individuals present will confirm the event.

Not in mortality. There was only one person who walked out of the grove and related his personal experience that day. And the logic breaks down pretty much the same way.

Joseph claimed to have seen God the Father and Jesus Christ.

It is then either True or False that God the Father and the Son actually appeared to Joseph Smith that day.

If True, then Joseph's account is correct.

If False, then Joseph's account is incorrect.

If it is incorrect and he knew it was incorrect then he was a charlatan. If it is incorrect but he sincerely believed his account was correct, then he was mistaken but he didn't intentionally mislead anybody.

At the end of the day, Joseph saw what he saw and then he acted on that.

Richardson heard what she heard and did the same. And I'm okay with that.

 

Edited September 9, 2022 by Amulek