I spent several minutes yesterday skimming through a few newspaper letters to the editor regarding the expletive-heavy chanting that was directed at me and other adherents of my faith during Saturday night’s BYU/Cincinnati football game. A surprising number of those letters directed us to stop whimpering, to get over our “victim mentality,” and to ponder the significance of the fact that it’s certainly the fault of the Jews themselves of the Latter-day Saints themselves that everybody everywhere hates them.
Here’s another reflection on the incident from the Deseret News: “What record donations and derogatory chants are teaching me about giving this holiday season: Before the chants started in Cincinnati, BYU fans showed up to serve”
However, I will also share with you a letter that was sent to athletics officials at the University of Cincinnati by a Latter-day Saint in Michigan named Brandi Hicken. She herself publicly shared it and the photograph above, so I hope (and trust) that she won’t mind my passing them on to you here:
“Dear Mr. Cunningham,
“I am writing to you from my heart as a disheartened college football fan. More specifically, as a BYU football fan and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints commonly know as “the Mormons.”“As a BYU alumni and huge fans of college football, my husband and I took the opportunity to travel 4.5 hours from our little city in Grand Blanc, Michigan to come spectate and enjoy our favorite pass time at the BYU vs. Cincinnati football game at Nippert Stadium last night.“I want to provide a little bit of background for you in order to portray the strength and courage it took for us to travel to this event and really try to enjoy ourselves.You see, just eight short weeks ago, while attending church, we were attacked at our place of worship simply for being “Mormon.”“Someone with hatred in their heart rammed their truck into the front of our church building, entered the chapel, and began shooting us and setting our church on fire while many people were still hiding inside. As my family (me, my husband, and our three young children), ran for our lives, my husband and my 5 year old daughter were both shot. I was also running with my 15 month old baby and my 3 year old in my arms as I was struck in my back with shrapnel. I will spare you any further details about the nightmare we lived through that day and the recovery that has followed, but miraculously, me and my family all made it out alive.“The anxiety and fear we have felt since that day has been debilitating. We have put in a lot of work in that short 8 weeks so we can try to feel some sort of safety and normalcy again and enjoy the things we used to, including football games.“We had been planning to come see this game for months as we don’t get the opportunity to see many BYU games in person since we moved across the country for my husband’s medical training. We almost didn’t come because it felt scary and overwhelming since the attack on our church. However, we know we cannot live in fear and we need to enjoy the things that used to make us happy. We decided to come and that took a lot for us both mentally and physically. I was nervous putting on my BYU fan gear that day because I knew it would identify me as one of ”the Mormons.” I did it anyway.“I was apprehensive when I walked down to my seat and saw that the nearest exit was pretty far from me. I continued to my seat anyway. We came. We smiled. We cheered. We enjoyed ourselves….Until the University of Cincinnati fans began to chant “F*** the Mormons.”“This is not a new chant. This is not a chant that is specific to your university. This is a chant I’ve heard before while enjoying a football game whether in-person or on tv. It’s always disheartening to hear. However, now that we Mormons have been quite literally targeted, attacked, chased, shot at, and some of us have been killed simply for being “Mormon,” this chant is no longer just disheartening. It’s crippling. It’s personal. It’s unacceptable. Period.“While I did hear the announcer give a warning over the speakers at the game that such chants will not be tolerated, it was simply just that- a warning. It was not just a few fans, it was tens, possibly hundreds of the university’s student fans chanting “F*** the Mormons.”“Please, Mr. Cunningham, do not tolerate it. Remove them from the game. Don’t let them come back. Educate them on the seriousness of their actions. Set that standard and expectation moving forward and enforce it. We are hurting. Badly. We just want to enjoy the things that make us happy again without the fear of being targeted and attacked for our religious beliefs.“I know you have no control over the Cincy fans on the shuttle after the game ranting about Mormons and how awful we are and how we must have just paid off the refs because we’re corrupt and evil. I don’t get it, but I am used to it. It’s not new to me to hear this stuff and these huge misconceptions about my faith. But now it is personal. Now it is me fearing for my life everywhere I go because someone decided to take it there. Someone tried to kill me, my kids, and my husband. Someone killed 4 of my friends. Now the chanting means something more than it used to.“I know you can’t control the actions and words of the fans on the bus. However, I do believe you have the ability to get control of the students’ hurtful and hateful chanting.If you made it this far, thank you for listening. If I am mistaken about any actions that were or were not taken as a result of the chanting, please feel free to correct me.I would welcome the reassurance.“Sincerely,Brandi HickenA fellow college football fanA MormonA ChristianA mass casualty hate crime survivorA human deserving of respect”
I thought her letter quite powerful, especially because of her own personal history.
And here’s another thought: Considerable attention is given these days — especially, for good or, sometimes in my view, for ill, on college campuses — to the importance of providing “safe spaces” and avoiding “hostile environments” for women and for minorities of various kinds. I expect that the good folks who were chanting “[Expletive] the Mormons” at Saturday’s game think of “the Mormons” and Brigham Young University as being essentially the same thing. And, of course, as the Other. But I’m guessing that there must be at least a few Latter-day Saints who are studying at the University of Cincinnati and at least a handful of Latter-day Saints who live in the greater Cincinnati area — which will shortly have a temple of its own. I wonder how they felt about the chanting. (In at least some other cases of such chants, there have actually been Latter-day Saint players on the team for which the chanters were cheering.) Did it feel welcoming to them? Did it feel safe?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In