This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
The Salt Lake Tribune has published a shockingly racist article attacking students of Brigham Young University for their ethnic backgrounds. BYU’s 82% Caucasion student population is “very much the opposite of diverse ,” claims writer Nathan Winward, and as a student of “Hispanic background who lived all his life in Provo” he feels like a “drop of soy sauce in a bowl of white rice.” This racist agitation is all the more shocking when you consider how little diversity appears to exist in The Salt Lake Tribune itself.
BYU Vs. Salty Tribune
Photos of The Salty Tribune’s staff are small and in black and white, so it’s hard to tell their demographics. This is just my guess from looking at them. But what I see is a profound lack of diversity.
- Men Vs. Women – I count roughly one-third women and two-thirds men in The Salty Tribune’s staff. The lack of equality for women in the Salt Tribune becomes even more severe when you consider that the editorial, arts & living, and sports sections are written entirely by men. It’s like Ron Burgandy come to life! Does The Salty Tribune believe athletics and art are things only men are qualified to report on? Why don’t women get the same opportunity as men at The Salty Tribune? BYU’s student body, meanwhile, is evenly split 50/50 men and women. How’s that for equality?
- Race – Again, I’m only guessing based on photographs, but I see a small handful of non-Caucasians in the Salty Tribune staff. Almost everyone appears to be Caucasian. Why won’t The Salty Tribune hire more racial minorities? Why doesn’t there appear to be any diversity on their leadership board? Is it just coincidence that the owner, Paul Huntsman, is a rich white guy? As for BYU, the student body is 82% White, yes, but 65% of the student body is bilingual. Is there any other school in America with such a high number? I doubt it. Almost half have lived outside the United States, and only 35% are from Utah. Students come from all 50 states and 103 countries. How many states do the staff of The Salty Tribune come from? How many countries do they come they from? How many in The Salty Tribune’s staff have lived outside the United States? How many are bilingual?
- Diversity Of Opinion – BYU’s student body have widely different opinions in regards to politics, current events, religion, sports, etc. Most students are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–as it is a church school–but students are members of many different religions as well. There are students from all walks of life, and opinions are freely expressed of all sides of the issues. There are clubs, demonstrations, groups, presentations, classes, and cultural groups of everything imaginable from all sides. I even see lots of BYU students who are free to engage as activists against the church. How diverse are opinions at The Salty Tribune? Well, I don’t expect my opinions to get published any time soon. BYU is an open platform for ideas, but at the Salty Tribune a small group of employees decides what is fit to publish.
The Salt Lake Tribune’s Racist Agitation
Too White? – “’It’s like being a drop of soy sauce in a bowl of white rice,’ said one minority student at Brigham Young University.” Nathan Winward does not say who allegedly said this. But the metaphor sounds like negative racial sentiment. All races are of equal value in the eyes of the Lord, but soy sauce is not equal to rice is it? I guess this may be a small point, but this is a metaphor that leaves a bad taste in my mouth (pun not intended). Nathan says BYU’s mainly White demographic “is very much the opposite of diverse.” Wouldn’t “very much the opposite of diverse” be… 100% a single race? It seems to me 18% isn’t as bad as he makes it out to be (especially compared to The Salty Tribune), unless perhaps you think one race is somehow not equal to another. Nathan adds that when you begin “to walk around campus, the numbers stand out.” Hmm. Stand out how?
Nathan Wilward says his own sister “chose not to apply to BYU due to its lack of ethnic diversity.” Wait… does that mean she didn’t go to BYU because too many White people? Isn’t that… racist? How could they expect a school to value racial diversity if they themselves are avoiding a school based on its racial demographics? Isn’t that hypocrisy? Furthermore, how could they expect a school to become more racially diverse when their own actions prevent the school from becoming more racially diverse? It’s saying one thing and doing another.
Ethnic diversity is important because an “ethnically diverse place of learning allows for more opportunities to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others,” Nathan writes. Well, it can provide a larger number of perspectives, I agree. And I would like to see more students from around the world, frankly. But then Nathan identifies himself as a student of “Hispanic background who lived all his life in Provo.” If he has lived his entire life in Provo… how does that make him any different than anyone else who lived their entire lives in Provo? Does the shade of a person’s skin somehow alter their experiences and perspectives? But he apparently feels qualified to lecture us because he’s “had the experience to travel and live in different parts of the world.” Well, again, so did most of BYU’s student population. “When a student learns in a culturally diverse setting, they become much more aware of the world around them and of the different peoples and cultures,“ Nathan writes. But how does admitting kids of Hispanic background who lived their entire lives in Provo make anyone more aware of the world around them? Does a certain racial background automatically mean greater cultural awareness?
Racist Stereotyping – Nathan Winward then displays shocking racial stereotyping: “Now looking a little closer at BYU, one might say, ‘How can BYU not be ethnically diverse? Have you not seen the defensive line on their football team?’ To that I say, yes, I have noticed the 6-feet-plus Polynesians defending our Cougar pride.” I don’t know who might say that, Nathan, but I know I wouldn’t. I also wouldn’t assume the entire defensive line of the football team is large Polynesians, as that would be a racist assumption to make. Nathan himself is displaying racial association here.
It reminds me of a racist article The Salt Lake Tribune wrote in 2015, accusing BYU’s Polynesian assistant football coach of “suggesting he wanted to punch out fellow Mormons who opposed sustaining church leaders.” What coach Atuaia actually had said was: “oppose those beloved men in front of me and witness how I sin.” He didn’t say anything about punching or violence, and he quickly clarified it had nothing to do with violence. But The Salty Tribune assumed violence in his words because of pre-supposed racist beliefs about Polynesian people, a racist assumption that many Antimormons likewise made in their furor over his remark. Why do writers for The Salty Tribune spread these racial stereotypes about Polynesians?
Does The Salty Tribune hate Polynesian people?
Race Quotas For Admittance? – “Ethnic diversity is one of the greatest things an organization such as a university can achieve,” Nathan Winward writes. It is? I think ethnic diversity is a positive thing to achieve, but is it the greatest thing a school can achieve? How about, say… education? Should education rather than diversity be an organizations top priority?
Well, this gets into the political issue of racial profiling for school admissions. I don’t know everything involved so I can’t speak as an authority on the matter, but I personally believe schools should be available for everyone, and programs should help disadvantaged students. BYU has outreach programs to help students get admitted and afford their education. But The Salty Tribune doesn’t touch on specifics in their article. I’ve noticed agitators promoting extremist positions tend to keep things vague, with no concrete solutions, just inuendos and insinuations. The article doesn’t actually talk about racial quotas. He just says things like: “BYU claims to value this type of diversity, but are they really doing enough to promote it?” Well, how are they supposed to promote it? Again, more vague complaints: “Even for someone such as myself, who has benefited from a good education all his life, it is a very rigorous and challenging process to apply to BYU. Due to this, BYU has inadvertently made it difficult for minorities to be accepted into the university.“ How? Is he saying BYU should make the application less “rigorous and challenging”? Or should BYU be like many schools that pick and choose students based on their non-Caucasian race? Wouldn’t that be… racism?
“Minorities tend to be from a lower socioeconomic background, with less access to educational resources,” Nathan writes. So,then address those socioeconomic backgrounds, which is what BYU already does. I don’t see why race needs to be a factor.
So the way Nathan frames the issue, I see only two solutions: admit less qualified students, or racial quotas. The first solution doesn’t make any logical sense, because that would mean more students being admitted, and there is only so many students that can go to BYU. There must be some kind of restriction and criteria for who does not get admitted. The second solution is to be racist and turn away students who have better grades simply because of their skin color. Oh, and there are also laws to consider, and the possibility that BYU could be breaking state or federal laws if they change their admittance policy.
But Nathan seems to think this framing of the issue can provide the only possible solution. “If this continues, ethnic diversity within BYU will fail to grow.” I’m not an authority on education admittance policies, but it seems to me like there’s got to be some way to keep it merit-based and also provide opportunities in a fair and just way. Nathan writes: “An ethnically diverse place of learning allows for more opportunities to learn from the experiences and perspectives of others, which expands the learning of all students in the class.” Well, except the kids who got kicked out to make way for kids with a different skin color who also have lower grades… is that the proposed solution here? It seems to me those kids who get kicked out would not have their learning expanded. Do they just not count?
Required Diversity Training? – One great thing about BYU is that it does not have social justice classes which are required at many universities today. But Nathan proposes that required classes for students may help the alleged ethnic diversity problem: “The fact that a student may get away with only taking one class in their entire college career to expand their cultural awareness shows the disvalue of ethnic diversity.” I guess most BYU students haven’t lived outside of the United States like Nathan has (oh wait, yes they have), but I think he is misjuding what “cultural awareness” is. An art student is required to take multiple art history courses that talk about culture in many different countries. Is that not “cultural awareness”? Most courses integrate some degree of cultural awareness-perhaps all courses do.
I also don’t see why diversity training should be required. There is a set amount of semesters and hours for all of a student’s education to get packed into. If you enter one nice thing like cultural training, that sacrifices something else that might be specifically valuable to that person’s major. If we are going to require everything that would be helpful for a student’s experience and perspective, the student would end up going to college for 50 years. There are hundreds of countries and tends of thousands of cultures that would need to be represented in these diversity courses. How would we fit them all? Again, no concrete solutions offered.
Diverse Beliefs? – Perhaps this is where we finally get to the meat of the matter: “In experiencing these things first-hand, an individual may be able to recognize that there are more beliefs, thoughts and ways of life than the ones in which they live,” Nathan writes. Only a third of BYU’s students are from Utah. Students come from all walks of life. I get the sinking feeling that the insinuation in his vague statement here is about non-Latter-Day-Saint or perhaps even Antimormon “cultures.” Is that what this is about?
Erasing Latter-Day Saint As A Minority
Why didn’t this kid write an editorial that SLTrib should be more ethnically diverse? Maybe rich white male owner Paul Huntsman wouldn’t like that.
Or better yet, why not an editorial that America should be more religiously diverse? Secularists are now the majority group in America, and minority groups like “Mormons” are routinely bashed in the news media. One would expect Utah’s leading newspaper to advocate for or at the very least respect the rich unique religious culture in Utah. But instead, I see them routinely attack it. Instead, we need to “recognize that there are more beliefs, thoughts and ways of life”? As if we don’t know. It’s as if a newspaper centered in the region of rare rhinos in Africa ringing alarm bells about the impending extinction of the common farm cow in America. It’s ridiculous.
The Salty Tribune has it totally backwards. We in the church certainly recognize that there are more religious beliefs and ways of life than the way we live. We see these other thoughts and life-styles constantly on TV. We see them on billboards, in magazines, on the radio, in music, in school textbooks, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on CNN, on Fox News, in public school, on Netfix–they are everywhere we go. It is illogical to say a religious minority needs to become more aware of the thoughts and lifestyles of the majority. But that’s what they seem to be telling us. The ‘alternative’ beliefs, thoughts, and ways of life’ that we routinely see advocated in news media like The Salty Tribune are the majority, and their advocacy is effectively an attack on our minority culture. So what is their true agenda with articles like this? Why do they publish hit pieces like this?
The trib should be more diverse.. But they keep laying people off.— ??????? ?? ?????? (@TakethNote) April 22, 2019