Ole Miss Football Players Disrupt Performance About Hate Crimes By Yelling Gay Slurs

[alp227]

A group of 20 University of Mississippi football players disrupted an on-campus play Wednesday night by yelling gay slurs at cast members, missing the entire point of the play a theater class required them to attend.

The play, The Laramie Project, tells the story of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered on in 1998 on the University of Wyoming’s campus. Shepard was gay and his murder brought to light the lack of hate crimes laws in states across America. Instead of learning that lesson, though, the group of football players and other audience members heckled the cast with gay slurs of their own, the Daily Mississippian, Ole Miss’ student newspaper, reported:

According to the play’s director and theater faculty member Rory Ledbetter, some audience members used derogatory slurs like “fag” and heckled both cast members and the characters they were portraying for their body types and sexual orientations. Ledbetter said the audience’s reactions included “borderline hate speech.”

“I am the only gay person on the cast,” junior theater major Garrison Gibbons said. “I played a gay character in the show, and to be ridiculed like that was something that really made me realize that some people at Ole Miss and in Mississippi still can’t accept me for who I am.”

full: http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2013/10/03/2728541/ole-miss-football-players-disrupt-play-about-hate-crimes-by-yelling-gay-slurs/

[Ron Green]

1. This is not much of a surprise, sadly.

[kelliekat44]

39. Methinks some protest to loudly. nt

[dballance]

47. I guess you not being gay and abused may affect your opinion.

Having been abused for being gay perhaps I am a bit more sensitive. I only protest loudly to make things better for others.

[kelliekat44]

69. No offense meant. I think you missed my point...but Shakes knows what i mean. nt

[dgibby]

2. Hope the coach throws all of them off the team. n/t

[geek tragedy]

5. In Mississippi? No way. He'd get fired, nt

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Unfortunately, they will all be paraded to a podium where they will beg forgiveness

for their youthful disregard for the feelings of others, claim they are antibullying, yada yada...


and then, football.

It's a disgrace.

[Roland99]

17. Ole Miss needs that high school football coach from Utah that shutdown the whole team...

after it was discovered some (many?) were bullying kids.

[geek tragedy]

3. Bigotry, ignorance, hate, and backwardness in Mississippi? No way! nt

[mnhtnbb]

20. Duh.

[theHandpuppet]

4. And the repercussions will be....

0.

Disgusting.

[geek tragedy]

10. No, there will be consequences.

At least one of them will get elected to Congress from that state.

[RavensChick]

21. That's even worse!

[yuiyoshida]

52. OR...

Work for Fox News!

[sakabatou]

71. I'm sure they'll be "groomed" to be even more bigoted

[madaboutharry]

6. “borderline hate speech.”

I wonder what Ledbetter considers actual hate speech.

[Hayabusa]

8. Stay classy, Ole Miss.

Stay classy...

[Initech]

9. Talk about missing the point!

[Aerows]

11. Assholes

I live in MS and people here try to live like the 50's that never happened. It's disgusting. As a gay woman, it isn't easy, even though I "pass" as straight. I shouldn't even have to do that, and increasingly haven't even bothered. I'm here, I'm queer and fuck you if you want to throw Bibles at me.

[dgibby]

15. Stay strong and stay safe.

There's no excuse for this type of behavior. If they were at Virginia Tech, Beamer would frog march them off the campus.

[Aerows]

26. I will :)

Thanks for the positive message, my friend. Sometimes we all need it!

[socialist_n_TN]

65. Yep, I was born in Mississippi and this kind of shit.......

is why I'm a Bulldogs fan.

[Sunlei]

12. sounds like another football team that needs a come to Jesus lesson from a decent coach.

[aquart]

13. Were they wearing their tights?

[frylock]

25. and slapping each other on the butt..

maybe even a "cup check" or two.

[Aerows]

28. My first urge was to offer

a "fuck you" for assuming all of us in MS were assholes, but then I considered it, and realized that we have a high proportion of them and so I'll just offer a sad face.

[frylock]

30. please don't think that this was directed at you, or any other liberals in your state..

this was entirely at the expense of the players and coaching staff of the rebels.

[Aerows]

32. Thanks, frylock

It's sad that we have so many idiots in my state. It's got decent weather when we aren't getting slammed with hurricanes or suffocated by heat. Generally the people are pretty nice even though they have a tendency to Bible-thump.

I appreciate that you realize there are some liberals down here, and we fight tooth and nail for it

[DonCoquixote]

70. Florida chiming in

Yes, we have liberals down here too. Little by little, we will drive the Neo-confederates out of power!

[joeybee12]

14. I'm shocked...

Shocked that only 20 people disrupted...at this bastion of liberalism known as Ole Miss (short for mistake) one would think the whole team would have been knocking the stage over.

[Blue Idaho]

16. Tradition.

Yes, Ole Miss is steeped in tradition. A tradition of hatred...

[LittleBlue]

18. This is why you don't force attendance at events like this

Make it voluntary for people who actually want to be there, they'll have genuine intentions. Do you really think football jocks would behave at a play like this?

[Bluenorthwest]

37. Events 'like this'? It's a play and they are university students taking a theater class

This play is produced and seen in High Schools, it's not some sex play it is a heavily produced piece of contemporary American theater. Mississippi. Goddamn.

[Arcanetrance]

41. Speaking as an ex football jock I always stood up for those who were bullied. Sadly I know that

isn't the norm

[Blue_Tires]

42. No one "forced" them to go at all

if they felt that strongly about it, they should have just skipped it and taken the points deduction from the professor

[bigwillq]

19. They should all be thrown off the team

and their scholarships revoked.

[RavensChick]

22. To add to that,

they should be outed as the racist asswipes they are all over the Internet! Then they'll see what's it like for anyone, gay, straight, black, white, etc. to experience that level of humiliation.

[lpbk2713]

23. Big dumbass gorillas.

The Athletic Director and the coaching staff have some explaining to do.

And any teams that play Ole Miss as the visiting team would be right in
not allowing them to play in their stadium IMO.

**Next 'away' game for Ole Miss is at Auburn this Saturday.

Schedule: http://www.olemisssports.com/sports/m-footbl/sched/ole-m-footbl-sched.html

[MNBrewer]

46. I never cheer for Auburn (unless they're playing Georgia Tech)

but I'll make an exception this time.

[Demo_Chris]

24. They should all be banned from football, and if not the team should be banned. nt

[DevonRex]

27. They didn't miss the point. They rejected it outright.

I'm glad the coach has said and done what he has so far. But it had better not end there. One of the comments in the article said the players should be suspended from the team. Then they should be made to perform the play itself.

I think that's a very good idea. What better way of making them realize what Matthew Shepard went through than to put on the play? And what better way of knowing what actors go through than to actually have to endure the work it takes to learn the part and then put themselves out there for criticism or praise? Or ridicule heckling...

[Jamastiene]

62. That might actually work.

It probably would never happen, but if they did make them perform the play, it would teach them a tad bit of humility, at the very least.

And you are right, they outright rejected the point. It is obvious the didn't miss the point, but got it and outright rejected it.

[frylock]

29. ole miss football is currently ranked 24 in the nation..

would be nice to see the NCAA send them a message and keep them out of any bowl games.

[JDPriestly]

31. People who do that are insecure about their own sexuality.

Who is more likely to have same-sex contact with non-family members outside a sexual context than a footballer. Maybe doctors or nurses. But somehow the context is so different that the insecurity about sexuality isn't such an issue.

Wrestling is another sport the involves a lot of same-sex contact.

Don't misunderstand what I am saying. I'm not suggesting that people who wrestle or play football are attracted to their own sex. I'm just saying that they have more physical, close physical touching of people of their own sex than other people. Hence the insecurity.

Not being able to relax and sit quietly at a play about Matthew Shephard indicates a lot of sexual insecurity to me. In addition, they were in a group. Hence the need to show their peers just how macho they are.

Do some (not all) guys play football to prove that they are men, that they are macho.

[sulphurdunn]

33. It's no mistake

why Ole' Miss is currently ranked #24 in NCAA football and #150 in the Best College rankings.

[Taverner]

34. Mississippi, second in crazy to Florida, first in racism

[QuestForSense]

35. And last in brains.

[Taverner]

36. They have the brains, they just don't have education

Willful Ignorance

[Rebellious Republican]

38. Maybe ole miss needs a lesson, everyone should email the coach and and dean this video.

I used a FOX news video for a purpose!
http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/09/26/utah-high-school-football-coach-suspends-entire-team-cutting-classes-cyberbullying

Just sent mine, anyone else?

[AAO]

40. Just a bunch of lowlifes in jockstraps

[BlueJazz]

43. The Team had practice that afternoon.

[alp227]

58. Err...what are you trying to say here?

You do realize that racist humor uses primates to depict black people, right?

[BlueJazz]

61. "You do realize that racist humor uses primates to depict black people, right?"

I forgot about that. Didn't even enter my mind.

I was using primates to depict racist-anti-gay human ugly bags of mostly water.
Didn't mean any disrespect to our Forefathers/Sisters . (aka Africa)

[geologic]

67. Er, what are YOU trying to say here--

you do realize that people (of all colors) are primates too, right???...

[CanonRay]

44. They should be kicked off the team today

and kicked out of school tomorrow. Period. End of story.

[SidDithers]

45. Fucking bigots...

Edit: revoke their scholarships.

Sid

[rdking647]

48. the response from ole miss

While we work to determine with certainty who disrupted the Laramie Project play, we want everyone within our university community and beyond to know that we strongly condemn the behavior exhibitedTuesday night. As a member of the Ole Miss family, each of us has a responsibility to be accountable for our actions, and these individuals will be held accountable. Our investigation will determine the degree to which any and all students were involved.

As a first step to addressing behavior at the performance Tuesday night, we will meet today with the freshman student-athletes (from various sports) who attended the play and have a dialogue about what happened, about our university-wide commitment to inclusivity and civility, and about the important role they play in representing the university. It is clear that some students badly misrepresented the culture of this university. From there, we will work with Student-Affairs and the Bias Incident Response Team to determine the facts and appropriate next steps.

Incidents like this remind all educators that our job is to prepare our students to be leaders in life during their years on campus and after they graduate from Ole Miss. This behavior by some students reflects poorly on all of us, and it reinforces our commitment to teaching inclusivity and civility to young people who still have much to learn. We will be engaging our student-athletes with leaders on the subject of individuality and tolerance, so we can further enforce life lessons and develop them to their fullest potential.

On behalf of our 22,000 students, our faculty, and our staff, we apologize.

[lpbk2713]

51. But most of all ... they apologize on behalf of the revenues generated by their athletic program.

They anticipate revenues of more than $70 Million this year alone.
Bet your sweet ass their coaches will be hitting the airwaves with
mutiple apologies. But I'd bet they will start off with the GOP type
of apology (if anyone was offended) until someone with a more
alert mind puts them on the right track.

Link: http://www.footballscoop.com/news/10760-take-a-peek-inside-the-finances-of-an-sec-athletic-department

[Cryptoad]

49. Anybody here shocked???????? nt

[agentS]

72. About Ole Miss? Nope, not in the slightest.

You never hear about this sorta thing at Mississippi State or Jackson State. It's ALWAYS Ole Miss.
The Rebs are rebels from common sense.
See the ESPN 30 for 30: Ghosts of Ole Miss.

[rdking647]

50. they should all flunk the class

which will affect ole miss's overall academic progress for athletics.
which can result in ncaa sanctions

[valerief]

53. Those hecklers must be future Teabagger Senators. nt

[libodem]

54. FN ignorant

Immature and undereducated. Sometimes that behavior can be reshaped. And sometimes FN idiots are lost causes. Hope they are capable of developing some maturity and empathy.


The Matthew Shepard story is is horribly brutal and sad.

[heaven05]

55. the hate of all types

that has reared it's ugly head over the last 5-6 years is what was there ALL THE TIME. Now it seems, the teahadist and hateful RW'ers have given this large subculture of bigots and racists all the excuse they need to openly reveal the hateful underbelly of our democracy. How sad for them to have to live a life that will sooner or later, destroy them. Extreme hate in ones life is not healthy for ones body and mind. So if they choose to remain ignorant, hateful and backward their sicknesses will be their own undoing and GOOD RIDDANCE! Adios and you ain't an amigo.

[jumptheshadow]

56. SEC! SEC! SEC!

Where sports trumps honor.

[Fawke Em]

64. Aw, you're just jealous.

The SEC wins the national title for seven years in a row.

(I'm a Univ. of Tennessee alum).

[jumptheshadow]

68. Mizzou, here (nt)

[pangaia]

57. That's why they are called 'football players.'

[Dorian Gray]

59. I've seen some responses that it's not a surprise, but it's shocking to me.

[SoapBox]

60. The ugly past continues to live in America.

These types live to hate.

[TransitJohn]

63. Matthew Shepard was not murdered on UW's campus.

WTF? Maybe I'm nitpicking because I lived in Laramie when he was murdered, but that seems really sloppy shitty writing.

[MineralMan]

66. Kick them all off the team. nt

[NealK]

73. Disgusting.

What a bunch of idiots.