The opinions stated in this article are solely those of the author. 

The last few weeks have produced several examples of reprehensible behavior at basketball games. The most publicized was the Ukrainian player for Utah State being taunted with chants of “Russia, Russia.” It made no difference that his parents, like most of his country’s population, were being bombed and starved by a mentally ill dictator. Apparently, compassion and common decency is secondary in an NCAA basketball game.

Last year brought episodes in central Utah of Salt Lake County-based minority players being cat-called with racist slogans, so last week’s report of northern Utah high school students shouting derogatory comments at Asian, Black, and Polynesian players had little coverage. To many school administrators, such behavior is excused as just boys being boys.

But where are the “boys” learning it?

Why should we expect anything different when a handful of supposedly mature members of Congress heckled the U.S. President during his State of the Union speech…Why should students and young adults display civility when they’ve seen their elders hoisting “Let’s Go Brandon” flags, a winking reference to the “F** Biden flags” and bumper stickers…Why should a young man refrain from bullying when he saw our last president on national television making fun of disabled people or encouraging his supporters to punch their opponents?

I’m not saying one should always bow down to authority figures; some are frankly not deserving of our respect. But that doesn’t mean we should demean those who have different views, use crude language to mark your personal political territory, or cast racial/ethnic dispersions on young men and women representing another school’s team. And when it does happen, those in charge should follow the example of Utah Jazz management when they banned a fan from their arena for shouting racist comments at a Black NBA opponent.

Maybe we should learn something from the nation’s best-selling novelist, mystery and non-fiction writer James Patterson. He admitted that we live in crazy times with many problems.

But, he wrote in his autobiography, the problem isn’t rich people or poor…It isn’t men and it isn’t women…It isn’t white, Black, or brown…It isn’t Republican or Democrat or Independent. 

“From what I’ve seen," he wrote, “the problem is folks who believe their view of the world is the only right one and everyone else’s is flat-out stupid. In my mind, the cause of the problems we’re facing is pretty clear.

“It’s jerks!”

Yes, we have many jerks, uncaring jerks, jerks who don’t read, and dangerous jerks. Case closed!