I am Eric and Jason Coker’s step-brother. I am saddened by the controversy arising out of remarks made by Eric and Jason that were recently discovered in the Pan Am 103/Lockerbie Air Disaster Remembrance Archive. First, I’m saddened that statements made by Eric and Jason intended as jokes in private correspondences to family members have caused an uproar on the Syracuse University campus. Clearly those jokes were inappropriate and I understand how people would be offended. I’m sure that if Eric and Jason were alive today, they would regret having made those jokes and the offense they have caused.

I’m also saddened, however, by the vilification expressed about Eric and Jason in articles and commentary in this publication. Jason and Eric have been described as “two people who were clearly antisemitic,” whose “views” as expressed in “antisemitic writings” constitute “hate speech” that is “dangerous and violent and hateful.” The people making those comments have apparently focused exclusively on a single off-color joke made by each almost thirty-five years ago, that is admittedly not their proudest moment. However, they have somehow tried to extrapolate those jokes into some supposed hateful worldview that Eric and Jason each held. Those people clearly did not bother to review the rest of the material about Eric and Jason in the Remembrance archive, or take the time to speak with their friends and former classmates. Because if they had, they would have learned that Eric and Jason were bright, warm, friendly, caring and compassionate individuals who were generous to friends, family and strangers alike. They would have also learned that they were both extremely funny, and that yes, their sense of humor could sometimes veer toward the acerbic and provocative. But I believe that they would have also concluded that Eric and Jason absolutely were not “antisemitic” or “hateful” or “dangerous” or “violent,” and it’s troubling that such aspersions are being thrown around so casually.

Each of us has moments from our past of which we are not proud, whether it’s a bad joke, an ill-advised statement, an embarrassing photo or some other circumstance that we look back on now with regret or even some sense of shame. I’m sure friends of mine could remind me of instances, when I was a twenty-year-old college student, that were not my finest hour. Unfortunately, it’s all too common these days that when someone’s past indiscretion comes to light, the knee-jerk reaction is to castigate that person or seek to destroy their reputation. As if that long-ago mistake, error in judgment, or just a dumb comment somehow defines that person’s character.

Sadly, Eric and Jason did not have the benefit of time to look back on past mistakes and learn and grow from the experience. Rather than cast judgment based on an isolated moment in time, maybe those who are quick to denigrate Eric and Jason might first stop and take the measure of the whole person each of them was. After all, that’s what I always understood to be the purpose of the Remembrance archive in the first place.

Bruce H. Norwell, Step-brother of Jason and Eric Coker