From Yahoo! Sports
By Cameron Smith
Vile racism raised its ugly head during a boys basketball game near Pittsburgh on Friday when fans of a nearly all-white suburban school ran on the court in banana suits and made monkey noises to taunt the players for their rivals, who play for a school which is predominantly African-American.
As reported by a variety of Pittsburgh media outlets, the Monessen Valley Independent and WPXI prominent among them, the annual basketball rivalry game between Pittsburgh (Pa.) Brentwood High and Monessen (Pa.) High turned extremely ugly when the two teams tried to head to their respective locker rooms for halftime. Before the players could leave the floor, three fans from the visiting Brentwood student section ran onto the court in full-body banana suits.
The fans surrounded the Monessen players and allegedly began making monkey noises and hurling racial epithets at the Monessen players, with no one entering the fray to stop the horribly inappropriate catcalls.
"I was appalled and shocked," Monessen parent Terri Payne told WPXI. "I was like, 'I can't believe they're doing that, and they didn't do anything about it.'"
Disturbingly, other Monessen parents claim that the Brentwood players hurled similar racist epithets themselves, calling the Greyhounds "monkeys and cotton pickers," as one Monessen fan told WPXI.
Meanwhile, Valley Independent staff writer Jeremy Sellew claimed that Brentwood Director of Security Joseph Kozarian, who was on duty at the game, refused to intervene, instead sitting back and at one point smiling and laughing with the Brentwood fans in the stands.
As more media attention has swirled around the disgusting incident, Brentwood officials have scrambled to try and alleviate pressure on the school and district as a whole. As of Tuesday the three students involved had been identified and disciplined, though their punishment was not disclosed to the media. Similarly, officials claimed they were "reviewing school policy to make sure a similar incident doesn't happen again."
Clearly, that's not strong enough. If the banana suit incident and subsequent racist abuse from Brentwood players occurred as numerous witnesses claim it did, the entire Brentwood season should be put under much deeper inspection before moving forward.
This is legitimate hate speech, after all, and the teenagers who were responsible need to realize just how damaging that is, both to their victims, themselves and society as a whole. At the very least, any players who made racist comments during the game itself should be punished significantly.
Despite being a cynic, I'm still amazed this disgusting incident went down in 2012. Then again, it sounds like some of the folks in Brentwood have a 1952 mentality. I can just imagine them listening to their Patti Page records while waiting to catch that week's episode of "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet".
For the news story which aired on WTAE in Pittsburgh, click here.
In a side note, Monessen defeated Brentwood by a score of 59-45.
14 comments:
There's a trend with these kinds of stories. They all seem to involve teenagers.
It's ridiculous and hateful and, if it were my school, heads would roll, but the hate speech aspect of it in these situations seems to be the moronic asshole side of it.
(Doesn't take the "hate" away, however.)
Cruel teenagers digging for the most hurtful shit they can do insult someone; these are the idiots that turn into basement troll YouTube comment spammers and not productive citizens.
I'm just not sure how "racist" I consider something coming from idiot teenagers. It's a racist act carried out by idiots, not necessarily racists, and that may be the reason that the punishment isn't as harsh as some would like.
Am I missing a link somewhere? I've read a few articles about this online already today, stating it was two morons doing this. But I can't find any video.
As to why no one did anything to stop it - the crowd also tramples people to death at Wal Mart. Are they all murderers? I can't call it.
Maybe this ends up as an episode of "What Would You Do?" or whatever that show is called.
Josh said: "There's a trend with these kinds of stories. They all seem to involve teenagers."
We have some recent ones in Michigan, actually, involving grown supposedly educated results.
In one, the arch liberal mayor Virg Bonero went into a big racist rant against a Native American casino representative and even threatened violence against him.
After that, a Republican candidate for the US Senate ran an anti-East Asian racist ad during the Superbowl (the subject of my now stale most recent blog post)
I was speaking more about the racism at sporting events in the US. It seems to happen primarily with middle and high schools, not in the professional ranks with actual grownups.
So I just can't make the call if these are racist individuals or idiots acting racist.
There's certainly a huge difference.
Josh said: "There's a trend with these kinds of stories. They all seem to involve teenagers."
They are LEARNING this horrendous behavior somewhere, yes? To my way of thinking, teenagers/children are a product of their environment--adults, their parents.
It's despicable. I don't live too far from these schools (I live right outside the city of Pittsburgh) and let me tell you, if I EVER see something like THAT, I WILL be right in the middle of IT--STOPPING IT! I won't just sit back in shock and then get interviewed and say, "I was shocked."
NOT doing anything is as bad as participating, IMO.
"They are LEARNING this horrendous behavior somewhere, yes?"
You only know what you learn. But assuming it comes from a parent is an unfair leap to make.
I suppose it would depend on the household, but a kid acting racist does not necessarily mean the kid picked it up from his or her parents.
In the same way they learn to drink and do drugs, to skip school, to have unprotected sex, to get in fights, etc on down the line - what do they learn from parents? And how much is a rebellion or lack of parenting?
It can't work both ways. It can't be so horrendous yet the ones victimizing become the victims.
Josh: I wrote: To my way of thinking, teenagers/children are a product of their environment--adults, their parents.
So, no, actually, I don’t believe my assessment is unfair.
Parents are "typically" the predominant role-models, however, there can be other adults who influence them, and that’s why I included adults.
There's nothing at all "typical" about this.
To each their own, but I won't give these idiots half a pass by painting them as victims of bad parenting or having bad role models.
We're not talking about 3rd-graders.
Josh: The reason I'm calling racism on this is because there appears to be a culture in Brentwood which allows this B.S. to happen. Adults not doing anything to stop it is bad enough. However, for the director of security (Joseph Kozarian) to allegedly sit back and smile/laugh in the stands takes it to a whole new level.
To the best of my knowledge, the only footage available is of the two banana suited teens in the stands (which I believe was shot by a spectator).
As for why these types of incidents seem to mostly involve teenagers, one reason is probably due to economics. It costs very little (if anything) to attend a middle/high school sporting event. However, pro sporting events normally aren't cheap. If a racist clown acts up at a pro game, it's a good chance that fans will point them out and they'll get tossed. If that happens, I don't know think the venue is under any legal obligation to refund the racist idiot.
Also, assuming you are thinking that Pamela in her comments below was saying the racist behavior was "typical", I don't think she is. It sounds like she means parents are typically the role models for kids and therefore the likely source for teaching racist behavior.
dmarks: I posted about the Pete Hoekstra ad myself. I was glad national news outlets picked up on this story.
Pamela: You are right in what you said about sitting back and doing nothing. Sometimes all it takes is for one person to call B.S. and jump in to stop racism for others to have the courage to do the same.
It could be that there are racists out there lurking in the shadows, craving to get into pro sporting events if only they had the funding. Therefore we see it with school events due to the economics of it.
But it's also possible that these teens aren't Klansmen in banana suits but rather assholes. The type of idiots who insult people using what they know to be insulting, like busting on a heavy person's weight with stuff like "fasto" or calling a short person "midget" or a gay person "faggot" or anything else.
A racist act and a racist are different things. So I'd personally like to know more than what I've read on this story.
As for people standing by and letting it happen, that's inexcusable in my opinion. But it's also not really an indication of racism. Adults are caught on video constantly allowing things to happen around them, like fighting and burglaries and forms of abuse.
I expect good people to step up and do something to right a wrong. But JoPa isn't a child molester and not all the OWS rats are rapists and destroyers of property
They should all step up and stop that kind of shit. No doubt about it. But not doing so doesn't mean they're the same as the ones doing it.
Josh: Dressing up in banana suits is one thing. However, it goes beyond simple idiocy when terms like "monkeys and cotton pickers" are thrown in the mix.
So, the OWS protesters are rats? Sometimes you just can't help yourself can you? :-)
The ones who are literally living in streets and parks - what should I call them? I didn't realize "rats" was an insult. It seemed an honest depiction to me.
People choosing to defy decency and live as homeless individuals; "rats' doesn't fit?
Bums? Vagrants? Floaters? Derelicts? Gutterpups?
I'll have to go to the thesaurus if you need more. That's all I got off the top.
And to your point: I don't really disagree. It goes beyond being an average asshole. But labeling someone a racist is a burning, lifelong label in most cases. So I want to be sure that we're not talking about idiot teenagers who planned to be hurtful just to be hurtful.
They very well could be legit racists, the sons of racists. No question about that. But I don't know that they are.
Maybe they just need a good ass-kicking.
(And yet another LMAO at "you just can't help yourself," coming from the guy who just blasted me with some stereotypical garbage all because I find humor in MM doing "meticulous research" and feel as if a book released by someone associated with the organization isn't going to be revealing or anything above a hit piece.)
Josh: I don't know, you could refer to them simply as protesters and leave it at that.
As for your last LMAO, we already straightened out that misunderstanding. Since I did use the "smiley face" emoticon when I said "Sometimes you just can't help yourself can you?", I hope you realize I wasn't upset by your "rats" remark.
No. Referring to the willingly homeless as protesters does disservice to people who actually have legitimate things to protest about.
There were OWS protesters who temporarily revoked their leases and quit their jobs to take part in the movement. You may not approve of the choices they made to participate in OWS, but that doesn't mean they don't have legitimate grievances.
Post a Comment