I would never tolerate this from my coaches of fans.

Coaching Youth Football

In this time, everyone needs to get along to find solutions to world problems. Taunting , killing and discrimination due to race, sex, religion, appearance etc. is immature at best and deadly at worst. Like John McCain said ( I am not quoting verbatim), “I believe there is a place in hell for people like that…” when he was criticized for adopting a baby from Bangladesh by racists. When someone is discriminated due to race, etc. no one wins. It’s a lose-lose situation for all.

We are not talking about urban vs. suburban, we are talking about suburban vs. suburban. Although it is true that Shaker is much more diverse (I won’t say predominantly black because I don’t know that that is true) than many of the other suburbs, it is still just another suburb.

The Chicago team was made up of black kids and lived in a neighborhood that was black. The surburan teams were mostly white kids. While I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there was some racism involved, the position that the suburbanites talked about was that violent crime incidence in the Chicago neighborhood were a lot higher than in the suburban areas, up to and including murders. The Chicago team took the position that there had never been violent crime at the school itself, and that the closest murder had been a mile away.

Sometimes city dwellers and suburbanites have a hard time understanding each other. To a city dweller who is used to finding all of life’s necessities within a block or two from their home and their school within a few blocks, a mile away is another neighborhood and is not something they are involved in. To a suburbanite who routinely drives 2 miles for their morning cup of coffee and paper and whose kids ride a bus 5 miles to go to school, a mile is right next door.

Of course, “community leaders” started jumping in and making accusations that the suburbanites were a bunch of racists and that was the only reason for their actions. This included a white Catholic priest who heads a large Catholic parish in the Chicago neighborhood who gave a very dramatic speech that concluded “How can I tell this young girl she lives in a ‘bad neighborhood’” and dissolved into tears (answer; you don’t need to tell her, she already knows). This dominated the media coverage, and the whole thing devolved into a huge mess.

Somebody got them the makeup, the wigs, and the frying pans. “Somebody” was not another 9-to-12-year-old.

I’d like to think you were right, but … Halloween, school plays, English class projects, church groups; you could go down into my basement right now and grab a couple of wigs and some black (and white and blue and red) theatrical makeup. A couple of frying pans out of the kitchen and there you are.

Now, that might be a bit much for 9-year olds to organize. But while the underlying attitudes may reflect the home environment, I can see a few 12-year olds coming up with the specific activity of showing up bewigged and in blackface at a football game on their own. After all, during some point in time during a televised college or professional football game or basketball game the cameras almost always focus on people all made up and wearing wigs and holding props.

Not that I’m happy to write that a few kids are able to add racism to that, mind you. But I don’t think it’s too far a stretch.

No.

-was i wrong for laughing just a LITTLE bit at this?

and yes kids do notice racial differences. by the time i was nine i had a pretty good handle on them. i also knew enough to kepp my mouth shut if i met people with whom i wasn’t familiar. i think in this and other cases parents encouraged their kids to act in this derogatory manner, and no i don;t think they (the kids) knew exactly what they were getting into.

anyone have an update?

You haven’t been in my house, then, where “Attention all monkeys! The monkey train is now boarding! Next stop, Monkeytown!” is the universal code for “get your butt in the car, kiddo”.

(Nor have you had the experience of having a four-year old turn to you with gravely affronted dignity and say “Daddy. This is a car, not a train. And I am a human girl, not a monkey. And we are going to Nona’s house, not Monkey Town.”)

I hope someday to overcome my monkey-themed racist beliefs.

First, you have the creature itself, who, along with apes, are portrayed as an often-mischievous animal that often charms humans. (Think Curious George, the Friends monkey, and sock monkeys.)

Second, you have an insult comparing black people with lower primates. That’s patently offensive.

Third, you have the comparison of human babies with monkeys, which has everything to do with the first one. I’ve caught that meme from a friend of mine who called his young son “BabyMonkey!” and have had to consciously avoid calling babies of other races “monkeys”.

Monkeys are hip, just like pirates. I think the owners of the restaurant are trying to associate it with the first definition, with the grease monkey overall-wearing waiters associating the place with its former life as a garage.

I mean, yes, race and racism are sore spots. But football taunts are usually offensive. I mean–this is the sport with the Norfolk cheer (we don’t drink, nor smoke, Norfolk, Norfolk), which my grandfather grew up with, or “three teeth and 100 legs” (which I grew up with), and so forth.

But it was completely devoid of malice and bore only the most superficial similarity to the sort of race-baiting that was on display at the football game. You can’t cite the Kate Moss thing as evidence that malicious racism is becoming more socially acceptable.

Brandon:

I think you’re falling into the trap cited earlier here by Rachel. You are saying that intent is more important than impact. I don’t believe that’s true. It’s ridiculous to argue that the Moss photo and the football incident operate in splendid isolation from one another. Some of the commentators in red’s link were very cogent in their understanding of what a short trip it is from the “stewardship” of spending 5K on Western designer goods so a corporation will send 5o dollars to Africa to an outright declaration that Africans are inferior people who deserve public insults. It happens again and again in imperialist and colonialist relationships. Somebody offers an insulting and/or utterly insufficient, borderline useless “gift.” Their needy recipient refuses, or demands more on better terms, and the insults and denigration of the recipient begin. Often followed by robbery and bloodshed, on top of the robbery and bloodshed that created the neeedy party’s situation in the first place. It’s an old, old story.

i didnt know about pron night though. Another great angle! Brilliant!

I don’t think “grease monkey” currently is used other than talking about mechanics and the like. DO you?

But it was completely devoid of malice and bore only the most superficial similarity to the sort of race-baiting that was on display at the football game. You can’t cite the Kate Moss thing as evidence that malicious racism is becoming more socially acceptable.

I agree that these are different, but the kate moss thing was racist nevertheless. It was maybe “clumsy” or asisnine instead of malicious, but it points to the idea that a no blackface rule is probably a good one, even if your intentions are good.