Bigotry and Intolerance by Kathlyn Gay
Author:Kathlyn Gay [Gay, Kathlyn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Published: 2013-03-14T16:00:00+00:00
6
Bigotry and Racism: Still Alive and Well
“You never know what’s going to happen after school. . . . ’Cause I’m from Africa . . . [guys] always make fun of me. . . . Just racist jokes. It’s both races, white and black. It makes me feel sad.”—Fifteen-year-old Victor Uchendu of St. Petersburg, Florida1
Although many Americans believe that bigotry and racism are no longer part of U.S. society, that is hardly the case. Students at Monessen High School in Monessen, Pennsylvania, can attest to that fact. In February 2012, the school’s basketball team, a black and biracial squad, was at the predominately white Brentwood High School in Pittsburgh for a game. The Monessen team won 59–45, but not before the Brentwood students tried to provoke the visiting team with taunts of “cotton pickers,” “gorillas,” and “monkeys.” In addition, some fans paraded around in banana suits, which has a racist connotation—suggesting that the opposition players were banana lovers like monkeys.
Chavis Rawlins, one of the Monessen players, told CBS News that similar incidents had happened many times before. Another player, Justin Rawlins, told a reporter that the harassment, which included banana-suited students with monkey posters, “made me angry, but I just don’t understand racism nowadays because from what I learned in school, it’s from the past.”2
However, the past was in the here and now in the town of Tonawanda near Buffalo, New York, in December 2011. The Kenmore East High School girls’ varsity basketball team had a pregame routine. When adults left the locker room, the girls would “hold hands before their games, say a prayer together, then yell ‘One, two, three, [N word],’ before running out onto the court,” according to a news report. The chant was used often, even though one of the Kenmore players, Tyra, is an African American. Tyra objected to the chant, but she was told by her teammates that “it’s a tradition.” Reporter Sandra Tan wrote, “Tyra added that her teammates would routinely make racial references and jokes during practice, including ones regarding slavery, shackles and ‘picking cotton.’” Because of the racial slurs, Tyra attacked one of the players and both were suspended for getting into a fight. But once school officials investigated the cause of the incident, disciplinary actions were taken against other players. These included a two-day suspension for the players who took part in the chant, cancellation of a team field trip, sensitivity training, and forfeit of a sportsmanship award.3
In Florida, two white students at Gainesville High School produced a racist video that was posted on YouTube on a Tuesday in February 2012. By Thursday, the video had been posted on other sites and was seen by hundreds of thousands of viewers. The video included the girls’ ugly comments about black people, such as black people can’t speak right and most blacks are on welfare and use their money to buy iPhones and other gadgets but can’t buy good food. And “most of the crime here [in Gainesville] is done by black people.” And “there are black people .
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