All-Star Themed Practice Controversy

[Pebbles49]

I really do not like FB in the summer time. I hate seeing things get so heated.

That said, after hearing some of the descriptions of yourselves, I drastically have to readjust how I imagine some of you look :) (note to self, I really need to start meeting people!)

Regarding the original topic, I am surprised that none of my fellow Jerseyians brought up a similar case that rocked two of the best wrestling teams in our state. Right before state championships, Phillipsburg decided to pose for a picture to intimidate the other team. Two of the kids in the picture, put hoodies on, but it looked like they also made the top of the hoods pointed. Another put a noose around the wrestling dummy's head. Using this imagery was deplorable, but it was even worse when you realized that the opposing team was mostly black. The picture was taken on school grounds, under the coach's eye and posted on social media. Outcry happened, resulting in kids being banned from the championship meet, causing a few to lose their scholarships. They also were suspended from school and were investigated by the state's prosecutor for hate crimes. We will never know if the team posed for this with hate in their hearts or if it was just done carelessly in the midst of an athletic rivalry, but the consequences were real.

I wonder where the gym's coaches and owners were when this theme was chosen.

@njallday - I can't believe that your professor said that! Omg!

Hey Mamabear,
Let's not get this twisted, I've been told I look good!!!! That could be the reason why I am constantly lying about my age... normally, I tell people I am 35-36, but when I am with my son, who is 26... I am force to tell people I am 40,,, I know, teen mommy... hahaha

Yes, I remember that case and the White kids were also taunting the Black team, by asking them 'Who's your Daddy?" I believe, both squads were out of order and should have been sanction from playing for the poor behavior and forced to take 'Sensitivity Classes' instead of playing and some Community Services will help too... To be honest, as a Parent in this situation, I would have totally been against destroying these young men futures by taking away scholarships, this is too punitive...

 

[rrhhiannon]

Just thought of some other themes that could be associated with race and history. Would you all feel the same way if the theme was gypsies or witches? Maybe even cowboys. I doubt it because gangsters, witches, cowboys and gypsies are not races they're ways of life.

 

[caitlyn_the_camille]

Really? Because every year our student council chose a "nerd day" for spirit week I got phone calls from parents saying it was irresponsible to make fun of the smart kids since they already aren't in the "cool" crowd because they're smart....and we should be celebrating smart kids not making fun of them.

Of course they tended to forget it was basically the valedictorian and junior Marshall's that picked the themes so THEY obviously didn't see it that way.

People (some, not all) will find reason to take offense at basically anything.


Contemplating witty signatures since 2011

Nerd Day has been banned at my school since like 2012. Also, "Redneck Day". (Which is ironic because that was everyone's favorite; every boy at my school has at least one pair of boots and a jacked up truck.)

 

[mamabear]

Hey Mamabear,
Let's not get this twisted, I've been told I look good!!!! That could be the reason why I am constantly lying about my age... normally, I tell people I am 35-36, but when I am with my son, who is 26... I am force to tell people I am 40,,, I know, teen mommy... hahaha

Yes, I remember that case and the White kids were also taunting the Black team, by asking them 'Who's your Daddy?" I believe, both squads were out of order and should have been sanction from playing for the poor behavior and forced to take 'Sensitivity Classes' instead of playing and some Community Services will help too... To be honest, as a Parent in this situation, I would have totally been against destroying these young men futures by taking away scholarships, this is too punitive...

It wasn't you that I was thinking about. After reading this thread, it's @officialOWEcheer who I imagined wrong :) I guess it never came up in other threads (or more likely, I was oblivious). It is not the first time I have been way off. Until I saw a picture of JAM's gorgeous irish step dancing daughter, I envisioned a red headed lass.

 

[Daniellerae]

I live in Michigan and we always had a "yooper" spirit day, where us lower peninsula kids dressed as stereotypical upper peninsula people... Looking back, it probably was kind of offensive, but everyone did enjoy it.

 

[Pebbles49]

Thinking about that case Mambear mentioned about the 2 basketball teams and how the courts got involved -
Let me tell you about an incident that was classified as a racial riot and shut down my little town - The incident happened in 1976 in NJ, this was the year that the TV movie Roots came on and ran for a whole week -- Well at the time the town I lived in, had more Whites than Blacks, but there was a clear boundary mark set up in the town - Most of the Blacks lived in one section of the town and the Whites lived in the other sections and after sundown, if Blacks are caught in the White section the cops will stopped you and that Black person will have to justify why they are in the area...
Well, this is what happened, a group of White boys were sharing a marijuana joint in the HS bathroom, Black boy, who is notorious for starting trouble came in the bathroom and the White boys allowed him to take a few puffs on the marijuana (sharing at it finest, lol)... Well this is when the plot thicken, the Black boy was suppose to pass the joint to the next person and instead being a douchebag decided to swallow the joint... Well this is when all hell happened, the White boys were beating this Black boys butt, (rightly so) and the other Blacks in the school heard about the Black boy being jumped by the White boys and assumed it was a racial thing. Since the White outnumbered the Blacks in this town, Black gangs from the surrounding neighborhood jumped in to help out a Race Riot got started... We had a week of a strict curfews being imposed by the cops, who at that time were mostly White, closed off the town and if your were a young Black person and not live in the town, they restricted all travels in the town... All in all, after the dust settled, the showing of the movie 'Roots' was blamed for all the upheaval in town... But everybody, who lived on my street knew what really happened because this boy lived down the street from me and I was best friend with his little sister...
PS: You see how a simple situation get blown out of shape and blamed on something that was not the real culprit...

 

[quitthedrama]

I won't post my opinions on the subject in this thread but somewhat off topic I find it interesting that those that are the most offended by this thread are the least tolerant of other people's opinions and are the quickest to insult others. Some need to look in the mirror while they are pointing fingers.

 

[Cheermom1969]

Thinking about that case Mambear mentioned about the 2 basketball teams and how the courts got involved -
Let me tell your about an incident that was classified as a racial riot and shut down my little town - The incident happened in 1976 in NJ, this was the year that the TV movie Roots came on and ran for a whole week -- Well at the time the town I lived in, had more Whites than Blacks, but there was a clear boundary mark set up in the town - Most of the Blacks lived in one section of the town and the Whites lived in the other sections and after sundown, if Blacks are caught in the White section the cops will stopped you and that Black person will have to justify why they are in the area...
Well, this is what happened, a group of White boys were sharing a marijuana joint in the HS bathroom, Black boy, who is notorious for starting trouble came in the bathroom and the White boys allowed him to take a few puffs on the marijuana (sharing at it finest, lol)... Well this is when the plot thicken, the Black boy was suppose to pass the joint to the next person and instead being a douchebag decided to swallow the joint... Well this is when all hell happened, the White boys were beating this Black boys butt, (rightly so) and the other Blacks in the school heard about the Black boy being jumped by the White boys and assumed it was a racial thing. Since the White outnumbered the Blacks in this town, Black gangs from the surrounding neighborhood jumped in to help out a Race Riot got started... We had a week of a strict curfews being imposed by the cops, who at that time were mostly White, closed off the town and if your were a young Black person and not live in the town, they restricted all travels in the town... All in all, after the dust settled, the showing of the movie 'Roots' was blamed for all the upheaval in town... But everybody, who lived on my street knew what really happened because this boy lived down the street from me and I was best friend with his little sister...
PS: You see how a simple situation get blown out of shape and blamed on something that was not the real culprit...

Wow. And unfortunately these anecdotes happen all the time.

But I had to laugh, he swallowed it? Wth??

 

[caitlyn_the_camille]

Thinking about that case Mambear mentioned about the 2 basketball teams and how the courts got involved -
Let me tell your about an incident that was classified as a racial riot and shut down my little town - The incident happened in 1976 in NJ, this was the year that the TV movie Roots came on and ran for a whole week -- Well at the time the town I lived in, had more Whites than Blacks, but there was a clear boundary mark set up in the town - Most of the Blacks lived in one section of the town and the Whites lived in the other sections and after sundown, if Blacks are caught in the White section the cops will stopped you and that Black person will have to justify why they are in the area...
Well, this is what happened, a group of White boys were sharing a marijuana joint in the HS bathroom, Black boy, who is notorious for starting trouble came in the bathroom and the White boys allowed him to take a few puffs on the marijuana (sharing at it finest, lol)... Well this is when the plot thicken, the Black boy was suppose to pass the joint to the next person and instead being a douchebag decided to swallow the joint... Well this is when all hell happened, the White boys were beating this Black boys butt, (rightly so) and the other Blacks in the school heard about the Black boy being jumped by the White boys and assumed it was a racial thing. Since the White outnumbered the Blacks in this town, Black gangs from the surrounding neighborhood jumped in to help out a Race Riot got started... We had a week of a strict curfews being imposed by the cops, who at that time were mostly White, closed off the town and if your were a young Black person and not live in the town, they restricted all travels in the town... All in all, after the dust settled, the showing of the movie 'Roots' was blamed for all the upheaval in town... But everybody, who lived on my street knew what really happened because this boy lived down the street from me and I was best friend with his little sister...
PS: You see how a simple situation get blown out of shape and blamed on something that was not the real culprit...

Something like this happened in my mom's hometown a few years ago. A bunch of stuff went down, but end the end it was just a fight (I think a white boy kept making racial slurs at some black kids, and they beat him up), but it was made a big deal because of race. It got blown way out of proportion and the media painted it horribly. There was even a march on the town. I remember we were up there visiting and my grandmas church was having a huge revival because of it. Anyone ever heard of the Jena 6?

 

[ErinS]

Back to the article.

I don't believe that The Root article mentioned this, but the cheer team was placed on hiatus.

I don't think a hiatus was necessary. Cheerleaders are school representatives, and these cheerleaders publicly made a mistake that the whole student body could learn from. Rather than a hiatus, I would think that some sort of outreach and community involvement would be more beneficial.

 

[MaineStar234]

So weird that my family was just actually talking about something similar to this last night. My 40ish year old cousin and her children are here in Maine visiting from SC. She grew up in Maine but moved to Charleston, South Carolina as an adult. She is a middle class White woman for what it is worth. She was telling us about how real and prominent racism still is in South Carolina. It was surprising to both me and even the other adult members of my family. She was telling us how it's really easy to not think that racism still exists when there aren't really any African Americans around you (Maine is extremely White, like 90% White people). She shared stories and other tidbits about how it is like where she lives. It really opened my eyes because I think people have a tendency to think that now that we have a Black president and everything all people are seen and treated equal, which is so not the case I've come to learn. I wouldn't know, however, without someone talking to me about it who has experienced it. She is on the other side of the situation so to speak so I'm sure it is easier for her to talk about since she isn't anyone actually being mistreated. I can imagine it would be difficult to talk about if she were. So I can see where everyone is coming from on the board; it is probably difficult and awful to talk about if you have experienced it, but to an outsider of Southern culture you have no idea that stuff like that still goes on.

 

[ErinS]

So weird that my family was just actually talking about something similar to this last night. My 40ish year old cousin and her children are here in Maine visiting from SC. She grew up in Maine but moved to Charleston, South Carolina as an adult. She is a middle class White woman for what it is worth. She was telling us about how real and prominent racism still is in South Carolina. It was surprising to both me and even the other adult members of my family. She was telling us how it's really easy to not think that racism still exists when there aren't really any African Americans around you (Maine is extremely White, like 90% White people). She shared stories and other tidbits about how it is like where she lives. It really opened my eyes because I think people have a tendency to think that now that we have a Black president and everything all people are seen and treated equal, which is so not the case I've come to learn. I wouldn't know, however, without someone talking to me about it who has experienced it. She is on the other side of the situation so to speak so I'm sure it is easier for her to talk about since she isn't anyone actually being mistreated. I can imagine it would be difficult to talk about if she were. So I can see where everyone is coming from on the board; it is probably difficult and awful to talk about if you have experienced it, but to an outsider of Southern culture you have no idea that stuff like that still goes on.

 

[Official OWECheer]

It wasn't you that I was thinking about. After reading this thread, it's @officialOWEcheer who I imagined wrong :) I guess it never came up in other threads (or more likely, I was oblivious). It is not the first time I have been way off. Until I saw a picture of JAM's gorgeous irish step dancing daughter, I envisioned a red headed lass.

That's okay. :) You learn something new every day.

I honestly can't blame you, since from my experience, a lot of black kids (but not all, of course) use horrible grammar online and type lyk thissssss.... It drives me insane.

 

[Just-a-Mom]

I need to respond to you on this issue because I will never exploit an incident for sympathy... I was born in 1963, and this incident happened in 1968. The area where I grew up a lot of Civil Rights Movement activity were happening and reached it highest point during that time... Hey, you caught me, I lied about my age, I am actually 51 and I grew up during the mid 1960s in the Deep South, sorry for misleading anyone...

PS: I am really sorry for even talking about that ugly chapter in my family's history, I hope you Fierceboarders will not get offended, if I wish to not answer any more questions about this... There were things that happened I heard, that was a lot worse for some families around us... According to my Mom, we were lucky that we had the means to move away...

I thought you were younger than that! I apologize then.

And I don't think you should be sorry for talking about it. It needs to be talked about for sure.

 

[Just-a-Mom]

I know that White people have the privilege to be able to think that Ghetto Girls is a completely harmless theme,

I just read this (was rereading the first few pages because I originally read them at 1am). No white people think this. No one is doing ghetto girls as a theme. :rolleyes:

For the record this statement was as racist and offensive to me as the gang theme to you.


Edit: let me re-phrase. There may be people doing ghetto girls as a theme - I don't actually know. But no one is enjoying any privilege to think it's harmless. There's a difference between thinking something is harmless and not caring if it is harmful. Anyone who is doing this is just an @$$hat. And it would not be considered acceptable - I mean, the fact that this story has gone viral should tell you that no, all white people don't just run around thinking this way.