Something about this rubs me the wrong way. Latino or not, this is Texas, correct. I was pretty sure this happened in Texas. Last time I checked Texas was part of the USA. I don't care if they are Latino, black asian, or eskimos. They are in the USA. They should be proud of the country they live in even if it is not their country of origin. If they feel slighted because of the chant, don't stay in the USA. It's obviously offensive to them.
Jeez, chanting USA used to be patriotic. Now if you do it you are a xenophobe.
It is patriotic when you are cheering for the USA in an international competition. This was a match-up between 2 American teams.
Do you really think they were cheering to be patriotic?
Does it matter? You said it, both teams were from the USA. Who could be offended by that? Even if one team had more Latino players than the other, sounds like they are pulling at straws. Sounds to me like the parents or school officials from the latino school are making a racist case where there might not be one. I would assume that the latino players could be American just as much as the white players could be. But that's just me.
Do you think the crowd would have done the USA chant if the opposing team was all white?
Funny how no one wants to or has answered this question...youngster. Great question BTW
Peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Do you think the crowd would have done the USA chant if the opposing team was all white?
Funny how no one wants to or has answered this question...youngster. Great question BTW
Peace
It's kinda hard to say since it didn't happen. I guess it wouldn't have made the news if it did. Another question is if the Latino team had won and the opposite happened, they started chanting "Mexico" or something, would this be as big an issue? I guess I just have a hard time understanding how chanting USA is racist. Because there might be some minorites on the other team. Who's to say they aren't citizens and proud to be American. I just don't instantly look at someone who isn't white and think they are not American, that would definately be racist. But because a few people got offended we have to make a change. I guess it's just the way of the world these days.
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Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,200
If anyone on that team was offended my the comments of that crowd they in turn could consider those in the crowd to be racist by making those comments. Some of us on the outside may have a hard time seeing, feeling and understanding that unless one is put in that particular situation.
peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
I guess I just have a hard time understanding how chanting USA is racist.
On it's own, it's not. But when you celebrate white kids winning over Latino kids with a chant that always has meant "America won," that's a pretty serious difference. These were stupid white kids from Texas. But it was a very obnoxious thing to do.
Who's to say they aren't citizens and proud to be American.
That may be the case. But why chant it when white kids beat a team of Latino kids? What does one have to do with the other unless you're trying to say "go back home, you don't belong here."
But because a few people got offended we have to make a change. I guess it's just the way of the world these days.
There's nothing more annoying that a straight, white Christian whining that for the first time in his whole life he has to treat other people with the respect that they deserve. Hearing a straight, white, Christian guy complaining that being a straight, white, Christian guy no longer means he's any better than anyone else.
It's like hearing (sorry to bring it back to this but here we go), straight Christians whining that because I can get married that their marriage is somehow diminished. People who get upset they're not at the top of the heap anymore are so annoying.
+1 as a straight white confirmed catholic (used to be an altar boy even) married man
Thanks. And as you and I both know the majority of straight, white men - Christian or otherwise - are all just fine with not being any better than anyone else. Just a few twerps making the rest look bad.
I was never an altar boy. I tried going to church one time but I burned my hand on the door.
+1 as a straight white confirmed catholic (used to be an altar boy even) married man
Thanks. And as you and I both know the majority of straight, white men - Christian or otherwise - are all just fine with not being any better than anyone else. Just a few twerps making the rest look bad.
I was never an altar boy. I tried going to church one time but I burned my hand on the door.
i'm not sure if it's a majority, but i do think that a majority think so. arguments like these are exactly why i think this. people, for the most part, are over outright racism, sexism, classism, homophobia. however, as we've gotten better at pointing out why outright forms of discrimination suck we've also gotten better at ways of hiding these things. this is but one example.
The Texas Region IV-4A high school boys basketball championships that pitted San Antonio Edison High School against Alamo Heights High School ended with a handshake and a celebration. It also ended with a racial and nationalist taunt from several fans from Alamo Heights, who chanted “USA, USA, USA” to celebrate its primarily white team and the school’s victory over the mostly Latino squad. While the Alamo coaches tried to quiet the crowd, the damage was done.
“Our kids try real hard and work extra hard to get to the regional tournament, and then we have to worry about them being subjected to this kind of insensitivity,” noted Edison coach Gil Garza. “To be attacked about your ethnicity and being made to feel that you don’t belong in this country is terrible. Why can’t people just applaud our kids? It just gets old and I’m sick of it. Once again, we’re on pins and needles wondering what’s going to happen.”
This incident was not the first anti-immigrant outburst on the floor in San Antonio. In 2011, Cedar Park High School, a predominantly white school with an equally white basketball squad, battled Lanier, a high school with an all-Latino squad. During the course of the game, Cedar Park fans chanted a myriad of anti-Latino chants, including “USA, USA.” They also cheered “Arizona, Arizona,” a clear reference to SB 1070, legislation that institutionalized anti-Latino racism. And, fans yelled “this is not soccer, this is not soccer” clearly linking their teams success (and ultimate victory) to their whiteness over and against a group of foreigners, marked as such because of their project affinity for and ability at an un-American game. Stereotypes about Latino and soccer reduced the basketball court to nothing more than a competition for racial superiority, another opportunity to police the border through the assertion of white nationalism.
The chant represents a brief, local reiteration of the long-standing equation where USA equals White within the national imagination. It reflects and is a consequence of the vitriol and the anti-immigrant sentiment that dominated the national landscape in recent years. The chant should not be surprise in a moment when presidential candidates “joke” about immigrant deaths or wish they would just deport themselves, when state legislatures make culture and skin color probable cause, and when public officials declare ethnic studies illegal. The chant reflects the same sentiments as those articulated by Rush Limbaugh, who has described America’s immigration in the following way: “ome people would say we’re already under attack by aliens—not space aliens, but illegal aliens.” It is an outgrowth of a historic sentiment that imagines Latinos irrespective of citizenship as foreigners and undesirable. It reflects an increasingly ferocious anti-Latino sentiment that both represents and treat Latinos as “illegal aliens” neither welcome nor deserving of the legal protections of the United States. It should come us no surprise given this larger history and the ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years. It embodies as Tanya Golash Boza, assistant professor of sociology at University of Kansas, told one of us: “In the white American mindset, the only group that gets an unhyphenated American identity is white.” It should come us no surprise given this larger history and the ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.
According to Alexandro José Gradilla, an Associate Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Cal State Fullerton, the chant embodies “a new political climate of ‘papers please’” where all Latinos are presumed to be outsiders, threats to the national success of the United States. The racial hostility and the nationalist celebration at these high school basketball games, notes Gradilla, “signal a new racializing paradigm of conflating Mexican Americans with Mexican Immigrants—hence the chants of USA USA were appropriate to use against these possibly ‘illegal’ and ‘alien’ people.” Given the history of sports, so often a place to authenticate national superiority, play out racial tensions, and exhibit masculine prowess, the efforts to nationalize the basketball, to use the victory as evidence of national/racial superiority, is reflective of the political orientation of sports.
The staging of anti-immigrant sentiments at a basketball game and the ease with which chanting for a predominantly White team slides into rooting for America is not surprising. The outrage and the ultimate apology from the school district (“Unfortunately, after the game, we had a handful of students who made a bad decision and we’re very sorry it happened. They made a mistake and we’re going to use this as a learning experience…”) has prompted conservative commentators to argue political correctness run amuck and to otherwise deny any racial animus. According to The Blaze: “Joe ‘Pags’ Pagliarulo—a nationally syndicated radio host based in San Antonio and frequent fill-in for Glenn Beck—on Wednesday blasted the local media coverage of the controversy, saying reporters demonized the ‘U-S-A!’ chant, rather than presenting the story as students misusing it as a taunt.” Similarly, Fox’s Eric Bolling defended the players and questioned any need to apologize: “The political correctness of what they are doing… They are apologizing for chanting USA, within the USA, playing another team from the USA, who likely has legal American citizens on their basketball team!”
Equally predictable has been the apology that essentially said this is not who we are: we are not racist. Others have gone as far as to accuse students Edison of chanting “Alamo-all white,” almost force the students from Alamo to respond unkindly. Absent from the initial reports and without video corroboration, this suggestion reads as a post facto allegation meant to get the Alamo Heights people off the hook—“they are racist too and perhaps were racist before we were racist.”
At the same time, others have identified this situation as a teachable moment. The efforts to deny any malice, to label as a joke, to deflect, deny and minimize represents a dual move. At one level, the deployment of the race denial card and the focus on jokes endeavor to exculpate individual students as well as the school. At the same time, depicting the chant as an aberration (“kids made a bad decision”), as out-of-character for the students, school, and country, the chant becomes an instance where education and discipline has the potential to right any wrongs. It can be corrected, thereby erasing the structural inequalities evident in anti-immigrant legislation and the larger history that both scapegoats Latinos and imagines people of color as never true citizens.
Words matter. The chant uttered at this high school game isn’t just a phrase but one saturated with meaning, history, and violence. In his brilliant piece on language, H. Sammy Alim reminds readers about the consequences of words and language. Writing about efforts to rid public discourse of the term “illegal,” Alim, a professor at Stanford University, argues:
Pejorative, discriminatory language can have real life consequences. In this case, activists worry about the coincidence of the rise in the use of the term “illegals” and the spike in hate crimes against all Latinos. As difficult as it might be to prove causation here, the National Institute for Latino Policy reports that the F.B.I.’s annual Hate Crime Statistics show that Latinos comprised two thirds of the victims of ethnically motivated hate crimes in 2010. When someone is repeatedly described as something, language has quietly paved the way for violent action.
When Latinos are continually labeled as foreigners, as “aliens,” as un-American and as otherwise not part of the national fabric, it is no wonder that Latinos are subjected to both racist taunts on the basketball court and “papers please” profiling throughout the country.
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of “Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema” and the forthcoming “After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop” (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogger at No Tsuris.
C. Richard King is the Chair of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author/editor of several books, including “Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy” and “Postcolonial America.”
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Surfing The far side of THE Sombrero Galaxy Posts: 18,200
^^^^^The above gives us an indication of what some think is NOT SO incentive chant. It offends certain people period, check that ANY person involved.
Peace
*We CAN bomb the World to pieces, but we CAN'T bomb it into PEACE*...Michael Franti
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
There's nothing more annoying that a straight, white Christian whining that for the first time in his whole life he has to treat other people with the respect that they deserve. Hearing a straight, white, Christian guy complaining that being a straight, white, Christian guy no longer means he's any better than anyone else.
It's like hearing (sorry to bring it back to this but here we go), straight Christians whining that because I can get married that their marriage is somehow diminished. People who get upset they're not at the top of the heap anymore are so annoying.
The past month has witnessed a serious of racist cheers at sporting events. Fans at a University of Minnesota at Duluth mocked the visiting University of North Dakota hockey team, jeering “Small Pox Blankets”—a chant that belittles the school and Native Americans through a reference to its mascot, which converts the reality of genocide into a sporting smack down. In Pittsburgh, during a recent basketball game, fans (as well as players) from Brentwood High hurled racial epithets at Monessen High players. Three fans dressed banana costumes surrounding the primarily black Monessen team, as the left for the locker at halftime, yelling epithets while making monkey noises. Some parents reported that members of the Brentwood squad joined in, calling its opponent, “monkeys and cotton pickers.”
More recently, students at the predominantly white Alamo Heights High School celebrated the defeat of the largely Latino Edison High School with a chant of “USA, USA!” So, it was little surprise in the round of 64, members of the pep band from the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) yelled, “Where’s your green card?” at Kansas State University freshman Angel Rodriguez (who was born in Puerto Rico) as he took foul shoots.
Administrators were quick to apologize following each transgression, offering some variant on the standard refrain: we regret any offense…this is not us…we are not racist…we will take appropriate action. And to be fair, these chants are brief, spontaneous, and passing utterances. They lack sanction and surely do not represent the image that these schools hope to project. Their apologies to the contrary, in an historic moment marked by the rhetoric of color blindness, but not the alleviation of structural racism, the eruption of overt bias, particularly in the guise of clichéd hate speech and “jokes,” far from being abnormal actually reveals the norm, offering keen insights into historically white institutions and the persistence of white supremacy.
While taunting a fellow American citizen by inquiring about his green card exposes great ignorance (Puerto Ricans are US citizens and have been since 1917) and reflects deep antipathy toward Latinos, it is actually in keeping with the history of the University of Southern Mississippi (and countless other colleges and other universities). In fact, USM epitomizes the arc of white supremacy in college sport. Founded in 1910 as an institution devoted to training teachers, USM was like most peers in the South segregated. And like many other public spaces in the USA, students at USM were enamored with Indianness, despite (or perhaps because of) the historic removal of embodied Indians to make way for settler society in southern Mississippi. They choose Neka Camon, “a Native American term meaning ‘The New Spirit’,” as the title for the school’s yearbook. Later, the student body opted to formalize the moniker of the sport teams, selecting the Confederates in 1940. A year later, a slight modification, the Southerners, was substituted. Although in light of the better known history of Ole Miss, this is not surprising, the mascot chosen for athletics a decade later is: USM did not name an anonymous rebel or plantation owner; no, it enshrined Natan Bedford Forest, the infamous leader of the Ku Klux Klan, as its mascot. Desegregated in 1965, USM changed its moniker and mascot to the Golden Eagles in 1972. USM is a quintessential institution of higher learning: historically white, segregated, playing Indian, and celebrating the Confederacy in defiance of the civil rights movement.
The jeer from members of the pep squad (or band) also suggests that USM remains typical, and, despite protestations from administrators, that what is chanted at a basketball game says much about the social landscape of Mississippi today and much about all of us today.
The students chanting, “where’s your green card” were not alone this day, with the state’s politicians legislatively demanding the same of Latinos throughout the state of Mississippi. The state’s House of Representatives passed the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act,” a copycat bill to Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation. Among other things, the bill mandates the police verify immigration status for any person arrested
Mississippi’s Latino population has grown in recent years as the state and its businesses have sought (exploited) Latino labor to rebuild in wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. With a downturn in the economy and the rebuilding process done, scapegoating and demonization has become the new song of the south. Governor Phil Bryant, who has endorsed the bill and will sign into law once the state senate passes the legislation, has said that the bill addresses the state’s “massive, uncontrolled” problem. Similarly, Rodney Hunt, chairman of Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, voiced support for the law because, “Illegal immigration eliminates a lot of jobs for people who want to provide for their families. Passing this bill will open up more jobs and lower unemployment for the state.”
The proposed law, which uses the term “alien” over and over again, would require police to check the immigration status of people who are arrested. It would also require proof of legal citizenship (or entry) for any business transaction, including securing a driver’s license and a business license. Any violation of “business transaction” portion of the statue constitutes a felony punishable by up to five years in prison or up to a $5,000 fine. The legislation also seeks to regulate education, requiring:
Every public elementary and secondary school in this state, at the time of enrollment in kindergarten or any grade in such school, shall determine whether the student enrolling in public school was born outside the jurisdiction of the United States or is the child of an alien not lawfully present in the United States and qualifies for assignment to an English as Second Language class or other remedial program.
Evident here, and with other parts of the legislation, is how this might as well be renamed the “Show Your Papers” Act.
Although 85 percent of Mississippi’s immigrant families are U.S. citizens, with estimates of paltry number of undocumented workers (25,000), the criminalization of Latinos has become commonplace in Mississippi and throughout country. Although undocumented workers are essential to the economy, particularly in the construction, services, and poultry processing industries, the legislation, chant, and overall climate illustrates an antipathy and level violence that erases the financial, cultural, and social contributions of entire communities. It thus no surprise that we see a chant such as this because it reflects a growing sentiment that Latinos are not valuable members of society; even those citizens, whether it be a Puerto Rican basketball or Mexican-American poultry worker, are seen as outside the grips of U.S. citizenry.
While comforting to dismiss the chant as the South being the South, this framing does not account for what has happened during other sports events and the overall resurgence of public displays of racial bigotry. The commonplace refrain of “What would you expect from South,” and or “that’s typical of the South” does little to advance a conversation about the impact of the heightened level of anti-Latino bigotry throughout the United States and its impact in every aspect of society. The efforts to isolate or explain the issue in relationship to the South elides the larger question as to why we are seeing an increasing willingness of people to vocalize racist sentiments in front of the whole world. As Carmen Lugo-Lugo, associate professor of Critical Culture, Race, and Gender Studies at Washington State University, noted, “Asking for a green card to a Puerto Rican, is like asking a Hawaiian for a birth certificate.” As we have seen in all too many locations, from Honolulu to Jackson, the “show your papers” tide is sweeping the nation and clearly waves are targeting people of color. While it might only be a game, how it is played and how fans cheer and jeer continue to tell us much about the persistence of white supremacy and the ease with which many deny it.
C. Richard King is the Chair of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author/editor of several books, including “Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy” and “Postcolonial America.”
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of “Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema” and the forthcoming “After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop” (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogger at No Tsuris.
you seriously don't get it? let me break it down for you. in each instance that King and Leonard outline where a form of American Nationalism is being pushed it is a bunch of White Americans using words to define who and what counts as "true" Americans - to them USA stands for not-Latino, Native American, Puerto Rican, etc. As such nationalism gets entangled with race. These things don't just exist alone on an island. I mean don't we and other countries' have white nationalist movements, black nationalist movements, etc. So anyway that's how it got to be about race because it was always about race.
Was there a racial breakdown of the chanters?
Was this a white nationalist movement?
Was it a black nationalist movement, and if so, would any of the opinions in this discussion change? :think:
Was this all as nefarious as some of you are making this out to be? Or was it just a bunch of high school students being obnoxious at a basketball game?
Was there a racial breakdown of the chanters?
Was this a white nationalist movement?
Was it a black nationalist movement, and if so, would any of the opinions in this discussion change? :think:
Was this all as nefarious as some of you are making this out to be? Or was it just a bunch of high school students being obnoxious at a basketball game?
Maybe you can try a make a convincing argument that it wasn't racist.
well that's the thing he didn't read the article or comprehend it because it would have answered his initial question, nor does he post any semblance of a coherent response to the article. it's easier to deny, deny, deny, change the focus of the conversation, or anything but actually discussing the argument presented because it's pretty tough to say it wasn't racist. moreover, that was about the least racist example king and leonard present some of that other shit was ridiculous "where's your green card" to a puerto rican during an NCAA tournament game, speak of syphillus blankets at a hockey game, the USA chants directed at the other team (how about this question was it commonplace for USA to be chanted after a win for that team? are they near a military base?)...
i dunno ... i do believe the main problem is racism but ultimately - what is racism but ignorance!?? ... the story of the puerto rican player in the ncaa tourney is a great example ... it's just ignorance ... that's really what it boils down to ...
Apparently some college band members are idiots as well...
Southern Miss band chants ‘where’s your green card?’ to Puerto Rican Kansas State player
By Chris Chase | The Dagger – Thu, Mar 15, 2012 4:53 PM EDT
Members of the University of Southern Mississippi band chanted racist taunts at a hispanic Kansas State player during the schools' NCAA tournament game on Thursday.
After point guard Angel Rodriguez was fouled late in the first half of the second-round game, a few band members showered the freshman with cries of "where's your green card?"
The chant and those who participated don't warrant any civilized dialogue. Both are an embarrassment to the university.
Southern Miss president Martha Saunders quickly apologized for the incident.
"We deeply regret the remarks made by a few students at today's game," she wrote in a statement issued two hours after the game. "The words of these individuals do not represent the sentiments of our pep band, athletic department or university. We apologize to Mr. Rodriquez (sic) and will take quick and appropriate disciplinary action against the students involved in this isolated incident."
Rodriguez was spelled incorrectly in the original draft.
As if things could get any more ignorant, the basis for the band's racism was itself misguided. Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States. Even if he hadn't grown up in Miami and starred for a high school basketball team in that city, he'd still be an American citizen and have no need for a green card. Ignorant ignorance; it's the best kind.
My whole life
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
Comments
Funny how no one wants to or has answered this question...youngster. Great question BTW
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
It's kinda hard to say since it didn't happen. I guess it wouldn't have made the news if it did. Another question is if the Latino team had won and the opposite happened, they started chanting "Mexico" or something, would this be as big an issue? I guess I just have a hard time understanding how chanting USA is racist. Because there might be some minorites on the other team. Who's to say they aren't citizens and proud to be American. I just don't instantly look at someone who isn't white and think they are not American, that would definately be racist. But because a few people got offended we have to make a change. I guess it's just the way of the world these days.
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
On it's own, it's not. But when you celebrate white kids winning over Latino kids with a chant that always has meant "America won," that's a pretty serious difference. These were stupid white kids from Texas. But it was a very obnoxious thing to do.
That may be the case. But why chant it when white kids beat a team of Latino kids? What does one have to do with the other unless you're trying to say "go back home, you don't belong here."
There's nothing more annoying that a straight, white Christian whining that for the first time in his whole life he has to treat other people with the respect that they deserve. Hearing a straight, white, Christian guy complaining that being a straight, white, Christian guy no longer means he's any better than anyone else.
It's like hearing (sorry to bring it back to this but here we go), straight Christians whining that because I can get married that their marriage is somehow diminished. People who get upset they're not at the top of the heap anymore are so annoying.
Thanks. And as you and I both know the majority of straight, white men - Christian or otherwise - are all just fine with not being any better than anyone else. Just a few twerps making the rest look bad.
I was never an altar boy. I tried going to church one time but I burned my hand on the door.
Remember the Alamo (Heights)
How an inflammatory chant at a high school game is deeper than basketball.
by David J. Leonard and C. Richard King
The Texas Region IV-4A high school boys basketball championships that pitted San Antonio Edison High School against Alamo Heights High School ended with a handshake and a celebration. It also ended with a racial and nationalist taunt from several fans from Alamo Heights, who chanted “USA, USA, USA” to celebrate its primarily white team and the school’s victory over the mostly Latino squad. While the Alamo coaches tried to quiet the crowd, the damage was done.
“Our kids try real hard and work extra hard to get to the regional tournament, and then we have to worry about them being subjected to this kind of insensitivity,” noted Edison coach Gil Garza. “To be attacked about your ethnicity and being made to feel that you don’t belong in this country is terrible. Why can’t people just applaud our kids? It just gets old and I’m sick of it. Once again, we’re on pins and needles wondering what’s going to happen.”
This incident was not the first anti-immigrant outburst on the floor in San Antonio. In 2011, Cedar Park High School, a predominantly white school with an equally white basketball squad, battled Lanier, a high school with an all-Latino squad. During the course of the game, Cedar Park fans chanted a myriad of anti-Latino chants, including “USA, USA.” They also cheered “Arizona, Arizona,” a clear reference to SB 1070, legislation that institutionalized anti-Latino racism. And, fans yelled “this is not soccer, this is not soccer” clearly linking their teams success (and ultimate victory) to their whiteness over and against a group of foreigners, marked as such because of their project affinity for and ability at an un-American game. Stereotypes about Latino and soccer reduced the basketball court to nothing more than a competition for racial superiority, another opportunity to police the border through the assertion of white nationalism.
The chant represents a brief, local reiteration of the long-standing equation where USA equals White within the national imagination. It reflects and is a consequence of the vitriol and the anti-immigrant sentiment that dominated the national landscape in recent years. The chant should not be surprise in a moment when presidential candidates “joke” about immigrant deaths or wish they would just deport themselves, when state legislatures make culture and skin color probable cause, and when public officials declare ethnic studies illegal. The chant reflects the same sentiments as those articulated by Rush Limbaugh, who has described America’s immigration in the following way: “ome people would say we’re already under attack by aliens—not space aliens, but illegal aliens.” It is an outgrowth of a historic sentiment that imagines Latinos irrespective of citizenship as foreigners and undesirable. It reflects an increasingly ferocious anti-Latino sentiment that both represents and treat Latinos as “illegal aliens” neither welcome nor deserving of the legal protections of the United States. It should come us no surprise given this larger history and the ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years. It embodies as Tanya Golash Boza, assistant professor of sociology at University of Kansas, told one of us: “In the white American mindset, the only group that gets an unhyphenated American identity is white.” It should come us no surprise given this larger history and the ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.
According to Alexandro José Gradilla, an Associate Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Cal State Fullerton, the chant embodies “a new political climate of ‘papers please’” where all Latinos are presumed to be outsiders, threats to the national success of the United States. The racial hostility and the nationalist celebration at these high school basketball games, notes Gradilla, “signal a new racializing paradigm of conflating Mexican Americans with Mexican Immigrants—hence the chants of USA USA were appropriate to use against these possibly ‘illegal’ and ‘alien’ people.” Given the history of sports, so often a place to authenticate national superiority, play out racial tensions, and exhibit masculine prowess, the efforts to nationalize the basketball, to use the victory as evidence of national/racial superiority, is reflective of the political orientation of sports.
The staging of anti-immigrant sentiments at a basketball game and the ease with which chanting for a predominantly White team slides into rooting for America is not surprising. The outrage and the ultimate apology from the school district (“Unfortunately, after the game, we had a handful of students who made a bad decision and we’re very sorry it happened. They made a mistake and we’re going to use this as a learning experience…”) has prompted conservative commentators to argue political correctness run amuck and to otherwise deny any racial animus. According to The Blaze: “Joe ‘Pags’ Pagliarulo—a nationally syndicated radio host based in San Antonio and frequent fill-in for Glenn Beck—on Wednesday blasted the local media coverage of the controversy, saying reporters demonized the ‘U-S-A!’ chant, rather than presenting the story as students misusing it as a taunt.” Similarly, Fox’s Eric Bolling defended the players and questioned any need to apologize: “The political correctness of what they are doing… They are apologizing for chanting USA, within the USA, playing another team from the USA, who likely has legal American citizens on their basketball team!”
Equally predictable has been the apology that essentially said this is not who we are: we are not racist. Others have gone as far as to accuse students Edison of chanting “Alamo-all white,” almost force the students from Alamo to respond unkindly. Absent from the initial reports and without video corroboration, this suggestion reads as a post facto allegation meant to get the Alamo Heights people off the hook—“they are racist too and perhaps were racist before we were racist.”
At the same time, others have identified this situation as a teachable moment. The efforts to deny any malice, to label as a joke, to deflect, deny and minimize represents a dual move. At one level, the deployment of the race denial card and the focus on jokes endeavor to exculpate individual students as well as the school. At the same time, depicting the chant as an aberration (“kids made a bad decision”), as out-of-character for the students, school, and country, the chant becomes an instance where education and discipline has the potential to right any wrongs. It can be corrected, thereby erasing the structural inequalities evident in anti-immigrant legislation and the larger history that both scapegoats Latinos and imagines people of color as never true citizens.
Words matter. The chant uttered at this high school game isn’t just a phrase but one saturated with meaning, history, and violence. In his brilliant piece on language, H. Sammy Alim reminds readers about the consequences of words and language. Writing about efforts to rid public discourse of the term “illegal,” Alim, a professor at Stanford University, argues:
Pejorative, discriminatory language can have real life consequences. In this case, activists worry about the coincidence of the rise in the use of the term “illegals” and the spike in hate crimes against all Latinos. As difficult as it might be to prove causation here, the National Institute for Latino Policy reports that the F.B.I.’s annual Hate Crime Statistics show that Latinos comprised two thirds of the victims of ethnically motivated hate crimes in 2010. When someone is repeatedly described as something, language has quietly paved the way for violent action.
When Latinos are continually labeled as foreigners, as “aliens,” as un-American and as otherwise not part of the national fabric, it is no wonder that Latinos are subjected to both racist taunts on the basketball court and “papers please” profiling throughout the country.
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of “Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema” and the forthcoming “After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop” (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogger at No Tsuris.
C. Richard King is the Chair of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author/editor of several books, including “Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy” and “Postcolonial America.”
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Ballers, Political Shot Callers and the ‘Show Your Papers’ Movement
An outbreak of racist taunts continues to be a problem at NCAA basketball games.
by C. Richard King and David J. Leonard
The past month has witnessed a serious of racist cheers at sporting events. Fans at a University of Minnesota at Duluth mocked the visiting University of North Dakota hockey team, jeering “Small Pox Blankets”—a chant that belittles the school and Native Americans through a reference to its mascot, which converts the reality of genocide into a sporting smack down. In Pittsburgh, during a recent basketball game, fans (as well as players) from Brentwood High hurled racial epithets at Monessen High players. Three fans dressed banana costumes surrounding the primarily black Monessen team, as the left for the locker at halftime, yelling epithets while making monkey noises. Some parents reported that members of the Brentwood squad joined in, calling its opponent, “monkeys and cotton pickers.”
More recently, students at the predominantly white Alamo Heights High School celebrated the defeat of the largely Latino Edison High School with a chant of “USA, USA!” So, it was little surprise in the round of 64, members of the pep band from the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) yelled, “Where’s your green card?” at Kansas State University freshman Angel Rodriguez (who was born in Puerto Rico) as he took foul shoots.
Administrators were quick to apologize following each transgression, offering some variant on the standard refrain: we regret any offense…this is not us…we are not racist…we will take appropriate action. And to be fair, these chants are brief, spontaneous, and passing utterances. They lack sanction and surely do not represent the image that these schools hope to project. Their apologies to the contrary, in an historic moment marked by the rhetoric of color blindness, but not the alleviation of structural racism, the eruption of overt bias, particularly in the guise of clichéd hate speech and “jokes,” far from being abnormal actually reveals the norm, offering keen insights into historically white institutions and the persistence of white supremacy.
While taunting a fellow American citizen by inquiring about his green card exposes great ignorance (Puerto Ricans are US citizens and have been since 1917) and reflects deep antipathy toward Latinos, it is actually in keeping with the history of the University of Southern Mississippi (and countless other colleges and other universities). In fact, USM epitomizes the arc of white supremacy in college sport. Founded in 1910 as an institution devoted to training teachers, USM was like most peers in the South segregated. And like many other public spaces in the USA, students at USM were enamored with Indianness, despite (or perhaps because of) the historic removal of embodied Indians to make way for settler society in southern Mississippi. They choose Neka Camon, “a Native American term meaning ‘The New Spirit’,” as the title for the school’s yearbook. Later, the student body opted to formalize the moniker of the sport teams, selecting the Confederates in 1940. A year later, a slight modification, the Southerners, was substituted. Although in light of the better known history of Ole Miss, this is not surprising, the mascot chosen for athletics a decade later is: USM did not name an anonymous rebel or plantation owner; no, it enshrined Natan Bedford Forest, the infamous leader of the Ku Klux Klan, as its mascot. Desegregated in 1965, USM changed its moniker and mascot to the Golden Eagles in 1972. USM is a quintessential institution of higher learning: historically white, segregated, playing Indian, and celebrating the Confederacy in defiance of the civil rights movement.
The jeer from members of the pep squad (or band) also suggests that USM remains typical, and, despite protestations from administrators, that what is chanted at a basketball game says much about the social landscape of Mississippi today and much about all of us today.
The students chanting, “where’s your green card” were not alone this day, with the state’s politicians legislatively demanding the same of Latinos throughout the state of Mississippi. The state’s House of Representatives passed the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act,” a copycat bill to Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation. Among other things, the bill mandates the police verify immigration status for any person arrested
Mississippi’s Latino population has grown in recent years as the state and its businesses have sought (exploited) Latino labor to rebuild in wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. With a downturn in the economy and the rebuilding process done, scapegoating and demonization has become the new song of the south. Governor Phil Bryant, who has endorsed the bill and will sign into law once the state senate passes the legislation, has said that the bill addresses the state’s “massive, uncontrolled” problem. Similarly, Rodney Hunt, chairman of Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement, voiced support for the law because, “Illegal immigration eliminates a lot of jobs for people who want to provide for their families. Passing this bill will open up more jobs and lower unemployment for the state.”
The proposed law, which uses the term “alien” over and over again, would require police to check the immigration status of people who are arrested. It would also require proof of legal citizenship (or entry) for any business transaction, including securing a driver’s license and a business license. Any violation of “business transaction” portion of the statue constitutes a felony punishable by up to five years in prison or up to a $5,000 fine. The legislation also seeks to regulate education, requiring:
Every public elementary and secondary school in this state, at the time of enrollment in kindergarten or any grade in such school, shall determine whether the student enrolling in public school was born outside the jurisdiction of the United States or is the child of an alien not lawfully present in the United States and qualifies for assignment to an English as Second Language class or other remedial program.
Evident here, and with other parts of the legislation, is how this might as well be renamed the “Show Your Papers” Act.
Although 85 percent of Mississippi’s immigrant families are U.S. citizens, with estimates of paltry number of undocumented workers (25,000), the criminalization of Latinos has become commonplace in Mississippi and throughout country. Although undocumented workers are essential to the economy, particularly in the construction, services, and poultry processing industries, the legislation, chant, and overall climate illustrates an antipathy and level violence that erases the financial, cultural, and social contributions of entire communities. It thus no surprise that we see a chant such as this because it reflects a growing sentiment that Latinos are not valuable members of society; even those citizens, whether it be a Puerto Rican basketball or Mexican-American poultry worker, are seen as outside the grips of U.S. citizenry.
While comforting to dismiss the chant as the South being the South, this framing does not account for what has happened during other sports events and the overall resurgence of public displays of racial bigotry. The commonplace refrain of “What would you expect from South,” and or “that’s typical of the South” does little to advance a conversation about the impact of the heightened level of anti-Latino bigotry throughout the United States and its impact in every aspect of society. The efforts to isolate or explain the issue in relationship to the South elides the larger question as to why we are seeing an increasing willingness of people to vocalize racist sentiments in front of the whole world. As Carmen Lugo-Lugo, associate professor of Critical Culture, Race, and Gender Studies at Washington State University, noted, “Asking for a green card to a Puerto Rican, is like asking a Hawaiian for a birth certificate.” As we have seen in all too many locations, from Honolulu to Jackson, the “show your papers” tide is sweeping the nation and clearly waves are targeting people of color. While it might only be a game, how it is played and how fans cheer and jeer continue to tell us much about the persistence of white supremacy and the ease with which many deny it.
C. Richard King is the Chair of Comparative Ethnic Studies at Washington State University at Pullman and the author/editor of several books, including “Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy” and “Postcolonial America.”
David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He is the author of “Screens Fade to Black: Contemporary African American Cinema” and the forthcoming “After Artest: Race and the War on Hoop” (SUNY Press). Leonard is a regular contributor to NewBlackMan and blogger at No Tsuris.
Isn't the issue really nationality?
Was this a white nationalist movement?
Was it a black nationalist movement, and if so, would any of the opinions in this discussion change? :think:
Was this all as nefarious as some of you are making this out to be? Or was it just a bunch of high school students being obnoxious at a basketball game?
Maybe you can try a make a convincing argument that it wasn't racist.
Southern Miss band chants ‘where’s your green card?’ to Puerto Rican Kansas State player
By Chris Chase | The Dagger – Thu, Mar 15, 2012 4:53 PM EDT
Members of the University of Southern Mississippi band chanted racist taunts at a hispanic Kansas State player during the schools' NCAA tournament game on Thursday.
After point guard Angel Rodriguez was fouled late in the first half of the second-round game, a few band members showered the freshman with cries of "where's your green card?"
The chant and those who participated don't warrant any civilized dialogue. Both are an embarrassment to the university.
Southern Miss president Martha Saunders quickly apologized for the incident.
"We deeply regret the remarks made by a few students at today's game," she wrote in a statement issued two hours after the game. "The words of these individuals do not represent the sentiments of our pep band, athletic department or university. We apologize to Mr. Rodriquez (sic) and will take quick and appropriate disciplinary action against the students involved in this isolated incident."
Rodriguez was spelled incorrectly in the original draft.
As if things could get any more ignorant, the basis for the band's racism was itself misguided. Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States. Even if he hadn't grown up in Miami and starred for a high school basketball team in that city, he'd still be an American citizen and have no need for a green card. Ignorant ignorance; it's the best kind.
Rodriguez and K-State had the last laugh. The Wildcats defeated Southern Miss, 70-64.
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the ... 26741.html
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln