Chant at high school basketball game stirs controversy

[SubjectProphet]

To be completely clear, I am not sure punishing the team with legal matters is a good idea for something like this, but it is simply incorrect to deny the chant had a racist meaning to it.

 

It seems to me that you should be legally allowed to say racist things. It is offensive speech but so is a number of other things.

 

It should be dealt with inside of the school without bringing legal matters into it. A temporary suspension for the people chanting and a talk about why it was wrong would do.

 

No, because that'll give them the right to sue the school. Again, freedom of speech. America's laws differ from many other countries. Suspending them will allow a lawsuit, and a talk will cause the kids to run to the media and tell them about how the school thinks they're racist. So, either the school looses money or looses reputation.

[marharth]

I don't care about the school losing money or reputation. I care about them teaching their students. If you have a risk a law suit for that fine.

 

I highly doubt a law suit will go through. I don't think anyone would even bother in the first place but even if they did I doubt any court would rule in their favor.

[SubjectProphet]

I don't care about the school losing money or reputation. I care about them teaching their students. If you have a risk a law suit for that fine.

 

I highly doubt a law suit will go through. I don't think anyone would even bother in the first place but even if they did I doubt any court would rule in their favor.

 

You aren't familier with America are you?

 

Suspending them for expressing freedom of speech is unconstitutional, thus the courts will be against the school for that. It's happened before, the school almost always looses. And losing reputation means less students in the school, and less money coming in.

[marharth]

I doubt less students would go to the school. Most parents probably won't care enough to go through all of the trouble of changing schools.

 

Also I should of been more detailed. By suspended I meant suspended from the team, not the entire school. Pretty sure it is perfectly legal to suspend someone off a schools sports team for being unsportsmanlike.

[SubjectProphet]

I doubt less students would go to the school. Most parents probably won't care enough to go through all of the trouble of changing schools.

 

Also I should of been more detailed. By suspended I meant suspended from the team, not the entire school. Pretty sure it is perfectly legal to suspend someone off a schools sports team for being unsportsmanlike.

 

OH! Lol, I feel stupid now.

 

Yeah, that could happen. But around 95% of the team was chanting.

[Syco21]

Being Australian as I am and, through the posession of a young family and strange working hours, largely ignorant of things going on in the world except for what I manage to read on various news websites, I hadn't heard about this one.

Totally understandable. I don't like it when people get all up in arms because people from other countries don't know every little thing going on in their country, especially when it does not effect them. This wouldn't effect you, so it's totally understandable that you wouldn't know about it.

 

However, I'm largely in the "don't care" basket, because things like this bother me. One crowd starts chanting something which is, to the outside observer like myself, patriotic; another crowd accuses the first of being racist by that same chant.

Being an outside observer, your view is pretty limited. As such, it could very easily appear to be simple patriotism. But when one familiarizes themselves with the illegal immigration issue in America, they begin to see things from a different perspective, where more becomes visible.

 

The opinions on illegal immigration are very passionate. Over the last few years, various problems facing America has only further inflamed those passions. It has lead to fear and anger. Anger that the border has remained unsecure, despite there being a serious problem with crime spilling over. Fear that the illegal immigrants are going to further destabilize the economy, gain some sort of foothold over the government and ruin their state/nation. Whether these fears are legitimate is fairly irrelevant. The fears exist and aren't going away. If you come to Texas and you ask people how they feel about other people moving to their state, especially those from California and the Hurricane Katrina refugees, a lot of them wont have many nice things to say. The fact of the matter is that in the aftermath of Katrina, crime in Houston rose significantly, the state also started using imminent domain to seize property so they could bulldoze it and build apartments for the refugees. Then as the years went by, and Texas suffered quite a few catastrophes, we received very little aid. This only caused strengthened those bad feelings. Then you have the Californians. The way a lot of Texans see it, they screwed their state, sailed it right into a giant iceberg like a bunch of morons, and now they want to fee the ship they sunk. So where do they flee to? Texas. A lot of Californians are moving here and setting up shop. They don't just move here and enjoy the lofty ship built by the Texans, they get involved with politics and try to change the state to be more like California. California and Texas are both a lot alike and very dissimilar. We share many similarities while also having stark differences. In Texas, state policy is largely dictated by Austin, and I don't mean in the sense that Austin is the state capital, but in that Austin holds a lot of influence over the state government. But Austin is wildly different from the rest of the state. It's a liberal mecha, a stronghold for many of the things that a lot of Texans hate. As such, the state government doesn't really represent the interests of Texans as much as it represents the interests of Austinites.

 

Now all of this is happening again. Only this time it's worse, instead of Americans, Mexicans. Mexicans that aren't even here legally. Instead of petty crime, it's cartels and MS-13. Instead of Californians and their stupid liberal agendas, it's Mexicans wanting to leech off the hard working Americans.

 

The purpose of the above paragraphs is to show you how they think, what is going through their mind. To give you a small glimpse of the issues they feel they face. Some of those stances are based in reality, while others are misguided. But whatever the case is, they breed anger and fear, that breeds hatred and hatred breeds racism and xenophobia.

 

Now, as mentioned early, there was an instance where the fans of a ball team chanted USA and Arizona where the context was anti-immigration against the opposing team that primarily consisted of Hispanics. This occurred in Texas and was the game was between two Texan ball teams. This happened at a time when Arizona was all over the papers for the controversial immigration laws. But these were different schools, however the point is not that it means Alamo Heights students are racist, but to show where this has happened before.

 

The point I'm trying to make here is that if you ignore all the other issues, and just look purely at the chant, it will appear that it's just a display of patriotism. But then once you see the bigger picture, when you familiarize yourself with other similar incidences, the immigration issues and the issues related, it becomes a hell of a lot less clear.

 

How does that work? To me, it just reinforces the notion that there are too many people today who will look for trouble and therefore find it where no trouble previously existed; these people need to be shot.

Actually, I am one of those that is very quick to say "that wasn't racism, stop whining." Unfortunately, groups like the NAACP are quick to cry racism where none exists, so that mars the people whom are calling racism, or simply suggesting racism might be at play while having very good reasons. In my opinion, the NAACP has far outlived it's need. They are now nothing more than the little kid that cried wolf and they are harming their own cause.

 

This one's always made me wonder.

 

You have the right to say what you like; however:

* don't say anything which offends, or could be construed to offend, other races/cultures

* don't say anything which offends, or could be construed to offend, those with any form of disability

* don't say anything which offends, or could be construed to offend, those with any form of medical issue

* don't say anything which offends, or could be construed to offend, those of a different religion or faith

* etc...

 

Is there some form of hypocrisy going on here? How can Free Speech have so many conditions attached to it?

If you're talking about my stance on the matter, you're way off. Don't assume. If you're talking about the PC police, you're damn right. They are very hypocritical.

 

Because there are those who don't know what "freedom of speech" means here in America. We say something on our opinion and you get told that you had no right to say that, when the constitution be abide by gave us the right to say it.

 

Why? The media. News groups, more specificly. That bring EVERY little matter up and turn EVERYTHING into a major event, and it causes people to attempt to strip way the freedom of speech from someone. The media needs to have ground rules before it gets way to out of hand.

Ground rules? Who is to devise these ground rules, who is responsible for enforcing these ground rules and what happens when they violate these ground rules?

[Marxist ßastard]

Consider your actions. You just wrote a 1200-word essay defending the right of three teenage race-baiters to attend adolescent ball-handling ceremonies.

 

EDIT:

liberal mecha

http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/gore_robot.jpg

Edited March 10, 2012 by Marxist ßastard

[Nintii]

LATEST VERDICT JUST IN, IT WAS NOT RACIST !

 

Well here's a bit of interesting news that I feel changes my entire perspective on the issue and I quote:

 

"Students from Alamo Heights claim that fans have shouted the phrase in other games including those of non-minorities. Carlos Fuentes, a Hispanic student that was involved in the chant said, “I've heard it at other games. We even chanted it the majority of our games. The Lake Travis game, which is a school that is predominantly Caucasian, much in the same way that Alamo Heights is. We chanted it there. We chanted it at the Edison game. And it's just -- it's almost like a basketball tradition.”

 

end quote.

 

Greely Gazette ... now whether or not they are left wing right wing or just plain chicken wing, the quote is from the students and Greely has merely published it.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Nintii

[Marxist ßastard]

Sounds legit, except Fuentes was one of the three instigators.

 

SAISD already made its decision, a week ago. That decision was made using far more evidence than is available to any of us. Stop trying to second-guess it.

 

And for the third time now: Why do we have people from freaking Johannesburg making a fuss over our teenagers' right to watch adolescent ball-handling ceremonies? Is there really so little going on in the world that we should devote attention to this?

[Syco21]

SAISD already made its decision, a week ago. That decision was made using far more evidence than is available to any of us. Stop trying to second-guess it.

Of second guess the decision of schools and school boards, because they're stupid. Decisions they make often have little to nothing to do with reality.

Edited March 10, 2012 by Syco21