… Bishop Noll won the game 56-52, but Andrean won the headlines. How? By using racially-charged cheering tactics made popular by a GOP presidential frontrunner.
In Andrean’s cheering section, a handful of impassioned super-fan students hoisted a large Fathead photo of Trump, along with a sign stating “ESPN DEPORTES.”
This echoes Trump’s campaign rhetoric against illegal immigrants and his promise to build a wall along the Mexican border.
“Build a wall!” Andrean students yelled to Bishop Noll students, who are majority Latino.
[snip]
First, it was only a small group of teenage students who incited the intolerant chants and unsportsmanlike behavior. I’m told by fans of both schools that such taunting has taken place at previous games between the teams and nothing came of it. They’re just young, passionate sports fans being a bit too fanatical.
Second, those impressionable fans were regurgitating the same inflammable rhetoric from a bona fide presidential candidate. Trump is an unsportsmanlike fanatic whose blowhard taunting has endeared him into the hearts and minds of millions of enraged supporters.
Just as his fat-headed antics have gained him helpful newspaper headlines, the high school students’ Fathead antics have gained them headlines for all the wrong reasons. Yet they’re the ones being scrutinized (and possibly punished) for the same tactics that are attracting high poll numbers for a billionaire bully.
Third, this incident all stemmed from a viral social media post that caught wind from a media frenzy before it caught the attention of school officials. Blame who you will here. The telling incident got sensationalized before it got sanitized.
Blame who you will?
OKAY.
I will blame stupid, racist little assholes. Donald Trump’s bullshit makes other people’s bullshit excusable because he’s a “bona fide presidential candidate?” My 2-year-old doesn’t get to pull out “he hit me first,” much less “he hit me first and took my toys and by the way he’s running for president so I get a free pass for clocking him with a Speak and Spell.” Give me a fucking break.
I mean, the justification here is amazing and … nonsensical. “This incident all stemmed from a viral social media post that caught wind from a media frenzy?” WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SENTENCE? Just because you read about it on Facebook before you were spoonfed the official account from the school’s spokesperson doesn’t mean it’s not true, or loathsome. And nothing “caught wind” (????) from a “media frenzy” (Social media? Other media? Can something catch wind from itself?) except that at public event people in full view of approximately 600 cameras said stupid, bigoted shit.
As to “young, passionate sports fans being a bit too fanatical,” um, no. “Fuck your mothers!” is being too fanatical. “Build a wall!” being yelled at Hispanic students is being a bit too RACIST, which is not something one becomes no matter how passionate one is about one’s rivalry. Me and mine hate the Minnesota Yellow Golden Rodents Gophers with all our hearts and will call them sister-humping hicks and Canada’s Rejects and yell HIT ‘EM AGAIN HARDER HARDER and any manner of things, but the n-word doesn’t jump to the front of our mouths just because screw those guys. You do not get caught up in the moment and become a bigot.
These are high school kids, yeah, and we are all a little dumb in high school, but we get nowhere when the supposed adults try to make it seem like our dumbassery is okay and reaction to it is “sensationalized.” We do not grow one bit that way. Your high school years are supposed to be about beating that stupidity out of you, not reinforcing it by saying hey, they were just keeping up with the Trumpses.
A.