So a section of a marching high school band in Georgia went on the field with the covers on their instruments still in place. The covers each had a letter spelling out the team’s nickname – the Broncos. But this sousaphone section had a more fun idea. They eliminated the b and r and rearranged the remaining letters to form a racial slur.
Now I don’t know about you but if I or any of my siblings or cousins participated in something like that, our mothers would have come down from the stands, grabbed us by the short hairs and hauled us off the field. We would have been lucky to see daylight by spring.
The parents of students at the school are outraged and demanding expulsion or other extreme disciplinary action be imposed on the students who participated. That’s a good thing. But it still begs the question of why those parents didn’t rush the field and drag their offending child off. Humiliating – yes. Warranted – yes.
So where did these students get the idea that they could get away with this kind of joke? Where did the tacit approval emanate from that left them free to be ugly racists at a high school football game? Who taught them how to hate? Maybe their parents? Maybe social media? Maybe Fox News? Maybe the POS currently sullying the White House who gets away with barely veiled racism on a daily basis?
Wherever it comes from, I hope the minds of these students aren’t already so poisoned or stunted that they can’t be pulled back from the path of hate and white supremacy and back on to the only path that will save this country – tolerance, acceptance and respect. It’s in very short supply right now so we need more people being raised to use those values and less people being raise as click bait for white racism, aka the Republican Party.