By now, you’ve read elsewhere about the ugly racist incident of horrible comments directed at a black player from Portola by a student from Laguna Hills High School. Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan and the rest of the city council has written to the Saddleback School District that the District’s response to the incident was insufficient because it was.
Among my greatest joys of living in Irvine was coaching baseball, soccer and basketball — for boys and girls — and getting to know the kids (now adults) and their families. Kids from literally every ethnicity there is in Irvine have been on my teams and I did my best to teach sportsmanship and make sure they had fun. The showboats who played for me always heard “act like you’ve scored before” after they celebrated a three pointer or a soccer goal a little too much. Win with grace, lose with dignity and always do your best. And I miss those days a lot as my kids are adults now.
The Irvine City Council and Farrah Khan are right to tell Saddleback their response to this incident is not passing muster. It is a teaching moment for every school system and every athletic program. Not just Laguna Hills. Including Irvine.
Now is the time to have a broader discussion that addresses racism in Orange County. And not just racism; bigotry against the LGBTQ community and anti-ageism should be discussed too. In classrooms. In team meetings. In communications with parents. Racism is learned somewhere. It’s not something anyone is born with. And attitudes of racism do change over time when you hear a once tolerant friend use a slur or embrace an image. It’s sad and a real friend should call that out. We have to keep talking about it and learn from it and find ways to be more inclusive.
This is one of those moments where a social studies teacher, a coach, a pastor, a friend, a parent, anyone … needs to step up and talk about racism. Diversity is absolutely a strength, but not if we are divided.
LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano does a decent job of reporting previous incidents of racism across the spectrum here. It’s worth a read.
But a better read are two books by a family friend, Howard Bryant, formerly of ESPN. “Notes from an Uneven Playing Field” and “The Heritage.”
Thanks for the pingback Gustavo; you are still the last person to call me a derogatory name for a person of Polish descent….its actually a slur. But you do you.