Anti-gay cheers at bball game

[Anonymous]

Folks are so quick to trot out the "hate" accusation. Do you think it's "homophobic" and "hate speech" when teenagers make jokes about not bending over to pick up the soap in the locker room? Calm down, they're just being red blooded American teenage guys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just because a teenager chants a song at a Bball game doesn't mean he hates gays. Folks on this thread need to take a deep breath, relax, and go pursue a more important activity.

Amen, brother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just because a teenager chants a song at a Bball game doesn't mean he hates gays. Folks on this thread need to take a deep breath, relax, and go pursue a more important activity.

Amen, brother.

So, what? It's still inappropriate, and it doesn't make the gay students or families in the audience feel any better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I recall two specific incidents at a Bullis Prep basketball game several years ago. One was the GP fans yelling "taco bell" when a specific brown skinned player on Bullis had the ball. He was arab by the way.
The second was that the Prep coach was berating his team at halftime in the locker room. He was overheard by the Bullis coach saying "it's one thing to be losing, but another to be losing to a bunch of jews".

What else needs to be said?

I have no affiliation to Prep but I don't believe any coach in this area in this day and age would say this. Maybe I am naive but I find this doubtful.

I agree. Unless you are that Bullis coach, I assume you did not witness this yourself. Pretty serious allegations to make on an anonymous message board.

As you said, if it happened it was 15 years ago. But even if true, the coach was just playing into old myth about Jews being so-so athletes (just like the stereotype about eating in Chinese restaurants on Christmas). And no doubt Prep plays into the "Catholic basketball powerhouse" stereotype. (I know another private school where the teams know they're in for an uphill game whenever they play a school with "Saint" in its name.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just because a teenager chants a song at a Bball game doesn't mean he hates gays. Folks on this thread need to take a deep breath, relax, and go pursue a more important activity.

Yes, but please consider the effect of those words on others. This chant or song ("say he's just a friend" -- but we all know he isn't because you're gay!) is meant to put down, or insult, an opponent by insinuating that they are gay. It perpetuates and reinforces the idea that being gay is clearly a bad thing, a real defect or weakness in a person (otherwise why is it considered a put-down?). (Is it similarly an insult to insinuate that someone is "straight"? Perhaps it should be.)

In any case, it really does impact those young men in the audience who are gay, and who are perhaps struggling with that fact at a very vulnerable age, and in a society where many people clearly still view that as a defect. How do I know? Because I (a woman) volunteered for a youth organization, and one day found one of our male students clearly broken up and upset about something. He confided in me that he was gay, which I had not suspected, and that he was upset because several of his classmates/teammates/colleagues had been joking "you're a f@#", and no "i'm not a f@#" in their group that afternoon. He told me it really hurt, because even though he had come to accept the fact of his sexuality (as clearly he had, since he shared that fact with me), it nevertheless let him know that his friends (to whom he had not yet come out) essentially rejected, looked down on, and had a very negative view of his sexuality.

It was so painful for me to see that, and it really did change the way I thought about the casual use of derogatory words and insinuations. It's just hurtful, it really is, even if no real 'hate' is intended. Please remind your young men of that fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is at Prep and this cheer is inappropriate and unacceptable. OP please let me know what date this occurred and was it a Varsity basketball game?

Thank you, PP. This was at the varsity game against STA (at STA), evening of 2/12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has been bothering me for a few days, so I'm sharing. I was at the Georgetown Prep-St Albans basketball game last week. At some point, the Prep fan section started singing "But you say he's just a friend" at the STA section (remember the old Biz Markie song?), clearly reworded to offend the other fans by calling them gay. I was so, so bummed. Yes, that kind of thing happened when I was a kid, but I thought we had moved beyond it. I was going to just say something to the GP coach, but then the STA guys did it right at the end of the game. Not as bad as coming up with and planning it in the first place, but I wish they'd been able to take the high road.

Sad. These kids should know better, at the very least know not to behave like that at an event where lots of families from both communities (and local press) show up.

Since when is this song anti-gay.

[Anonymous]

Let me clarify this whole situation.
The chants were not meant to be homophobic at all, regardless of how they were perceived. St. Albans' hockey team beat Georgetown Prep's hockey team twice in the week before the basketball game. The STA fans began a chant of "swiss cheese [GP Goalie]" as if to say he was made of holes for allowing so many goals. The St. Albans' hockey team's victory song is (for whatever reason) Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." Thus, when the STA fans began to mock GP's hockey team, GP fans responded by mocking STA's hockey team and their ridiculous choice of victory music. When St. Albans won the basketball game, they sang the song back as if to say "we don't care if you think our victory music is stupid, we're going to sing it when we win." None of the cheers where homophobic in any capacity, although it is easy to see how they could be interpreted that way.

[Anonymous]

What about the song about first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage? That's also meant to be teasing, because it is about romance and a tender kind of sweet relationship rather than aggressive or tough one. Just saying not all chance that something is tender rather than tough are homophobic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son is at Prep and this cheer is inappropriate and unacceptable. OP please let me know what date this occurred and was it a Varsity basketball game?

Thank you, prep Mom! A new commenter , not op.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let me clarify this whole situation.
The chants were not meant to be homophobic at all, regardless of how they were perceived. St. Albans' hockey team beat Georgetown Prep's hockey team twice in the week before the basketball game. The STA fans began a chant of "swiss cheese [GP Goalie]" as if to say he was made of holes for allowing so many goals. The St. Albans' hockey team's victory song is (for whatever reason) Biz Markie's "Just a Friend." Thus, when the STA fans began to mock GP's hockey team, GP fans responded by mocking STA's hockey team and their ridiculous choice of victory music. When St. Albans won the basketball game, they sang the song back as if to say "we don't care if you think our victory music is stupid, we're going to sing it when we win." None of the cheers where homophobic in any capacity, although it is easy to see how they could be interpreted that way.

Thank you for posting this.

[Anonymous]

Men make fun of each other. We still need the kind of men who won world war 2.

Keep the PC nonsense in the woman's crowd. Some men need to live in the real world for all of our safety.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: I recall two specific incidents at a Bullis Prep basketball game several years ago. One was the GP fans yelling "taco bell" when a specific brown skinned player on Bullis had the ball. He was arab by the way.
The second was that the Prep coach was berating his team at halftime in the locker room. He was overheard by the Bullis coach saying "it's one thing to be losing, but another to be losing to a bunch of jews".

What else needs to be said?

I have no affiliation to Prep but I don't believe any coach in this area in this day and age would say this. Maybe I am naive but I find this doubtful.

I agree. Unless you are that Bullis coach, I assume you did not witness this yourself. Pretty serious allegations to make on an anonymous message board.

As you said, if it happened it was 15 years ago. But even if true, the coach was just playing into old myth about Jews being so-so athletes (just like the stereotype about eating in Chinese restaurants on Christmas). And no doubt Prep plays into the "Catholic basketball powerhouse" stereotype. (I know another private school where the teams know they're in for an uphill game whenever they play a school with "Saint" in its name.)

Schools know they're in for an uphill game when they play Saint Anselm's? I can't think of another Catholic high school with Saint in their name. I believe that the only "Catholic Powerhouse" teams at SAAS are things like Math Decathalon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: What about the song about first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage? That's also meant to be teasing, because it is about romance and a tender kind of sweet relationship rather than aggressive or tough one. Just saying not all chance that something is tender rather than tough are homophobic.

That song would be interpreted as insensitive to and microaggressive against gays.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Men make fun of each other. We still need the kind of men who won world war 2.

Keep the PC nonsense in the woman's crowd. Some men need to live in the real world for all of our safety.

God bless a sensible American view for a change!