Italy is in the midst of a major racism scandal. The Corriere dello Sport decided that was the perfect time to make a racist joke.
Italian soccer has come under fire over the past year for many abhorrent instances of racism, which the Italian FA and Serie A (their top domestic league) has time and again dismissed as nothing much to worry about.
Juventus’ dazzling young striker Moise Kean walked away from the Serie A to go play for an awful Everton team because he was so sick of the monkey chants he was subjected to on the field, chants his own captain refused to back him up over.
Inter Milan’s Romelu Lukaku has also been subjected to multiple instances of racist abuse, which fans and administrators alike have dismissed as not being that big a deal, or a misunderstanding, or just the actions of a few bad apples.
No one there seems to want to do anything about it, and while the rest of the world looks on in horror, the publisher of Corriere dello Spot, a major sporting newspaper in Italy, decided now was the time to make a “Black Friday” joke.
The headline is concerning the Friday matchup between Inter Milan and their striker Romelu Lukaku, and Roma and their central defender Chris Smalling. The match is on Friday. Both players are black. That’s the “joke.”
It’s hard to tell if this is one of the stupidest attempts at tone deaf humor you’ll ever see in sporting journalism, or an antagonistic, trolling act of defiance from people in Italian football. You call us racist? Wait until you see how racist we can get!
A video shows Sarasota City Commission candidate Martin Hyde confronting the young tennis player. In the video, the teenager accuses Hyde of telling him to “go cut grass.”
The alleged confrontation took place last Tuesday at the Bath & Racquet Club in Sarasota.
The incident gained attention late Friday when a video was posted on Twitter. The person filming the video is a 15-year-old Puerto Rican junior tennis player who was at the club for a youth tournament, according to his uncle Javier Irizarry.
“That’s racism, man; how can you say something like that? Aren’t you human?” the young tennis player tells Hyde.
“This is a private club; get out,” Hyde responds.
Sarasota City Commission candidate Martin Hyde (Photo: Dan Wagner/Herald-Tribune)
Hyde then tries to have the person recording the video kicked out of the club in a rolling argument that moves from the tennis courts to inside the club. Somebody again accuses Hyde of racism.
“You’re telling me to cut grass because I’m a Hispanic,” a person on the video says.
Hyde first denies on the video that he made the “cut the grass” comment.
“You said! You said cut some grass, man,” is the response from someone on the video, or possibly multiple people.
“Yes, so what?” Hyde responds.
Hyde adamantly denies saying anything racist but acknowledges he acted inappropriately. Hyde said the players were talking loudly and disrupting a lesson his son was taking, but that he should have handled the situation better.
“I haven’t had anyone condone my poor behavior and I’m not without regret for it myself,” Hyde wrote. “That having been said I agree with those that have said the best form of redemption might be a public one.”
The politician initially said he had planned to quit the Sarasota City Commission race following the allegations, but now says he may continue running for the seat held by Commissioner Liz Alpert.
“I haven’t made a final determination yet as I want to consult with more people whose opinions I value, but for now I’m rescinding my campaign termination,” Hyde wrote in an email.
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Hyde told the Herald-Tribune Saturday that his “Yes, so what?” statement was not an acknowledgment that he made the “cut the grass” comment, but was in response to another allegation.
“I was replying to a previous comment,” about being rude, Hyde said.
The incident apparently got Hyde banned from the Bath & Racquet Club.
A Twitter user who goes by the name Sergiodilanpr wrote that he was one of the individuals involved in the confrontation with Hyde. Posting in Spanish under the Twitter handle @sergiodilan101, Sergiodilanpr wrote that he was in the middle of a conversation when Hyde came up and asked where they were from and if they knew how to speak English.
The teenagers told the politician that they were from Puerto Rico and they knew how to speak English. That’s when Hyde began to start shouting at them, according to Sergiodilanpr.
“After he yelled at us, he left and sat a table a little away from us and continued staring,” Sergiodilanpr said. “My partner and I looked at each other and smiled nervously, which he sees and asks ‘whats so funny?’ And I answered, ‘nothing about this is funny.'”
That’s when Hyde told them to “go cut grass,” according to Sergiodilanpr.
“We had never felt more upset, frustrated, uncomfortable and sad,” writes Sergiodilanpr.
The Twitter thread by Sergiodilanpr also mentioned that Hyde said he would give them $50,000 for the video, something Hyde denies.
Hyde said in a text message that the claim that he would offer $50,000 “for a video I didn’t even know existed is a blatant and ridiculous lie.”
The wealthy Sarasota businessman and prominent Republican is known for being brash and outspoken. He ran for a City Commission seat in 2017 and lost, but has remained active in local politics and is a fixture at city meetings.
The Herald-Tribune uncovered a police report from February that detailed another incident in which Hyde was accused of using racially charged language in a confrontation with some construction workers.
A pair of construction managers told police that the politician was on their property when Hyde yelled an obscenity and told “Mexicans” to “turn off their Spanish music.”
Hyde disputed using obscene language. Asked whether he remarked about the workers playing “Spanish music” Hyde said: “I can’t remember what I said nine months ago, who knows. I can’t confirm or deny.”
The confrontation was part of what the construction managers described to police as “ongoing disputes” with Hyde, who has a history of confrontations documented by police.
Hyde’s behavior has drawn scrutiny in the past. The Herald-Tribune published an article during the 2017 race that delved into questions about Hyde’s temperament.
“Documents filed during Hyde’s lengthy 2010 divorce reveal accusations, later dropped, that he threatened his ex-wife, and police reports detail heated exchanges with officers during traffic incidents,” the Herald-Tribune reported, noting that Hyde was described by officers as “irate” and “belligerent.”
Hyde also has been aggressive in criticizing the City Commission. He typically is unapologetic about his behavior, styling himself as a no nonsense truth teller, but has been more contrite after the latest incident.
“I was rude and, yeah, it’s not appropriate,” Hyde told the Herald-Tribune Saturday, even as he insisted he did nothing racist.
Contributing: Adrianna Rodriguez, USA TODAY. Follow Zac Anderson on Twitter: @zacjanderson
The Detroit Denby football coach said Almont High School fans spit on and used racial slurs including the N-word toward players.
The postgame fracas between members of the Denby High School (Detroit) football team and Almont High (Lapeer County, Michigan) escalated as Denby players were spit on, cursed at and endured racial slurs, according to witnesses, the Free Press has learned.
Detroit Public Schools Community District Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said Sunday the school district was withholding any possible disciplinary action pending a review of Saturday’s Division 5 state semifinal football game, which was called off early in the fourth quarter because of excessive personal fouls.
Almont won the game, 36-8, at Walled Lake Central High School.
As players were exiting the field, tensions escalated after a Denby player shoved an Almont band member. Almont fans then began hurling racial slurs at Denby players, some of whom reacted by throwing helmets or shoes or climbing a fence that separated fans from the playing field.
According to Denby coach Deon Godfrey, the racist remarks included the N-word and began as early as when Denby players took a knee during the national anthem before the game.
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“Our cameraman is white and was filming near some Almont fans,” Godfrey said. “During the national anthem, he overheard them saying: ‘Look at these N-words taking a knee and they don’t even know why they’re doing it,’ and they kept going.”
Denby’s white coaches also were being called “wiggers,” Godfrey said, and “grown men and women started spitting on our kids as they walked up the ramp. They were throwing food, cups and whatever.”
“They called my student trainer a little monkey and they were saying: ‘Who let them off their leashes?’ ” Godfrey said. ” ‘They need to be on a leash. They never should have been here in the first place.’ ”
A punch was thrown, Godfrey said, after an Almont parent “bumped my player and (the player) bumped him back.” The parent punched the player in the face, before “my players started running to his aid.”
No arrests were made, according to the Oakland County’s Sheriff’s Department, but a spokesperson said Monday officers are still investigating the incident. A Denby player was briefly detained to ensure his safe removal from the situation. Almont players and coaches were not involved in the fracas.
“The school district is deeply disturbed by the actions witnessed this weekend during the Almont-Denby game,” Vitti said in an amended statement Monday. “Based upon preliminary findings, it is our understanding that Almont adult spectators were cursing and spitting on our coaches and players after the game while leaving the field. The disrespect toward the city, school, and players continued on social media after the game where Almont fans used numerous racist stereotypes. We look forward to getting to the bottom of what occurred based on factual evidence to determine the district’s next steps on how to best support our school and its administration, coaches, and students.”
One Saturday morning in the fall of 1959, Bobby Smith would’ve been found walking his way up to a big white house on Santa Fe street. The owner, a man by the name of Colonel Blakely, had heard of Smith’s success playing for the Miller football team as a running back and wanted to meet him.
Inviting him to his home, the Colonel asked, “How many touchdowns you score?” Smith answered three. The Colonel handed Smith $300.
This back and forth continued throughout the season as the Colonel wanted Smith, one of the top running backs in the country, to play for the Michigan Wolverines, one of 61 schools vying for Smith’s commitment.
While Miller missed the playoffs by one game in ‘59, losing the district title 14-10 to rival Ray, who went on to win the Class 4A state championship that year, Smith still made history. Smith became the first black football player to be named to the Texas Sports Writers Association all-state first team in Texas high school football history.
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This year marks the 60th anniversary of Smith receiving that honor.
“It really didn’t mean that much to me at the time,” said Smith, 77. “I was the first in a lot. I got along with everybody at Miller. My senior class we had about eight or nine blacks and back in those days Miller was a huge school because you had just Miller and Ray. I was class favorite, I got voted class favorite, I got to know it didn’t make me no different.”
Smith may have broke a barrier in Texas but his experience was not uncommon in the Coastal Bend. From Refugio to Robstown and from Kingsville to downtown Corpus Christi, South Texas helped lead the way with integration in the late 50s following Brown vs. Board of Education’s landmark ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
While many areas of Texas did not integrate until the late 60s or later, blacks, whites and Hispanics were going to school together in the Coastal Bend in the Fall of 1955, just one year after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Many of these men did not see themselves as trail blazers, but they paved the way for the generations of black football players who step onto a football gridiron any given night. But at the time, they did not realize their accomplishments, they were playing the high-quality football that Corpus Christi and South Texas experienced in the late 1950s.
PAVING THE WAY
Smith, along with linebacker LeeFord Fant, integrated the Miller football team in 1957 and became the main running back for head coach Pete Ragus’ Wing-T offense. But he almost never got to play.
Despite receiving a football every Christmas from the time he was six years old, and always playing with the neighborhood kids, Smith was undersized all through junior high. John Thomas, the head coach of Solomon Coles Junior High, told Smith he would never play football.
Miller halfback Bobby Smith became the first black football player named first team all-state after his senior season in 1959. Smith went on to play football at North Texas State and with the Buffalo Bills.
(Photo: Caller-Times file)
“I couldn’t run at all man, I was the slowest thing in town,” Smith said. “But I wanted to play football, I didn’t care. Everybody in the neighborhood used to laugh at me because I’d come home from school and I’d just run, run, run around the block. The next year, I don’t know what happened, like God just touched me. And I could run, I grew, that’s the end of the story.”
For the students at Miller, going to school and playing football with all races was all they had known since junior high. Corpus Christi ISD integrated all levels — kindergarten through 12th grade — in 1955 following the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.
“We were all used to seeing blacks by the time we got to high school and we all got along great,” said Ray Gonzales, who quarterbacked Miller in 1960. “There was no controversy, there was no prejudice from the white guys who went to Miller from the Driscoll area. Within the athletes everybody respected each other.”
Stephen F. Austin adjunct professor Robert D. Jacobus’ book “Black Man in the Huddle: Stories from the Integration of Texas Football,” includes an entire chapter about the Miller football teams from the 50s and 60s.
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To him, a large reason integration was successful was due to the smaller black population in Corpus Christi and South Texas as opposed to places like East Texas where the population can be as much as 50 percent, Jacobus said.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the demographics of the area,” Jacobus said. “Like in the Valley where you have one percent African-American, putting a couple black students into a white environment is not going to be a big deal. If you’d have done that in East Texas there’d have been a riot.”
With individuals such as Johnny Roland, Willie Adams, Art Delgado and others all following Smith to Miller, the players focused more on how good they could be by the time they were seniors rather than how they were bringing the races together on a football team.
Smith led Miller to the 1958 state semifinals, a 7-6 loss to Pasadena, where Miller became the first team with black players to play at Rice Stadium. But the game that stuck with Smith the most was against Midland.
“They all started chanting ‘Let’s beat the n****r team.’ It was messed up. I’ll never forget about that,” Smith said.
In that game, where racial slurs were hurled at the black and Hispanic players on the team, Smith all but single handedly beat them by returning a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown and scored an 81-yard rushing touchdown in the 18-8 win.
After the game, Ragus skipped his regular postgame prayer and told the team to get on the bus with their helmets on and the windows shut as they drove home.
An investigation into a Kansas high school volleyball match found no proof of racist chants, despite concern about the investigation’s methods by the school alleging the racist behavior.
A high school volleyball match in Kansas brought allegations of racist chants by a homestanding team, only for a state association investigation to conclude that there was no proof that the alleged offensive behavior actually happened.
As reported by Kansas City CBS affiliate KCTV, Piper (Kan.) High School student athletes accused Baldwin City (Kan.) High students of directing monkey noises at them. But a Kansas Association of School Boards (KASB) investigation into the incident found that the reported sounds could not be verified by interviews or video footage that was reviewed by the KASB.
The report detailed how investigators used 37 statements from Baldwin City students, staff, parents and officials at the game, as well as a dozen in-person interviews, including three Piper students and their guardians. They also reviewed video a Baldwin City parent shot of the entire game.
According to the KASB, the investigation found that Piper students heard crowd noises and interpreted them as racially charged but there was no evidence that Baldwin City students made racially charged noises or chants.
While both school districts are allegedly moving on from the incident, Piper’s interim superintendent expressed frustration with the lack of students from his school that were interviewed as part of the investigation.
Today, a statement from Baldwin USD 348 was issued regarding an incident that occurred at a volleyball match between Piper High School and Baldwin High School. Piper students reported hearing racially charged comments directed toward them. The statement from Baldwin indicates investigators spoke to dozens of Baldwin students, staff, and parents. While Piper did decline the opportunity to co-sponsor the KASB investigation, the district did offer the investigators access to our players, coaches and administrators as needed to complete the investigations. Investigators spoke to only three Piper students and their guardians but failed to speak to any other Piper parents, coaches or athletic director as to their version of events at the contest.
From my perspective, I stand with the students of Piper and support their version of events and feel enough is enough. This is at least the fourth instance within the last three years of our students being subjected to racially charged comments while participating in student activities and athletic events at various schools. We are proud of our students in their resilience through extremely difficult situations that young people should never have to face.
As a society, we can no longer allow people to make excuses for unacceptable behavior that is disrespectful and dismissive of certain groups. Piper USD 203 students and staff will continue to treat people with respect and dignity going forward as we seek to maintain and improve our own district’s culture.
