New York Girls Hoops Team Suspended Over Racist Chant

There are a dozen  female basketball players at a western New York high school were serving suspension for chanting a racial slur as part of their warmup routine.  The team at Kenmore East High School, near Buffalo, apparently had chanted “One, two, three [N-word]!” for years, to the ignorance of their coaches and school administrators.  This came to light after the team’s only African Americann student complained to school officials.

Sophomore Tyra Batts, was caught brawling with a teammate over the use of the slurs.  Both girls were suspended for fighting, and Batts said she only learned of the chant ahead of the season opener against Sweet Home High School on Dec. 2. 

“I said, ‘You’re not allowed to say that word because I don’t like that word,'” she told a reporter. “They said, ‘You know we’re not racist, Tyra. It’s just a word, not a label.’ I was outnumbered.”  Fox News

The investigation found that the girls, by the   Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District violated the school’s code of conduct and the extracurricular athletic code, superintendent Mark P. Mondanaro confirmed.  He said the chant, apparently always delivered after adults had left the locker room, was “wrong, unacceptable, unfortunate and will never, ever be tolerated.”

Each player will be suspended for one game across the season, and also receive an out of school suspension of 2 days.  They also will have to go to cultural sensitivity training.  Hold on, the suspension I can see, but now we have sensitivity training?  Get over it, slurs happen everyday, and we move on, we don’t make a big deal over it.  Yet there are those who think the punishment should be more severe.  Move on people.  They’ve been punished, what do they want, jail time for these kids?  It has been blown out of proportion here.  What about the countless slurs others hear?  Nothing is made of them, let alone sensitivity training.  Liberal thinking at its best.

• Posted in: Commentary ♦ Current Events
• Tagged: -American, Kenmore East High School, sophomore Tyra Batts, superintendent Mark P. Mondanaro