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Last week, I received an e-mail from a parent who attended a recent varsity away game.  I wasn’t able to go because the game was originally on Friday night and had to be moved to Saturday because of that awful snow storm in October.  Anyway, the e-mail went on to describe how one of the players from the opposing team called my son the “N” word after one of the plays and flipped another player after the play was over.

My son is a trooper!  He wanted to slam the kid, but just walked away so he didn’t receive any penalties for his team for being unsportsmanlike.  After I heard this, I immediately sent a message to the coaches to let them know about it.  My son didn’t even tell me.  I know he was thinking, he didn’t want to make a big deal about it, but a big deal needs to be made.  I received phone calls and e-mails from the coaches and school officials to assure me that they were doing everything to bring this incident to the other teams attention.  They even called to give me an update after their conversations with the Athletic Director, Principal and the student.  The student denied it of course, but at least they all know that we don’t take this type of incident lightly.

Unfortunately, I’m not surprised that this type of thing still happens.  I am an black woman with two teenage boys who are half black and half white.  The fact of the matter is that you wouldn’t even know that they are half white by looking at them.  They just look like they are light skinned.  I have always raised my boys to know their roots and to know that the world will always see them as black.  Unfortunately, that also means that people like that kid who called my boys the “N” word are out there and will use that terminology to make themselves feel better.

My kids know better and that’s all that matters.