Racism Rears Its Pointed Hooded Head At TX HS Basketball Game

Some of us in the Lone Star State sarcastically refer to North Texas, because of its proximity to the madness in the Sooner State, as Baja Oklahoma.

Much of the state house and senate legislative representation in that part of the state is unfortunately Tea Klux Klan, and we all know how racist the Tea Party is.

It seems that the Tea Party racism pimped by FOX Noise, the Tea Party and right wing talk radio to their parents is filtering down to the younglings.

At a boys basketball game played on February 13 between Flower Mound HS and Plano East last Friday that went into triple overtime, some nekulturny Flower Mount HS knuckleheads held up 'White Power' signs that were spotted by the visiting Plano East players and their fans.

“I saw ... [the signs] during the game, and I just didn’t think anything of it until I heard ... [a] racial slur at the free throw line,” Plano East junior player Devin Gifford said in an interview. “I didn’t say anything; I just let students be students.”.  

Gifford posted the photo of the signs on Twitter with the caption, “This is ridiculous I thought we passed the racial stage of society.”

Sadly Kevin, we still haven't evolved to become the beloved community that the Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr talked about.and we have a lot of work to do to get there.

While Flower Mound administrators quickly confiscated the offensive signs, they were still up long enough for them to be photographed, posted and subsequently commented about on social media.  

Flower Mound's head coach issued an emphatic condemnation of the incident via Twitter, and Lewisville ISD Interim Superintendent Kevin Rogers issued this written statement yesterday.

As Interim Superintendent of a very diverse school district and community, I have been involved with our internal investigation regarding the unfortunate occurrence at Friday night’s Flower Mound High School vs. Plano East varsity boys’ basketball game. I want to be clear that this type of incident – however it has been perceived – has not and will not be tolerated in LISD. We have always had high expectations for our more than 53,000 students and hold them to those standards both in and outside of the classroom.

As we stated yesterday, the investigation of this occurrence is still underway, and we fully intend to act on our findings. We regret that this unfortunate event has been elevated to this level on so many social media circles.

I am disheartened that the perceived actions of a few may reflect poorly on two great schools – Flower Mound and Plano East High Schools – school districts and communities. Ultimately, please know we have the highest respect for the students, staff and community of Plano East High School.

The game was a75-73 Flower Mound win, but nobody will remember that this triple overtime boys varsity basketball tilt was considered one of the best games of the 2014-15 Texas high school basketball season.  

This reprehensible incident has overshadowed the result of the game, and has once again in the wake of similar racist incidents at high school games in other parts of the country, shined a necessary spotlight on race and race relations in the US and the lack of societal progress in solving the problem.