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I'm certainly not going to jump in with both feet on the side of the coach in this case.
Two of my own biases jump to the front when I see a story like this:
1) Coaches can get very emotional to the point of being irrational especially around playoff time.
2) There is still an awful lot of racism out there that we seem unable to face.
I can't really comment much directly on the incident or the article without knowing a hell of a lot more. I will say that, lacking more information, it doesn't seem right for the paper to publish the names of the officials.
I also want to state that, in my opinion, both on this board and elsewhere we put an unfair burden on the victims of racism to prove each case before they speak up. We all acknowledge that racism still exists in some theoretical sense, but if someone cries racism, 9 times out of 10 (a statistic I willingly admit I pulled out of my butt) they are accused of playing the race card or making excuses for their own faliures and any productive discussion is cut off. I think it's important to imagine what kind of perfect storm involving a burning cross and a drinking fountain sign someone would have to have in order to come here and spark a decent discussion about race.
We can point to the fact that this incident is too shrouded in questions to lend itself to a good discussion. Fine, take a step or two back and make a point. Or answer examples without names or other specifics without using the same conversation stoppers. We need to stop congratulating ourselves for the civil rights advancements that were made 30 and 40 years ago and allow serious and difficult conversations to occur.
I have seen a few references recently to adults who allow students to use racism as an excuse to fail being banned from working with kids (although I suspect that many people who try to help kids deal with racism also try to help them battle through it). So far, I haven't seen anyone call for a ban on adults who propogate subtle racism against kids or engage in low expectations. Is that because there is no concern about these people working with kids, or because we don't think this exists? Are we afraid that there wouldn't be enough adults left to work with kids?
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