5th grade boys AAU. Predominantly minority team (red) against predominantly white team (white). This is only relevant for one reason, which will be clear in a second.

End of the game (my 7th and last of the day), one of the fans for red comes up and asks my partner and I for our names so she can file a complaint with the league. I direct her to the site manager and tell her to file with him, and he can give my name if he chooses. After asking her a few times who she's going to file the complaint with, she says she's filing with AAU on line. (5th grade boys, mind you)

Partner finally chimes in. "Ma'am, have you ever read a rule book?"
"My brother played for the Celtics, I think I know a little something...."
"Ma'am, have you ever read a rule book."
"Yeah, have you ever heard of racism?"

Me: dumbfounded. Unable to even respond to this.
Did I mention it was 5th grade boys?

Worst case scenario, I won't be able to work 5th grade boys AAU for the rest of the year. :)

I once got called a racist in my first year doing a youth league game by a mother of one of the players. The game had all latino players on both teams and I was working with a latino partner. Even IF I was a racist, I would've been a racist "both ways." She didn't seem to understand as my partner walked her away.

She doesn't quite understand who the racist was in this encounter. Hint: It wasn't you.

I had this happen once before -- once a coach told me I was anti-African-American (although I don't think he used this phrase). After I stopped laughing, I just told him I was merely anti-idiot and walked away from him.

Church league game last night.

A1 goes up for a put back He's undercut by B1 as he releases the shot and comes back down. The shot doesn't go and I call the foul from L. B1 starts griping but I hush him pretty quickly.

Since we're working rec and my partners have worked 7 previous games, we don't switch. B1 starts griping again when B2 starts with the "we know what's going on here" crap. After the first FT, B2 is still mouthing, so I asked him, "What does that mean? Tell me, what does it mean?" "I ain't talking to you, I'm talking to my partner," to which I replied, "If you're going to accuse me of something, have the balls to say it to me, not to your partner."

BTW, both A1 and B1 were of the same race.

Sometimes stupidity reigns.

The best part
 

I'd forgotten until tonight, but when I refused to give her my name for her complaint, she responded with, "By law, you have to."
I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

Racism is about feelings of superiority of one race over another, not about disputing calls in a basketball game.

Peace

I agree, Rut. My first thought was, "How is that relevant here?" I understand there's been a lot of crap go on in this country, and that it's still out there; but throwing that into this context seemed strange at the time.
Part of me thinks I should have pushed her to accuse me to my face, in a calm manner, so we could discuss it. Or, I could have asked her what evidence she had to start accusing us of racism.
However, I think the situation was better served by letting it go, and my partner's comments weren't helpful either. Personally, I wonder if this wasn't her way of trying to ignite the situation further so people would take her complaint about a 5th grade boys game seriously.

If you had pushed it, rational discourse would not have been the outcome. That mom was not going to see anything except that you were robbing her little darling of his chance to shine. Dropping it was the smart thing for you to do.

Snaqwells,

No matter what you say it was not going to change their mind. If you are sadistic like me, you might ask questions to get a laugh out of it. But for the most part you are not going to win any argument talking to some fan after a game.

Peace

I believe 999 out of 1000 of us want to referee a good game and give everybody a level playing field. Comments like that steal the joy from a great day of basketball. Why does non-basketball related issues need to be brought into the game? Some people actually think we are concerned with who wins these games. AMAZINGLY IGNORANT!!

Rut is exactly right. When people want to make every issue about race, it makes it more difficult for the real issues to be addressed. For 2 players to suggest that racism would come into play in something as insignificant as a foul call in a church rec league game is completely ignorant and petty and demeaning to everyone involved.

So NOW we know the secret behind the mask! :D

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Peace

Must interject here...

Some black people are very skeptical of an average white person's integrity when dealing with race relations. You can point to slavery, but you can also point to the Jim Crow laws of the 60's or look at the statistically verified bias on your local news tonight. Putting it simply, there is mistrust.

All it takes is one or two calls seen through the subjective eyes of a committed parent to trigger this mistrust. I know we never like to admit that bad refs are out there, but maybe she has had an experience with a racist official. While I in NO WAY excuse her actions (which truly were rediculous), I emplore you all not to further instigate with questions and laughter. It solves nothing, and only serves to further embed her suspicions, which makes it tougher on the next official.

That mistrust is not about what happen 100 years ago, we can find examples in every day life that go on in 2005. The difference is that we are not in an age where things are as obvious and some believe because we celebrate MLK day, we have "overcome."

I would probably say that the perception is that she has seen some racist refs. But a lot of that thunder is taken out if they saw more refs that looked like their team. How about put two Black refs on their games. We talk all the time about "conflicts of interest" here and how certain perceptions are there whether we like it or not. Why not put more official's of color on games where the racial makeup of the teams is obvious?

I had a varsity coach this year say before tip-off, "Why can do I only see 3 Black officials on a game like this and not when I am playing one of the white school?" Everyone in this particular game was African-American (coaches, players, fans). I do not believe that there are many white officials that go out of their way to screw black teams, but the perception is such that they feel that way. So just like the official that does not get assigned to a school where his children attend, why not assign games to take away that gripe? Then if the officiating is bad, all they can say is the officials were bad. They cannot say as easily that we participated in a racist plot.

Peace