Black Jerseys
 

Had a partner over the weekend for CYO 6th grade game. One team had black uniforms with red accents. This team had two black players and a black coach. He wanted to call them "Red" during the game. I told him to get real. Go with "Black shirts" if you have an issue.

I suppose this may be an issue for some people out in the world. Is there protocol in other parts of the officiating world? Non-white officials not wanting to call home team "White"? :)

First I have ever heard of something like that. I'm color-blind. I like when teams have black uni's. Teams with dark red or burgandy get called "black" by me.

Sounds like the coach has issues. I would have went with "black" was well. Fortunately I have never had this come up.

Not the coach; his partner.

You should have suggested using "achromatics" or "total absorption". :D

Makes me feel a little better for calling Maroon, Red. :)

I've had games where the team with predominantly white players wore black jerseys, and the team with predominantly black players wore white jerseys.

Everyone (players, coaches, officials) smiled the first few times fouls / violations were called. Even a few fans chuckled. By the middle of the first quarter, it was a non-issue.

Silly. Just silly.

I guess I would have a problem every game as many that wear the white are white people. Or if I give a timeout and give it to the coach that is white there would always be a problem. Or the one time I call the coach that happens to be Black, and say "Timeout, white coach" the ceiling is going to fall. I guess some folks have to be upset about something.

Peace

I still find it strange that when I do the tip, a black player wearing black and a white player wearing white, and I go black going this way and white going that way.

I played in an independent tourney many years ago. Both teams showed up in the same color gold jerseys. Our team was all white. Their team was all black.
Officials identified us as "black" and "white." Nobody seemed to have a problem with it.

you're right - I misread it

I love it.

Few things anger me as much as racism, but when we get excessively sensitive to it, it doesn't lend much to the end game of equality.

+1000

"Bein' Green" (Kermit the Frog) ...
 

Just like God, Dr. Naismith, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. intended it to be. This would be a pretty boring planet if we were all the same color.

Not to take away from the black/white jersey, but I had a team wearing orange jerseys for the first time I can ever remember the other day. Surprising, as I've been doing this for almost a decade, but I couldn't think of another.

Anyway, any of you call orange anything but orange? Every other color I see gets a one-syllable color. Purple is "blue", burgundy is "red", yellow is "gold", chartreuse is, well, whatever it's close to (isn't that greenish?).

So, anyone ever change orange to anything else?

I call it red.

I call it "red."

Peace

+1

I say "orange" as close to one syllable as possible.

When I called in South Carolina, even "red" was two syllables for most of my partners, so I guess it shouldn't be that much trouble to say "orng"...

I suggested red to my partners as suggested above, but they didn't like it. No biggee, but good to see others thinking my way. :D

Don't tell me...the partner lives in Namby-Pamby Land, right?

political correctness to the extreme
 

A buddy of mine is from England, now lives here and married a woman from the United States. She is very politically correct.

First time he takes her to England to meet his friends and family, he introduces her to his best friend who happens to be black.

After chatting for a few minutes, she giggles and the friend asks what's funny?

She says, "Oh, nothing, I have just never heard an African-American with an English accent before."

He looks at her kind of funny and says.....



"I'm neither African or American.....I was born here in the UK!":eek:

Go Back 200,000 Years ...
 

Every single one of us was originally from what is now called Africa. All of us that were born in the United States are African American. My ancestors just happened to pass through Ireland before they came here. Others, unfortunatley, were forced to take a more direct route.

I'm fairly sure I just mash it into a single syllable.

I have had a player wearing yellow correct me when I called it gold.

"Yes, but that's two syllables."

It just shows how dumb people are and how they do not even realize that being Black and African-American are totally different things. One is a race classification, the other is a ethnicity. You could technically racially White and be African-American. Ask Charlize Theron who was born in South Africa but lives in L.A.. I do not know if she has citizenship in this country, but if she was she would be an African-American. Only people that do not know try to say something is wrong with calling someone "Black." :rolleyes:

Peace

I had a friend that immigrated from Jamaica. He really didn't like being called African-American.

Because he is not. I grew up with a Nigerian family and they were not African-Americans in the truest form of the term. I also know Black people from Trinidad and Jamaica and other island countries.

I was in South Africa this summer and I met a lot of Africans that were not Black. And many of them looked just like people in this country but had origins from other countries, but grew up and lived in South Africa all their life. And I guess I also get a little tired of "We were born in America" talk. No crap, but that does not take away from our heritage or where our ancestry comes from and people wanting to claim that.

Peace

Agreed. I grew up in an area where "heritage" wasn't celebrated much. But when I went to college, in a small Dutch town in NW Iowa, I got a taste of what it's like for people to celebrate their heritage.

If I never see another tulip again....

+1 Billy

pronouncing the word red correctly....
 

THAT WOULD BE "RAY-EDD"...... for those of you who need a translator.... :D

My HS had a Tennessean US history teacher who would come into class, tell the students that the topic of the day was "farm policy" and proceed to discuss Kissinger and Nixon's trip to China.

Love your neighbor, love the GAME.
 

The neighborhood I grew up in was like "Hands-across-America". We had 2 Black kids, 2 White kids, and 1 Japanese-Hawaiian. We went to each other's 3rd Birthday parties and attended school together all the way through 12th grade.

We played ball in our dead-end street, be it football, baseball, basketball we were happy to be outside. (Don't see this activity from kids much anymore).

Anyway to get to the butt-feathers here...

We would often rotate our match-ups while playing basketball, weather permitting, we would play "Shirts-vs-Skins". Often it would be the 2 Black kids on one team -vs- the 2 White kids on the other... yet we would still play shirts and skins! We just didn't think about it, hey if that kids a different color than you don't pass him the ball. Duh.

I've run into this issue with partners over the years. Initially I'll admit I was unsure how to address it, but now with "political correctness" screwing with the moral foundation of our country, my position is "if the team didn't want to be called black, they wouldn't be wearing black...it's black!"

The two colors I have difficulty with are orange and purple. Those I'll change to a single syllable color, most likely red and blue.