BLM protest and overreaction triggers parental outrage

[Thumpalumpacus]

The 8- and 9-year-old Gibbstown Falcons ran onto their opponent’s field, their football helmets bouncing up and down like they were little bobbleheads. It was Sunday, Oct. 4, and the 28 members of the youth football team in Gloucester County lined up on the field for the national anthem.

“Coach Shad,” said a Falcons player, using the team’s nickname for coach Rashad Thomas. “I want to kneel.”

“I’ll kneel with you," Thomas said.

Thomas and the player took a knee. An assistant coach did the same.

Thomas, the team’s head coach of three years, told the players they did not have to kneel just because he was. But one by one, players dropped down, until other than three coaches, the entire team was kneeling and holding hands.

For a split second, it was a beautiful moment, said Thomas.

A group of parents in the stands — three of them board members responsible for overseeing the league’s operations — began to yell profanities, demanding their children stand up. Witnesses said one mother said the coaches would be fired, and even walked onto the field to pull her son up from his knee by his shoulder pads. Some players started to cry.

Within hours, four board members voted to suspend the entire Falcons coaching staff, asserting that the coaches ordered the boys to kneel.

The fallout has only built in the weeks since. The coaches' suspension was lifted after statewide outcry. Two of the board members who came down from the stands that day have been suspended for cursing, a punishment that critics say doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Now, coaches across the program may resign and dozens of parents — from the combined eight football and cheerleading teams — have threatened to pull their kids to stand up against what they believe was a series of racist actions taken by the league’s board.

[...]

Just as the boys grasped one another’s hands and the national anthem began to play across the speakers, loud voices boomed from the bleachers.

“Hey! Get up!” one father, Scott Schneider, who’s also a member of the football league’s board, screamed from the bleachers, according to coaches. “Get the f— up!”

Coaches said a mother, Katie Dell, also a league board member, yelled similar profanities and demanded her son stand. Dell, who is the cheerleading coach, marched from the sidelines onto the field, and pulled her son up by his shoulder pads.

“We didn’t raise you that way!” another parent yelled, according to witnesses.

Schneider took to Facebook that afternoon, writing that “whoever told my son kneel and hold hands is a disrespectful piece of s—!”

Dell declined to comment for this story. Schneider could not be reached by phone or Facebook message. His wife, also a board member, declined to comment.

In a Facebook post, after coaches and teams from around the state spoke out against the suspension of the Falcons coaches, the board issued an apology: “We respect everyone’s right to display their peaceful personal expressions and beliefs. What happened ... was unacceptable on many levels and will not be tolerated in the future.”

My son played Pop Warner football for two years, about ten years ago. I worked on the chain gang those two years, and of course saw idiot parents get carried away, yelling and cussing at their kids -- to the point a couple of them were removed by security. So not only can I believe these douche-nozzles actually douched, but I can imagine just how hurt these boys in this article must have felt.

Makes me wonder who the goddamned adults were in this story. The kids are the ones who will lose out from the stupidity of the adults.

[Szuchow]

I just wonder how much of a failure person must be to oppose such gesture made by kids? Really not even snowflakiest snowflakes from right wing clowns delusions are as fragile as parents mentioned in this article.

[GenesisNemesis]

Should people who disrespect police be jailed or shot? Apparently so according to people like those parents.

[brewerb]

May you live in interesting times.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Those parents had an opportunity to present a great example for those kids. Those parents blew it.

[Minimalist]

There are no requirements for being a parent.

[jerryg]

Fuck the crazy parents obviously, but I also don't think we need to be putting 8 and 9 year olds in these positions.

People who still need help tying their shoes shouldn't have to make that choice before wobbling around the field in oversized helmets.

It's a serious choice with serious repercussions that adults still struggle with. NFL teams have lengthy team meetings where they try to balance the views of everyone in the lockerroom and struggle to come up with answers. And they're springing it on 2nd graders. At the same time, the coach kneeling with the kid that wants to do it seems right too.

It's a tough situation all around. I certainly wouldn't have liked it, because I want my kid making those decisions on their own when they have the capacity and information to do so. Not in a confused peer pressure situation. At the same time, I'd have just talked to her afterwards, explained what happened, and in 2nd grade, I'm sure she'd have wanted to kneel. Of course, I have no particular allegiance to the flag or the anthem, so she'd be getting a pretty one-sided opinion, and just be adopting what I thought, rather than making her own choice.

But we see how miserable politics has made everyone in this country. Trying to create toddler activists is fine if that's what you want as a parent, but I'd like to kick that can down the road, and let the kid be a kid until they at least have the capacity to think for herself a bit.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Fuck the crazy parents obviously, but I also don't think we need to be putting 8 and 9 year olds in these positions.  

People who still need help tying their shoes shouldn't have to make that choice before wobbling around the field in oversized helmets.

It's a serious choice with serious repercussions that adults still struggle with. NFL teams have lengthy team meetings where they try to balance the views of everyone in the lockerroom and struggle to come up with answers. And they're springing it on 2nd graders. At the same time, the coach kneeling with the kid that wants to do it seems right too.

It's a tough situation all around. I certainly wouldn't have liked it, because I want my kid making those decisions on their own when they have the capacity and information to do so. Not in a confused peer pressure situation.  At the same time, I'd have just talked to her afterwards, explained what happened, and in 2nd grade, I'm sure she'd have wanted to kneel. Of course, I have no particular allegiance to the flag or the anthem, so she'd be getting a pretty one-sided opinion, and just be adopting what I thought, rather than making her own choice.

But we see how miserable politics has made everyone in this country. Trying to create toddler activists is fine if that's what you want as a parent, but I'd like to kick that can down the road, and let the kid be a kid until they at least have the capacity to think for herself a bit.

Hmm, what makes you assume that the kid who initially wanted to kneel was pressured by his parents? When my son was seven, we saw a story about child-slaves being owned and abused on some African cocoa plantations, two of which supplied M&M-Mars. He was made very upset by the story and told me he did not want to eat any candy from the company again.

The point being that young kids can still have their own thoughts, and indeed their own sense of right and wrong.

[brewerb]

I don't remember the anthem being played at any amateur sports event I was in, K-12.

Maybe they should just stop playing it. If the adults want it, they can do a hummer.

[GenesisNemesis]

I don't remember the anthem being played at any amateur sports event I was in, K-12.

Maybe they should just stop playing it. If the adults want it, they can do a hummer.

If we stop playing it how will America be able to constantly jerk off to itself?

[Minimalist]

I'm been sick of this corporate-enforced "patriotism" at sporting events for a while now.  And spreading it to kids is even worse.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I don't remember the anthem being played at any amateur sports event I was in, K-12.

Maybe they should just stop playing it. If the adults want it, they can do a hummer.

When I played HS football, the anthem led off proceedings. I do agree it should be discontinued, but that won't happen. Can you imagine the shitfit that would be thrown?

[TonyAnkle]

I'm been sick of this corporate-enforced "patriotism" at sporting events for a while now.  And spreading it to kids is even worse.

At least you lot don't have to sing God Save The Queen.

[Szuchow]

I don't remember the anthem being played at any amateur sports event I was in, K-12.

Maybe they should just stop playing it. If the adults want it, they can do a hummer.

If we stop playing it how will America be able to constantly jerk off to itself?

With guns would be my guess.

[Dānu]

[GenesisNemesis]

"I refuse to wear a piece of cloth on my face!" 
"You must stand during the national anthem!"

[no one]

It is disheartening to realize most cannot, or will not, understand the basic principles of freedom.

[Szuchow]

"I refuse to wear a piece of cloth on my face!" 
"You must stand during the national anthem!"

Oh Gen how you can be American and not understand such simple distinction. By refusing to wear mask one show itself to be proud warrior always ready to fight with tyrannical gov whereas not standing during the anthem is sign of being godless commie, liberal faggot and unpatriotic menace who deserve to be hanged for not dancing to nationalist tune.

[Minimalist]

I'm been sick of this corporate-enforced "patriotism" at sporting events for a while now.  And spreading it to kids is even worse.

At least you lot don't have to sing God Save The Queen.

At least that has the advantage of being short.

Ever heard the original words to Key's tune?

[Thumpalumpacus]

It is disheartening to realize most cannot, or will not, understand the basic principles of freedom.

You are free ... to worship as they see fit. You are free ... to marry someone of the opposite sex. You are free ... to either lover 'Murrica or leave it. Get it?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

There are no requirements for being a parent.

1. Functioning sex organs.
2. Enough food to get through the act and gestation.
3. Being alive at the end of gestation.

Some of those are gender specific.

[Minimalist]

There are no requirements for being a parent.

1. Functioning sex organs.
2. Enough food to get through the act and gestation.
3. Being alive at the end of gestation.

Some of those are gender specific.

Bacteria can cover those.