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Life of a Soccer Mom: Slurs from the sidelines
Filed under: Teens, Just For Dads, Activities: Babies, Development/Milestones: Babies
Since I recently fessed up and admitted the truth about how I spend my weekends during the fall and spring months, I have decided to share more tales from the trenches of life as a Soccer Mom. This weekend after the Rocky Mountains decided to spare us an early winter and the sun came out, my son played an afternoon game for his U14 team. U14 means that all the players must be 12 or 13 to be eligible for the team. Birth certificates are required upon registration just to ensure that there are no slip ups in this area. The boys at this age are sometimes moody, usually aggressive and quite sensitive. As a rule a I try to remain fairly neutral on the sidelines, not screaming out orders or names. I figure the boys are just trying to play a fair game that they truly love, for parents to get overly involved ruins this aspect for the boys. So I was especially shocked when during the second half of the game I witnessed one of the fathers from the opposing team insult one of our players. Out team is comprised fairly evenly of Anglo and Hispanic boys, a pretty good representation of the community in which we live. When one of our star players, a Hispanic boy, accidentally ran the ball out of the boundary and stumbled into several of the parents the father yelled out, "Aye, Carrumba!" The boy stopped short with a confused and shocked look on his face as he stared at the father. The referee called the ball out and the other team threw the ball, play ensued. The father then proceeded to laugh and turn to those standing around him, "What? That's what you say to a boy like him. Thar's what he understands."
A boy like him? What he understands? I have known this particular boy since he was about 6 years-old. Not only is he fluent in both English and Spanish, he is intelligent, and amazing athlete and a very nice person. I was absolutely floored by this father's ignorance. How is it that he got to be in his mid 40's and is such an imbecile? A couple of the other parents must have felt the same because they quickly disengaged from his group and moved down the field from him. Neither the coaches or the referees heard his remark. But I have to hope that if they did they would have asked him to leave the field. Racial slurs are inappropriate in all arenas but even more so in the one where are children are playing.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
9-19-2006 @ 2:12PM
LB said...I'm really confused to hear that "aye currumba" is considered inflamatory in your area. I hear is all the time in Chicagoland from all kinds of people. A search on this did not reveal it to be perjorative, also the spellings varied.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ay-carumba
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/29/messages/1111.html
I agree the guy revealed himself to be a dim-witted bigot by calling the child, "a boy like him." But I remain surprised that his expression started the whole exchange in the first place.
Reply
9-19-2006 @ 2:23PM
Nancy Toby said...So ... what did you do about it? It might be appropriate to speak with the child's coach about it if you don't wish to confront the parent.
Reply
9-19-2006 @ 2:32PM
Jonathon said...Even thought I KNOW that sort of commonplace racism still exists, I'm always still amazed to see it.
People are lame.
Reply
9-19-2006 @ 3:17PM
daddy in a strange land said...To the first commenter, it's not that the phrase is inflammatory or racist. A white boy accidentally runs into parents on the sidelines, what's the reaction? Maybe a warning to be careful, maybe an angry "watch it!" A Latino boy does it, and what does a white parent do? Exclaims in faulty Spanish and excuses it to bystanders by saying that that's what "a boy like that" understands. The conflation of race, ethnicity, language and looks, in one man's understanding, results in his differential treatment of the boy. That's what the problem is, that's where the racism is. And I too am interested in knowing what, if anything, the writer of the post did, since she documented what others did (moved away).
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