We all know what happened, but only some of us know about the stupidity of the aftermath.
At the basketball game between Houston and Arizona, Cougar guard Aubrey Coleman was penalized and suspended for one game for stepping on Arizona forward Chase Budinger’s face.
Two weeks after the incident, reports have been published that the University has received racist e-mails and phone calls directed at Coleman and the men’s basketball team.
It was also reported that FBI and police officers have attended UH basketball practices, just to be on the safe side.
What year is it again, 2009? If I did not know any better, you could have convinced me that it was 1959.
When watching the Cougar men’s basketball team play, we see our friends and fellow students competing for goals they have dreamed of achieving since childhood.
Other people – a very select few – see an all-black roster playing for a school in the middle of what they would call ‘the ghetto.’
Racism, especially in this day and age, should be considered intolerable, inexcusable and unacceptable – however, it is still evident.
Even after Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, racism and prejudice still remain a part of everyday society.
Go up to anyone, and ask them if they are racist. Even if they are wearing the robes of a Ku Klux Klan member, they will tell you no.
But behind closed doors, away from the public eye, they make phone calls and send e-mails filled with hatred for anyone different from them. They do this in secrecy because unlike t in 1959, they will be hunted and prosecuted. They are the outcasts. They are the minority.
Even sadder, our government still has to be on guard against racially-motivated attacks.
The appearance of officers at practices is a blatant reminder of the ignorant hatred some people still have.
In a way, their being present is an encouragement of racism. They are empowering racists by letting them know we still live in fear of what they may do.
Coleman did something stupid. Whether it was an accident or not is up to individual interpretation. He did something stupid, apologized and served his punishment.
He should not be tormented for his mistake because of the color of his skin.
Racism, and everything accompanied with it, should have been eliminated decades ago, centuries ago; actually, it should have never existed.’ Unfortunately, it did, it does and it will.
Joshua Brown is a University studies freshman and may be reached at [email protected]
