“Where’s Your Green Card?”
by David Atkins
Members of the University of Southern Mississippi band chanted racist taunts at a hispanic Kansas State player during the schools’ NCAA tournament game on Thursday.
After point guard Angel Rodriguez was fouled late in the first half of the second-round game, a few band members showered the freshman with cries of “where’s your green card?”
Listen carefully to the crowd noise, particularly around the :08 mark of this clip:
The chant and those who participated don’t warrant any civilized dialogue. Both are an embarrassment to the university.
Southern Miss president Martha Saunders quickly apologized for the incident.
“We deeply regret the remarks made by a few students at today’s game,” she wrote in a statement issued two hours after the game. “The words of these individuals do not represent the sentiments of our pep band, athletic department or university. We apologize to Mr. Rodriquez (sic) and will take quick and appropriate disciplinary action against the students involved in this isolated incident.”
Rodriguez was spelled incorrectly in the original draft.
As if things could get any more ignorant, the basis for the band’s racism was itself misguided. Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States.
The university does at least deserve some credit for the rapid apology.
It’s important to remember, though, that these are the sorts of people that the media describes as “values voters,” as opposed to supposedly values-free Georgetown Law students like Sandra Fluke. The same voters who think the President is Muslim, and a third of whom believe interracial marriage should be forbidden.
Maybe it’s time the press started calling them what they really are. “Hard-working” and “values voters” don’t begin to describe the truth.
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