Orange County high school football game, students brought racial, Trump signs, chanted "USA"

[Demovictory9]

Allegations of racism at Orange County high school football game underscore broader tension in the Trump e

http://www.latimes.com/resizer/YLOBUs0J1dsSlNQb4tnZejdWSEY=/1400x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5b95a873/turbine/la-1536534640-ja1awa0nsm-snap-image

The fallout over allegations of racism at a recent Orange County high school football game erupted on social media over the weekend, reflecting the broader tension gripping the country in the Trump era.

The disputed incidents occurred at Friday night’s contest between Aliso Niguel and Santa Ana high schools, during which Santa Ana Principal Jeff Bishop became upset by what he saw as racially tinged intimidation by Aliso Niguel students.


In Facebook posts after the game, Bishop described signs expressing support for President Trump and proclaiming “We love White” and “Build the Wall,” a reference to Trump’s pledge to build a barrier along the border between the United States and Mexico.

“This is no different than our national discourse, but this is one principal who is not going to stand for it,” Bishop told The Times on Sunday.

The enrollment at Santa Ana High is almost 99% Latino; Aliso Niguel’s student body is majority white.

---

Bishop said later that he saw some of the offensive signs and was told by others about insensitive or racially tinged chants and taunting.

He became more concerned, he posted, when he heard chants of “USA! USA!” following touchdowns by the Aliso Niguel team.

Aliso Niguel “was not playing against Germany or MEXICO. They were playing my kids, 22 minutes down the freeway,” he wrote.

[Cha]

1. Stupid Ass Brainwashed kids.

[joshdawg]

6. It's going to take a long time

to diminish the hate that trump has fomented.

[Cha]

10. Yes! That's another important point

why he needs to go.

[dalton99a]

2. Attention, college admissions officers: Remember Aliso Niguel High School, den of racist Trumpanzees

[Maaattcast]

3. Hey hey

Believe it or not I went to this school all four years of high school! While my time there was finished 10+ years ago, I don’t think it’s fair to group the entire student body in with these idiots. It almost certainly wasn’t the entire audience in th stands and I’d guess was limited to a particular group of friends (I can picture the exact type of kids in my head). While It’s true that Aliso is in South Orange County, which historically has been conservative (for California), the area has undergone some pretty enormous change over the last decade. Even when I was there I would of been very surprised to see this type of thing. Our senior class President was a gay black male, in a school where maybe just 1% of the kids in my class were black and where just 2, maybe 3 students were openly gay, in a school of nearly 4,000. The Vice President was a Persian Muslim woman in the early mid aughts not all that long after 9/11 and with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan probably the dominant news during our time in high school. Given the continued trends in the area, i’d guess today’s class is more diverse and open (while the school was majority white when I was there, it was probably more diverse than most schools in the country, with significant numbers of Latino, Asian and middle eastern students). My only point is there are surely a ton of students there who shouldn’t be tarred by the horribleness of a few of their classmates.

Side Note about Orange County in general though.. It’s perhaps one of the quintessential educated/affluent/suburban counties that has turned against the GOP under Trump and are viewed as vital to the Dems chances to take back the House. The trend away from the right had been occurring for several decades but excelerated rapidly with Trump, to the point where Hillary Clinton won the county fairly easily. Clinton won in not just the heavily diversified northern parts of the county but also in the more educated, affluent, and white coastal and southern portion. There’s 3 districts in the county that went for Hillary in 2016 but still have a GOP congressman. That includes the district where my parents still reside and Aliso Niguel High School sits in. Come November there’s a chance that every district located entirely within Orange County or which contain portions of the county will go democratic. Flipping 3 long held by Republicans seats in just 1 county in 1 election would be so great.

[mr_lebowski]

5. Well, then I'm sure we'll hear from the good musl ... I mean people ... denouncing this racism ...

On the part of the tiny minority of 'people in the stands at the football game' ...

Either that, or the virulent disease of Trumpism has altered the region you grew up in, in ways that you've underestimated ... even though your folks still live there ...

Out of curiosity, how often do you go back, and when you do, how many people from the area do you still regularly interact with?

I mean ... is it POSSIBLE that you lived among a large contingent of people who were keeping their worst impulses in check 10 years ago, for the sake of appearances ... but with the election of the Tangerine Shitgibbon as POTUS .. their true nature ... is leaking out into public view?

I'm just asking, I mean, I'm a No. Cal boy, so I don't know the area ... but I'm just wondering just HOW SURE you are ... about the true, underlying impulses ... of its population?

[KY_EnviroGuy]

11. Thanks for sharing those enlightening perspectives.

I agree we should be careful about painting any part of our nation with a broad partisan brush, as that only inflames hatred and divisiveness between cultures, races and populations. And, that's not how we heal this nation after Trump.

If your school is still as open-minded as you described, I suspect this group of rebels will be spoken to - particularly regarding any racially-tinged shouts.

I personally don't think sporting events are the place for making a show of partisan political bias or symbolism. Expressions of racism, sexism, and political dogma violate the principles of good sportsmanship.

Perhaps you can keep your ear to the ground and return later with an update. Also, welcome to DU!....

[stopbush]

4. My kids both graduated from this school. Sad to hear things have

gone so wrong there. It wasn’t like that at all a few years ago.

The school is predominantly white, but there are plenty of Asian, Latino and black kids there as well.

[cstanleytech]

7. Since it was a school event I would hope that the school administration would at the very least

discipline those involved in some way.

[safeinOhio]

8. School should tell the students that

if it ever happens again, no more football program.

[cstanleytech]

9. That seems a tad unfair unless there were a number of players involved in organizing it beforehand.

[safeinOhio]

12. Might be, however

those actions by the students was very unfair to folks based on race. I think if football players put out the word that they would deal with students that might kill their program, it would stop. As a 4 year high school football player, I got away with lots of bad behavior in school. Not proud of it.

[stopbush]

13. Here in CA, football programs only exist because the parents of the players

pony up thousands of dollars a year for their kid to be in the program. No public funds at all are used to support these programs. Same thing with the band and cheerleader programs.

I was on the board of the Music Boosters at ANHS for two years. We had to raise over $150,000 a year to support those programs. 90%+ of that money came from parents. That $ was raised to support the kids in the program, not to act as a police force of parents to supervise the people in the stands. That is up to the administration of the school.

Penalizing the kids in the football program because students not in the program are engaging in racist behavior would be just plain wrong.

[stopbush]

14. BTW - Olympic Gold Medalist Kyla Ross graduated from ANHS in 2015,

the same class my daughter was part of. No racism back then...but then, Obama was president in 2015, not our Racist-in-Chief, tRump.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

15. "No racism" is a pretty big claim.

[stopbush]

16. ANHS is ranked #1024 in US high schools. It is listed as a

CA Distinguished School and a USDOE Blue Ribbon school. It has a very high graduation rate and high test scores. 56% of the 3,000+ students are white, which is a much lower % than many high schools in the USA. The student population is quite diverse.

All things being relative, my claim of no racism is accurate. There is always racism under the surface. I never saw an overt example of racism, misogyny or bigotry when my kids were enrolled there.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. If there's racism under the surface, there's racism.

High achievement doesn't mean no racism. It means high achievement.