HS basketball team suspended for ‘One, two, three [N-word]!’ chant

Today’s incredible but true story comes from Kenmore East High School in Tonawanda, N.Y., where the girls varsity basketball team has been suspended for using a racist, pregame chant which includes the ‘n’ word — which has apparently been going on “for years.”

The issue came to light when the team’s only African-American player, sophomore Tyra Batts, heard the chant for the first time before Kenmore’s season-opening game this past Friday. Batts asked the players to stop doing the chant but they wouldn’t, according to the Buffalo News. Then Batts got into a fight with one of her teammates during school hours, which is when the whole thing came to the attention of adults.

Now suspensions are flying, the team is being forced to postpone games and generally all hell is breaking loose.

Video here.

Teammates would hold hands before their games, say a prayer together, then yell “One, two, three [N-word]!” before running out onto the court, according to offended students.

“I said, ‘You’re not allowed to say that word because I don’t like that word,’” Batts recalled. “They said, ‘You know we’re not racist, Tyra. It’s just a word, not a label.’ I was outnumbered.”

Mark P. Mondanaro, superintendent of the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District, said no coaches, administrators or other adults with the school were aware of the “psych-up tradition” until Tyra was suspended for getting into a fight with another player over the use of racial slurs during practice and before games. “The minute an adult knew, we started our inquiry and investigation,” Mondanaro said Thursday.

Fun fact: Kenmore East won the Niagara Frontier League Sportsmanship Award last year.

The amazing part of this is not the chant itself — kids can be ignorant — but the fact that it’s been going on for more than one season with no adult knowing about it. While it’s true that it was a players-only ritual, some coach had to be within earshot at some point.

And let’s go back to this:

Teammates would hold hands before their games, say a prayer together, then yell “One, two, three [N-word]!”

Yes, let’s say a prayer, and then sling a racial epithet. Does that even make sense? (Checks Bible).

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Basketball players suspended for N-word [Buffalo News]