Just kidding about the latter part of that headline, but the truth be told, I did begin worry at some point. Of course there are so many "topical" matters that unfold daily in the life of the urban dweller, especially the "Detroit" urban dweller. Hence what we have here is a snippet of what could be considered to be sort of an alternative take on race relations in the Detroit Metro area.
As in, how rational people deal with a frontal verbal challenge littered with racial epithets. In this case a hearty smile and a laugh...
Interestingly enough, I played in a soccer game this past Sunday, in Hamtramck, MI, wherein which the largely Yemeni audience was yelling "f*ck you white man" at my team, although we are a multi-ethnic crew, for nearly the entire 1st half.
At some point they were yelling about how they were going to beat us up, of course that always happens at soccer games in Detroit(yeah right). Of course we thought this was hilarious as that we were losing the game and that we had zero fans, well, a wife and a girlfriend.
Finally the spectators got themselves worked up into such a frenzy that someone threw a red pop Faygo at one of the refs and one of our players on a touch ball that their own player had kicked out of bounds. Our player faked like he was drinking out of it for a sec and was going to play on the but refs had to have a sideline meeting to determine "the threat level." Fortunately for us, the game was determined to be playable, the opposing teams manager told the ruffians to vacate...Quite a scene for certain.
My analysis of the whole thing was that, yeah okay we are a majority "white skinned" team, and that for certain we are a largely bourgeoisie crew. Yet I'd have to say that this was all taken in stride, and no one was truly worried that a race riot was about to occur. And that as we began to dominate the game and finally win the match, the remaining "fans" were largely silent.
I would have to hand it to my team to simply brush off the immediacy of the experience as, well, you know it's like in wrestling, the "heel" character. It sort of also reminded me of an Ice Cube concert I attended where the audience was urged to yell, "Fuck You Ice Cube!" Unfortunately we are not multi platinum selling OG's, but you could tell that 'Cube fed off of that weird staged anger. Did we feed off their anger, hard to say we did win the game but we also really did need a win that day to make it to the playoffs. In a lot of ways this team does function as a spoiler for most of these serious squads that we face. This tends to at some point unnerve them as that we appear to not really have any central locus or group that we represent. We are solely there for the love of the game. It should also be added that we are at least on average 10 to 15 years older than most of the teams we face. Sometimes the "visiting team" is the default focus of hatred, its just that this is 3rd division soccer in an at best amateur to semi pro league, so there really is nothing at stake.
As per a Newsvine discussion, whether or not "whitey" was an actual term employed by real people, I said that I'd have thrown the Faygo bottle back if they were calling us "whitey." Which again is hilarious in that I am certain that many of the players on this team would not consider themselves to necessarily be, "the white man." Especially the Vietnamese and Egyptian ones...
How does this play back into the election cycle at this point, well from a anecdotal level this is a personal narrative of interaction as an object of derision and intolerance. At the same time of course one could say that hey, not reacting would be the best reaction in instances such as those previously described. At any rate it is simply more depressing to encounter such antics than it is an outrage.
Ditto the score with regards to this election cycle and how this has surfaced in some areas as institutionalized racism, or in some strange manner xenophobic responses towards Sen. Obama and of course his wife.
Which for me has been a true nadir of the political discourse of this country. When people libel Sen. Obama as a half American I often wonder to what ends that individual making such claims is truly an American or has any comprehension of principled rhetoric. In some fashion the ethnic Yemeni instigators despite their technique are striving more so to rationalize the American dream than those whose jingoist rhetoric seeks to create derision via baseless ad hominem illogic.
Hilariously enough, this league is by far the most diverse groupings of teams in the state of Michigan, and typically is a great symbol of the by and large integration of all groups in the region. To me that has always been a great thing, the more groups that can be represented on the football pitch is something that instills great pride in the organization. However events such are the subtle reminder that harmony is not always the rule of the day, and that when people are frustrated, venting typically follows suit, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. This is sort of an unfortunate by product of witnessing organized contact sports, or the central purpose of professional sports, Im not going to judge that one. In the case of this league, I am happy that anyone is there to watch games at all.