Brentwood's bigotry hard for some to see
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Whatever happened to the honest bigot? What happened to the guy who used to tell you to your face that he didn't like you because of the color of your skin, your religion or your sexual preference?
These days, no one admits to being an old-fashioned hater.
Two weeks ago, the Monessen boys basketball team, a squad of mostly black and biracial kids, played the all-white Brentwood basketball team at Brentwood High School. It was a rowdy game even before two Brentwood students in banana costumes ran around the court at halftime, which resulted in their ejection.
The Monessen team soundly won, 59-45, so players and supporters weren't being sore losers when they complained about the taunts from the bleachers. Being called "cotton pickers," "gorillas" and "monkeys" didn't throw the Monessen squad off-stride, but the visitors were incensed that Brentwood fans tried to dehumanize them in the mistaken belief it would help their team win.
The Monessen City School District complained to Brentwood officials about the bad conduct of the fans. Brentwood responded in a statement to the media that its preliminary investigation couldn't confirm that racial epithets had been used.
The statement said "no such comments were reported to district officials or security during the game; otherwise district officials would have taken swift, corrective action. After the game, the district conducted an investigation and spoke to a number of district students and staff who attended the game. Nothing has been revealed to indicate racist comments were made."
Brentwood's review of game footage failed to turn up any bad conduct, either. As for the students in the banana costumes, they're regulars at Brentwood games, although it isn't clear what giant bananas are supposed to signify unless it is a plea to the visiting team to get more potassium and manganese in its diet.
In any case, no connection between bananas and alleged "monkey" or "gorilla" taunts were drawn in the Brentwood investigation. No one from Monessen was interviewed.
Brentwood Borough always has been the Mr. Magoo of local municipalities when it comes to race. Seventeen years ago, the South Hills suburb of 11,000 was made notorious by the actions of Brentwood police along a stretch of Route 51 not far from its cobblestone and tree-lined streets.
The death of Jonny Gammage, an unarmed black motorist and businessman, at the hands of Lt. Milton Mulholland, Officer John Vojtas and officers from Baldwin and Whitehall stigmatized Brentwood in ways that didn't affect the other municipalities. By lowering the standards for the sergeants' exam and promoting Mr. Vojtas after he was found not guilty of killing Mr. Gammage, Brentwood became synonymous with a uniquely regional form of racial bias -- a bias that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge its pedigree or its own existence.
First Published February 14, 2012 12:00 am
