So let’s review, shall we?
Dale Hansen is a sportscaster in Dallas, Texas.
And on Feb. 23, 2015, he was forced to give the kind of report he probably hoped never to have to give. A group of students at a local high school basketball game were photographed holding up signs to taunt the opposing team.
Here’s what those signs looked like.
Hansen was disgusted but not surprised.
Particularly, he was disgusted at the students’ parents, who claimed it was all “an accident.”
It was obviously no accident.
Yet despite that, Hansen feels sorry for the kids who held up the hateful signs. And the reason he does is more than a little surprising. And probably difficult for him to admit.
He was one of those kids because his father taught him to be one of those kids.
Thankfully, he grew up. But too many others are in danger of never seeing the light. When the ostensible adults in a community perpetuate the same racist ideas their parents and grandparents held, it’s the next generation that suffers the most.
You have to be taught to hate.
And it’s on all of us to make sure that’s not the lesson we’re giving our kids, our students, and our young athletes. Starting now.
