Child Abuse on TV

I just watched a show on TV being billed as, “The most controversial show on TV.”  It is “Friday Night Tykes” on the Esquire Network. It features  five different football teams in Texas. The teams are made up of 8 and 9 year-old boys. I have to admit I find football very boring and just have never watched it. Truth is I have never watched sports at all except sporting games my kids participated in. “Friday Night Tykes” is somewhat hard to watch. I say that because it brings out the worst in coaches and parents. On that level I’d have to say it is the sickest reality show I have ever seen on TV. One coach was telling his kids how they need to rip off the heads of their next opponents and make them bleed.  One coach at practice started trash talking their opponents leading a chant, “Fuck the Rockets, fuck the Rockets.” His assistant coach mentioned that the parents might not like that. The coach shot back, “Fuck the parents.” Many of the parents loved to be seen on TV talking smack about the opponents during the game. One mother was not happy after the game unless she had parents from the other team complaining about her trash talk.

The coaches are sick bullies trying to live out their fantasies and the same could be said for some of the parents. “We were done with the “everybody gets a trophy, everybody wins, everybody gets a fair turn,’” said parent Lisa Connell. “We wanted our son to understand the value of working hard and the reward that came with that.” She said this while her 8 year-old son Colby was puking and crying after being hit hard at practice in 99 degree Texas heat. The coach said to Colby “Blow chunks and then we’re going to go.” Meaning they were going to continue practice. The coaches tell the kids to ignore their pains. We really need to quit buying that, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” mentality. Would someone really say that about sexual abuse? I don’t think you can say that about the child abuse these kids are taking from coaches and parents either. Lisa has been complaining to the coach that her son isn’t getting to play in the games. The coaches aren’t willing to put in second stringers unless they are far ahead in a game. One game had a team winning by 46-6 and they played their best players the whole game. This same coach had his players run laps after the game because the other team had scored 6 points. These coaches brag about having whole seasons where other teams has never scored a point against them.

The need to feel macho by playing and watching football is really sad. I’m surprised mothers don’t speak out more at some of the things coaches say to their sons. Many coach’s comments are just plain derogatory to women. Comments like Eric Nolden, a coach with the Outlaws, telling boys: “Emotions are a female trait. This is a man’s sport.” I saw where one mother said she was willing to let her son put up with anything because she wants to win.

Parents of one boy watched their son get hit so hard he ended up in the hospital with a concussion. The boy didn’t recognize either parent or know who he was for three days. On doctors orders the boy had to sit out the next few games which disappointed the parents. The parents had come to a decision when their son signed up to play football. That decision was that they were not going to let him play if he had three concussions. I found that as crazy as one man explaining that coaches had been trying to recruit his large son since he was 3 years-old.

I have said over and over that I want a better world for my kids. I’m betting you feel the same. That means we need to call out coaches and parents who are doing our next generation harm. I’ve found kids don’t always listen but they do imitate. Role models live forever so be one!

Former NFL player calls the coaches and parents of these Texas youth football teams either sick or evil. He says it is either neglect or abuse.

I just wish I’d see more inspirational moments like this one with an autistic boy making a touchdown.

Baby Huey: “Hard Times”

“Mighty Mighty Children”

“Class is striving hard to be the best at what you do while taking the needs of others into consideration” – Roger Staubach

 

The Christmas Massacre

As a labor activist I want people to remember the “Christmas Massacre of 1913.” Much like to today, corporations and the powers that be in 1913 got away with breaking the laws and murder. That is because then like now, they own and control the lawmakers and the media. In 1913 in Culamet, Michigan 73 people, mostly children died in a stampede while attending a Christmas party. There was never any justice in the crime for the striking coal miner families. I am reminded of that no sense of justice, by the families of black people being killed by the police around the country today. An overview of the massacre.

More info on the massacre.

Woody Guthrie’s: “1913 Massacre”

Comedian Chris Rock explains how wrong we are about Christmas.

The mixed culture history of Christmas.

“Power lacks moral or principles. It only has interests.” -Horacio Castellanos Moya

Happy Holidays!

Missouri Dangers

Missouri has lots of dangers like Water Moccasins, Copperhead snakes,
ticks, leeches, poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac,
and a deadly pestering poison called racism
that makes it a very deadly state for black citizens.
It’s the home of the 33rd President, Harry Truman.
His recently discovered 1947 diary states
“One man is as good as another as long
as he wasn’t a Jap, Chinaman, Kyke or Nigger.
In 1864 the black Leonardo da Vinci was born in Missouri.
His name was George Washington Carver.
Born into slavery he went on to be a scientist
and an inventor of over 100 products
that improved the quality of people’s lives.
On his grave was written, He could have added fortune to fame,
but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.
In 1857 former slave then free man, Dread Scott
was the subject of the Dread Scott v. Stanford case.
The Missouri State Supreme Court, ruled in the case
that Dread Scott was not a free man but a slave.
Then the case was next sent to the Federal Supreme Court.
By a 7 to 2 decision Scott was again ruled a slave.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney a slave owner
wrote and delivered the majority opinion saying
“A Black man has no rights which the white man
was bound to respect.” And can never be
considered a citizen of the United States.
Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Robbins Curtis,
one of the two dissenters in the Dread Scott Decision
resigned after the case as a matter of moral principal,
making him the only Supreme Court Judge to ever do so.
Meanwhile, Missouri named a county after Judge Taney.
In 2013 the office of Missouri’s attorney general concluded
in an annual report that Furgeson, Missouri police
were twice as likely to arrest African Americans
during traffic stops as they were whites.
One of those black men stopped for a traffic violation was
a 52-year-old welder named Henry Davis who was arrested
for an outstanding warrant that was for another man
of the same surname, but a different middle name.
At the jail Davis told officers they had the wrong man.
Four officers then broke his nose and kicked him in the head.
He was held in jail for several days and the police charged him
with destruction of property because he had the nerve to bleed
on their uniforms while they were brutally beating him.
The Furgeson police force has 53 members, with three being black.
In 2010, the department hired a police officer who had previously been fired
from the Saint Louis Police Department after credible evidence showed
he assaulted two minors, one a 12-year-old girl, with his service weapon.
In 2011 Jason Moore, who suffered a psychological disorder,
was walking around naked and posed no threat to police.
A Ferguson police officer used a taser device on Jason.
When Moore tried to get up from the ground,
the officer tasered him twice more and then Moore
went into cardiac arrest, quit breathing and died.
Missouri is called the “Show Me” state
but has become the “Shoot Me” state
if you happen to be a black male.
Shoplifting cigars and pushing around
a shop owner and cop should land you in jail.
But it is not a death sentence unless
you are black and the cop is white
and you’re in Furgeson, Missouri
(and many other U.S. cities).
There the police will execute you with six bullets.
The Ferguson cop will be innocent until proven guilty.
As opposed to, say, the unarmed guy he shot 6 times.
200 African Americans who came to protest
the shooting were met by a racist picnic laid out
for them on the sidewalk of fried chicken, watermelon,
40 oz. bottles of beer and Confederate flags waving.
Bullet holes were found in their bus windows.
Statistics show that 98.8% of the time
cops are not charged for assaults or shootings.
The prosecutor made sure a Furgeson Grand Jury
didn’t change that percentage one bit.
Up the road from Furgeson, Missouri
at Calvary Cemetery in St.Louis, Missouri
former slave, Dread Scott does not rest in peace.

Kelvin Jones: “Call You Home”

“We Are More”

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” ~ Benjamin Franklin