Monday, September 19, 2022

The Washington Post Never Learns to Avoid “Fake News” When It Comes to False Racial Reporting – They Got Burned with Sandmann, They Got Burned with the Wakefield-Marshall Football Incident and Now They Are Getting Burned with BYU – Duke Women’s Volleyball Fairytale – The WaPo Get’s Dupped Everytime!

 



BYU bans fan, relocates volleyball match after racist slurs, threats

By Glynn A. Hill and Cindy Boren

Updated August 28, 2022 at 2:29 p.m. EDT | Published August 27, 2022 at 9:51 p.m. EDT

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/08/27/byu-duke-volleyball-racist-incident/

The Washington Post (WaPo) ran this fairytale in August 2022 without any independent investigation and just taking the word of one Black Duke player.  The entire story just assumed it was true and the incident really happened but when it began to unravel the WaPo did no follow up article until three weeks later.  It would seem that after Duke’s racially charged Soccer Team fiasco that turned out to be a total lie, Duke would be more careful accusing another school with racism but it appears Duke learned nothing from their false experience.  What Duke did to BYU is identical to what happened to them years earlier. 

In a 16 September 2022 WaPo article highly critical of BYU’s diversity history, they did include this sentence buried in a 29 paragraph article: “After the episode became public, BYU launched an investigation, which it claimed found no ‘evidence to corroborate the allegation that fans engaged in racial heckling or uttered racial slurs’.

Actually, BYU released a statement that included the following:

As part of our commitment to take any claims of racism seriously, BYU has completed its investigation into the allegation that racial heckling and slurs took place at the Duke vs. BYU women’s volleyball match on August 26. We reviewed all available video and audio recordings, including security footage and raw footage from all camera angles taken by BYUtv of the match, with broadcasting audio removed (to ensure that the noise from the stands could be heard more clearly). We also reached out to more than 50 individuals who attended the event: Duke athletic department personnel and student-athletes, BYU athletic department personnel and student-athletes, event security and management and fans who were in the arena that evening, including many of the fans in the on-court student section.

From our extensive review, we have not found any evidence to corroborate the allegation that fans engaged in racial heckling or uttered racial slurs at the event. As we stated earlier, we would not tolerate any conduct that would make a student-athlete feel unsafe. That is the reason for our immediate response and our thorough investigation.”

https://byucougars.com/story/athletics/1300724/statement-byu-athletics-regarding-investigation-aug-26-volleyball-match

The fact that the WaPo ran with this fairytale is consistent with their past practices where they assume the worst and attribute racism to everything. Remember the Sandmann fiasco where the WaPo accused a 16 year old Cincinnati high school student of disrespecting a Native American in DC on the word of the Native American.  Turns out video confirmed it never happened and the Native American was a “stolen valor” non-Vietnam Vet who had been cashiered out of the Marine Corps Reserve with “bad paper” for misconduct. Because of the video and the accurate journalism of honest news outlets, the WaPo was forced to retract their previous stories and acknowledge they had been publishing what amounted to “Fake News.”  The WaPo settled out of Court paying Sandmann an undisclosed hefty sum to avoid the embarrassment of what would be revealed during discovery about their shoddy journalism.

THE WaPo’s MOST EGREGIOUS EXAMPLE OF WRONGLY ACCUSING HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS OF RACIAL WRONGDOING WAS LAST MARCH 2021 WHEN THEY PUBLISHED A “FAKE NEWS” STORY INVOLVING THE WAKEFIELD – MARSHALL FOOTBALL GAME.

This BYU-Duke article is reminiscent of the way the WaPo reported that incident in March 2021 when the Northern Virginia schools postponed their football season to the Spring because of COVID. A few days after a game between Wakefield and Marshall High Schools, the Wakefield football team and school administrators accused the Marshall team of taunting them with racial epithets. The WaPo only interviewed the Wakefield people for the story and declared the Marshall “guilty” as charged. Missing from the WaPo reporting was the fact the Marshall Team, parents, coaches, school administrators and even the Virginia High School League (VHSL) umpires officiating the game said there were no racial comments made but those facts never made it into the WaPo article. Fortunately, other sources did publish more balanced reports that included both sides of the story but NOT the WaPo.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-high-school-football-team-told-adults-they-were-spit-on-and-called-the-n-word-nothing-changed-until-a-player-posted-enough-is-enough/2021/03/20/fa0c7e78-8918-11eb-bfdf-4d36dab83a6d_story.html

The true story obviously didn’t fit the WaPo’s desired narrative so they opted to just “lie by omission.” Also, the initial WaPo article indicating there would be a VHSL investigation but the WaPo never reported the results because they did not support the WaPo/Wakefield version.

The Marshall parents issued a statement that “although the VHSL officials refuted the allegation, the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) failure to issue a public statement refuting the allegations has compounded the harm to the Marshall players' health, psychological wellbeing, and reputations. None of us denies that racism exists in our society -- and none of us condones bigoted or hateful words or actions. But what we can say for sure is that there is no culture of racism in our football program. There is no evidence of racial slurs and spitting by the Marshall players or harassment by our coaches, volunteers and spectators on March 5. The irresponsible perpetuation of these false allegations is causing real damage," said the parents statement.

ABC7 spoke to several of the Marshall parents by phone and one parent said that Marshall players were required to wear masks the entire game due to COVID-19 protocols. "If they were going to spit, they would have to remove their masks," she said. "I was there, and it didn't happen."  Parents also said Marshall's interim principal spoke to parents with kids on the Marshall football team via phone and the principal told them that Marshall "conducted a full review and we could not corroborate or substantiate the allegations that racial slurs or spitting happened on the field." Also, even the Virginia High School League officials refuted the WaPo/Wakefield story but the WaPo failed to follow up their unfounded allegations with a truthful balanced article.

https://wjla.com/news/local/football-fallout-parents-at-wakefield-hs-marshall-hs-respond-after-racial-allegations

Another WaPo fiery tale that confirms: Democracy Dies in Darkness and the WaPo is Turning Out the Lights.

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VHSL responds to calls for change after football team is accused of using racial slurs

https://wjla.com/news/local/vhsl-responds-to-calls-for-change-after-football-team-is-accused-of-using-racial-slurs


by Heather Graf

Friday, March 19th 2021

ARLINGTON, Va. (ABC7) — By Friday afternoon, more than 5,000 people had signed onto an online petition that demands "accountability and change" after serious allegations stemming from a high school football game in Northern Virginia.

Members of the Wakefield High School football team in Arlington say they were spit on and called racial slurs during a March 5 football game against the team at Marshall High School in Fairfax County.

The online petition, started by Wakefield parents, asks for apologies from both the Marshall football team and the Virginia High School League. It also asked for a reversal of any suspensions of Wakefield players, along with "mandatory diversity and inclusion training for local athletes, coaches, and officials".

On Friday evening, the two school districts with players involved in the incident issued a rare joint statement. You can read the statement in its entirety, posted on the Arlington Public Schools website and on the Fairfax County Public Schools website.

The statement says both FCPS and APS embrace diversity and strongly condemn hate speech and racial intolerance of any kind.

"This situation has deeply affected both school divisions, our families, students, and our respective communities. In recent days, it has provoked strong emotions in both communities, and has become divisive by pitting schools against one another. This is not about one team versus another; it is about our students and how we can come together to support them and take necessary actions to ensure this situation does not repeat itself. Our students deserve better," the joint statement says.

The two school districts say they will "be working together to repair the harm done" and to support their students. They also called on the Virginia High School League to enact change.

"Together, we ask the VHSL to join us in urging change to include mandatory diversity and inclusion training for high school athletes, coaches and officials. We also commit to provide training and education for our athletes, coaches and staff so that, together, we are all working to support students," the statement said.

Earlier in the day, ABC7 spoke to the Executive Director of the Virginia High School league, the organization that oversees high school sports in the Commonwealth.

"It makes me sad to hear this takes place anywhere, whether it's in a school building or on a football field, or any kind of thing," said Dr. Bill Haun, VHSL's Executive Director. "I mean, there's no place for this type of behavior and these types of comments and these things that have been alleged. There's no place for that in our society."

He said VHSL was made aware of the allegations shortly after the March 5 game between Wakefield and Marshall.

"We reviewed the video, we looked at the video, and we spoke with folks from both schools and followed the procedures we normally follow," said Haun. "We spoke with the officials and got all the information we could and then worked with the schools to talk about this, and then for the schools to do their investigations."

Haun also cited a VHSL policy that was put into place during the 2018-2019 school year that says any racial slur used in any athletic competition would result in an automatic ejection.

"Prior to that it was just a penalty, but we wanted to go a step further because we felt there's no place for anything like that in sports," he said.

The year that policy took effect, he says VHSL had 23 athletes ejected from games for the use of racial slurs. He said 19 of the 23 ejections came from the Northern Virginia Football Officials Association (NVFOA).

That's the association that was responsible for officiating the March 5 game between Wakefield and Marshall. ABC7 asked Haun whether the referees in that game properly followed VHSL policy.

"I would have to think they did," he said. "The officials said they were made aware by the Wakefield players that this was happening and said they were attune to that along with the rest of their officiating duties,and did not hear anything that warranted an ejection. They did not hear any racial slurs."

ABC7 has learned players from both teams were initially suspended for three games. The suspension was later reduced from three games to one.

Many members of the Wakefield community feel that their players should not have been disciplined in that way.

Prior to Friday's joint statement with FCPS, the Superintendent of Arlington Public Schools issued a strongly worded statement "calling on VHSL and all parties involved in extracurricular activities to reform and change their practices to ensure our schools and athletic events are free of racism, bigotry, hate speech and unsportsmanlike conduct".

Haun said he supports that call for reform.

"When we talk about reform and change, I agree that we do need to do something. Because when you do a penalty, that's reactive response to eliminating a problem. The proactive response is through education and educating people," he said.

But he also says VHSL staff can't make those changes on their own.

"I think this is an important point that people need to understand when they say VHSL needs to make changes. Nobody in our office makes the polices, all policies are made by our membership," he said. "We are a membership organization. We have 318 membership schools that encompass 133 school divisions."

VHSL also has an executive committee made up of 37 representatives from different schools and different regions throughout Virginia.

ABC7 asked what VHSL can do in the short term to address the concerns being voiced by school district leaders and community members.

"I think we continue to talk with our people, we continue to enforce the rules. But again, that's a reactive piece rather than a proactive piece," he said. "I'm talking with some folks at the Department of Education about possibly, they're doing some webinar type training right now, and I'm talking with them about partnering to sponsor some of those trainings on culturally sensitive stuff and seeing how we can move forward from there."

Wakefield's principal said it's important that these conversations happen sooner than later.

"If VHSL doesn't have the authority to mandate every school, they can at least set the example and at least put out an expectation that this is what we would like to see in every school and every conference," said Dr. Chris Willmore, the principal at Wakefield High School. "And what I would hope to see come from this, as the Arlington community and the Fairfax County community, is that we be willing to engage in those conversations. Because if we don't do it, the kids deserve better. And this country's not going to move forward."

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