NEIGHBORHOODS

Real champions: The Anderson Monarchs under-13s warm up before a game in Fishtown. (Photo by Michael Persico)

Bad Call

A girls' soccer team elicits racial epithets in South Philly.

by Steven Wells

“If a white adult calls a 9-year-old African-American girl an ‘effing animal,’” says Walter Stewart, “I think that’s racial. They’re calling her less than human.”

When the Anderson Monarchs—the only traveling African-American girls’ soccer club in Pennsylvania—visited the Shissler rec center in Fishtown last week to play an all-white team, coach Stewart admitted to being nervous.

Turns out he didn’t need to be. The Monarchs’ under-13s won the indoor five-on-five game 3-1. There was no racist abuse. No name-calling. No obscenity. No refusal to shake hands.

But at a game in South Philly Jan. 20, it was a different story.

The under-11s’ league match between the visiting all-white Fishtown team and the Monarchs at the Marian Anderson Rec Center was marred by a walk-out and, some parents say, racial abuse.

“Fishtown came out playing very physically, says Stewart. “I said to the referee that he had to get the game under control or something not good was going to happen … By half-time we were up only 2-0. It wasn’t a blowout or anything like that.”

But midway through the second half, says Stewart, the Monarchs were leading 5-1—and some of the Fishtown parents reacted badly.

“They were just coming out—not talking to their coach—just taking their kid by the hand and dramatically leaving the gym.”

And it was then, says Stewart, that the behavior of at least one Fishtown supporter crossed the line from bad sportsmanship into racism.

“I didn’t hear the words, but I was told by people near the door they were calling us ‘animals,’ and—I can’t say it, my Catholic school upbringing—‘effing animals.’”

Janelle Moore of University City has four daughters in the Anderson Monarchs. She heard the remark.

“It was a mom about two seats away. She said: ‘Oh, we don’t have to deal with this S-H-I-T. I’m not dealing with these effing animals.’”

“We’re not putting up with it,” says Stewart. “There’s no reason to take this. There’s never a reason to call a 9-year-old girl­—or any person—a racial name. The Monarchs’ parents are really upset. They’re writing letters. They’re trying to get city officials involved. They might go to human relations. Some people are talking about a lawsuit.”

Earlier in the game the referee warned spectators to be quiet or he’d clear the gym.

“He didn’t say it to anybody in particular,” says Stewart, “but it was the Fishtown fans who were out of control.”

A representative of Fishtown under-11s didn’t respond to PW’s phone calls.

Last fall, says Stewart, one of his teams was called “bitches and trash” by parents in Middletown, Del. And during a game in 1999 a player from a Roxborough team abused a Monarchs player with a racial epithet.

Stewart says that just three such incidents in more than nine years is indicative of how little overt racism there is in grassroots soccer, but adds that’s no reason to excuse it when it does occur.

Parent Janelle Moore is less sanguine. She says that while overt racism might be rare, prejudice, discrimination and de facto segregation are commonplace.

“When my girls started playing soccer, I thought racism wasn’t as bad as it once was,” she says. “But going to these soccer games, I’ve learned it’s real and it’s out there.”

During the game two Fishtown parents approached Moore to apologize for the behavior and abusive language of others.

In an email to Mayor Michael Nutter and other city officials, parent Juanita Kerber wrote: “Children emulate what’s in front of them. These parents are causing a great disservice to their children … Our children should not have to endure racial name-calling in addition to obscene language while playing a sport they all love.”

James also commended the Fishtown coaches “for making the few remaining players line up to shake hands with the Monarchs.”

William Carapucci, acting commissioner of the Department of Recreation, has personally apologized to the Monarchs.

Program director Leo Digman wrote the Monarchs, explaining that the incident had been investigated, and that future games between the two sides would take place in neutral venues and would have two referees rather than the usual one. He promised that additional staff would monitor spectator behavior.

He also apologized for a “few ignorant parents.”

The Anderson Monarchs under-11s—who eventually won their game against the Fishtown under-11s 8-1— remain undefeated in the Philadelphia Department of Recreation indoor under-11 A League.