Texas HS football goes on. Slap in the face to NYers?

In My Humble Opinion
21

I live in the Dallas, Texas area. In Texas, high school football is sacred. I doubt that the schools would have canceled the Friday night football games even if the tragedy had taken place right here in Dallas.

On the other hand, I have seen a great deal of genuine concern for the victims. Every church and synagogue in the area has been holding special prayer services. People have been rushing to donate money, blood, clothes, food - anything that might be helpful. Most people in Texas really do care about what happened in New York and Washington.

22

Hate to be the proverbial Wet Blanket, but, I would be willing to bet that on any given day, 5000 people die. Not all in one fell swoop, but with a population as large as ours, I wouldn’t be surprised if that figure was close. I do not wish to seem as though I am making light of a tragedy, but let’s be somewhat realistic here. We can’t possibly hope that each and every person will feel the same way about any given situation. And we are talking about kids here. Let them play. They are doing no harm to others, and probably a lot of good for themselves.

23

I am also in the Dallas, Tx, area, and everyone has been soooo affected by this. Going to the grocery store is difficult. Doing anything remotely normal is difficult. I’m sorry that you didn’t see exactly the correct display of emotion in the teenagers’ eyes, but rest assured this is killing us. It is killing us that we are so far away that we can’t do anything more than give blood or give money to the Red Cross. The blood banks are now full and are turning us away. If the kids didn’t seem sincere enough, I am so sorry, but we don’t know what else to do. Everyone is telling us that we have to “get back to normal.” Down here, that’s football. Believe me, we are just going through the motions.

Nat

24

In regards to the OP: Most, if not all, of the major Texas newspapers have websites. If you are wondering what Texans are doing, or not doing, regarding the attacks, you may get an idea from reviewing these sites.

But, please, let us not trivialize the events of the last week into some sort of state-bashing activity. I believe we all understand the enormity of the situation.

25

Shit, they were showing soccer games across the river in New Jersey today…the KIDS need an outlet. The KIDS don’t and shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of problems going on in the world, that’s for us adults. The KIDS need an outlet as do the parents of these kids.

We had high school football happening in Colorado Springs. I think it was therapeutic for the kids to get away from the problems of the world for a few hours. It was good for the adults to see their budding children, and future adults of this world see them have a wee bit of fun.

I am sorry, the world should not stop and I think those that died in this horrific event would feel the same. Many, many of those people had children and the worst thing I think they would feel is that the kids would have stopped their lives and become what many of the children in other nations have become, robots trained for fear and military action.

We are a free nation, the world does not and SHOULD NEVER revolve around terrorism. Our children, all the children of the USA should learn that while the world is a scary place you can still be a kid and not feel that they must stop their lives in the midst of tragedy.

Now, with all that said, I resolved many years ago to never have children. I resolved that I am #1 not capable of being a good mother but #2 has hit me, that I could not handle explaining to one of my children why the world is that it is…this is more a #1 topic with me I 'spose. I am thankful that I don’t have a child to explain the event of today to, either now or later when they may learn of the subject. But if I have children, I would want them to play in their sporting events, go to their music classes, go to their ballet classes, attend their gymnastics tourney or the other events they may be involved with.

You can’t stop the world on one simgle event. It just can’t happen that way. If you stop all activities, close all the stores, close the schools, shut down any semblance of normalcy you have given in to the problems these people want us to address. Their problems aren’t ours, for the most part. They gave us a new and interesting thing to contend with. They didn’t stop us and our children, the children of the US should NEVER feel that such horrific events will ever stop us. They are entering into a world that we adults may never know. I pray they don’t have to go beyond this but they need to know that life goes on.

Yes, that’s it,Life goes on.

26

I don’t think it was a slap in the face of NYers. As a matter of fact, I think it was a good thing. Bin Laden’s mission on orchestrating the attack was to disrupt American’s lives as much as possible. By continuing on with Friday Night football, we showed him that his plan backfired. He may have broken our buildings, but he didn’t break our spirit.

I also think that the kids needed a break. As a middle school teacher, I know that these kids need reassurance that we will be OK and, as techchick68 said, Life Goes On.

But, that’s just my opinion.

27

It seems to me that, as times to go about wearing regionally-based chips on shoulders go, this is pretty much…you know…NOT.

Ahem.

Anyway, no. Not a slap in the face. Not insensitive, not a calculated insult, not a Don’t Mess With Texas propaganda stunt. Pretty much just high school kids playing sports. More power to em.

28

stuyguy -

Please feel free to apologize to us Texans at any time for your bigoted and uncalled for accusation.

Being the kind, compassionate AMERICANS that we are, we will most likely respond with “Hey, don’t worry about it. We know people are pretty upset right now, nerves are raw, and they say things that don’t quite add up. We’re behind you, brother. But most of all, we stand united with you in this struggle.”

Thanks.
Kepi

29

First of all, I started a thread MONTHS ago called " How do we mourn?". Maybe I need to do some digging and revive the damned thing- something I think I’ve never done, at least on a thread I’ve started.

Now then. My kids are NOT being made to sit around, watching the t.v. and watching me weep. It’s a world wide tragedy and travesty, and regionalizing it or making it a NY v.s. America thing is the very last thing anyone needs.

Abby’s description is so perfect- care was taken to show respect for what has happened and incorporate THAT community’s mourning into the event. How much more do you want from children? OR- the adults who planned that, who have to balance the mourning with the need for the children to have a normal life.

Yes, I said a normal life. OUR LIFE HAS CHANGED- but that sure as hell does not mean that I am supposed to watch the t.v. 24/7. Even had I NOT been there working the scene for the first two days, I’d want to separate from it some. I took my kids to roller hockey practice, and to orchestra rehearsal. YES, the adults talked about nothing but that. That’s what adults do. We share, and incorporate and support together. Kids learn that at home, not by having life rituals torn away.

Children- even HS children- grown with and cling to rituals in their lives. You take that away, you have orphans living in the streets of Beirut. Perhaps instead of lashing out at the Texas football coach, you can see that he did the finest thing he could do. He taught his players that there is a place for public mourning, and a way to do it that is HIGHLY decent and respectful, and a way to incorporate that mourning into the life that must go on.

Put another layer on the cake, Stuyguy. Try this on for size. ( I’ve no clue of course if this is true, but it’s certainly possible ). That coach’s father was killed in the Korean War. That face you saw was the best he could muster in front of America at that moment. Maybe that presentation was mourning barely harnessed, not wooden indifference.

Stop reading the surface and dig a little, ok? It’s a complex and layered response to this. I’m not sleeping, crying, angry, sick, etc. Like MILLIONS of other Americans, I have symptoms of PTSD. Does it make me a bigger sufferer because I was there for two days? FUCK NO. It means that I have a lot of other people going through this with me. Period.

And, fucko, that includes my all time favorite Texan. :slight_smile:

In unspeakable fury, I remain your–
Cartooniverse

30

The thoughts? I stand by forever. The language? I even Previewed it, that shows you how enraged I was. I apologize to both the Members and the Mods for using language here that only lives a healthy life over in the Pit.

Edit freely, for god’s sake. I’m sorry I used that kind of language. Had I stopped and thought about it a bit, I bet I could have found LOTS of other words to use. At any rate, I know the rules, and I am truly sorry for speaking in that tongue here.

Cartooniverse

31

I’d like to make a few points here. First of all, my OP was based on a Nightline piece about HS football in west Texas. It was not an across-the-board indictment about the entire state, or any other state for that matter. At most it was an indictment about those towns or schools; but I posted this thread in IMHO and I was looking for Os – and obviously I’m getting them [smilie here]. (Frankly I’m getting more than that; I’ve kept all my posts quite civil and I hope we can all keep them that way.)

Since the scope of this discussion has widened beyond the Nightline HS football games let me go on record that I apologize to anyone who got the false impression that I think that all the mourning that is going on Texaswide (or anyplace else) is not genuine or sincere. I’m sure that the vast, vast majority of it is – and I am deeply heartened, touched and grateful to see it. (I’ll even give the benefit of the doubt to the HS football towns; after all, I asked for opinions and I got them, and obviously so many of you think that the games were harmless.)

But frankly, that’s not really the issue that underlies my OP, so let me try to put this discussion on the track I intended it to go.

I was born and raised in NYC. I have travelled to a fair number of places across the USA. As I’ve said earlier, I’ve done much of it on a ratty old Raliegh bicycle, not in a big fat SUV upholstered in hundred dollar bills and wearing an IHEARTNY t-shirt. These places are not just major or minor cities with airports and big hotels. I repeat, these places are not just major or minor cities with airports and big hotels. They have included tiny towns, mostly with no motels and maybe one grocery store. They do not deal with many tourists or encounter a mix of outsiders. Most of them are deeply rural and, judging by the boarded-up windows and sinking barns, economically depressed.

In my travels I have encountered intense disdain, bordering on hatered, for NYC and its people – and I’m not talking the “hey I’m a Red Sox fan and we don’t like NYers around here” type of grinning, kidding contempt. Many upstate NYers think NYC is bleeding their economy dry (all the while they are co-opting more than their per capita share of NYC’s tax money – but that’s another post). Many out-of-staters think we are a hotbed of crime, illegal immigration, ungodliness, gun control, homosexuality, and conspicuous consumption that is driving the country to ruin. All the above-mentioned NYC-bashers do little to hide their contempt. The bottom line is that they feel we NYCers are not as good or as American as they are. Fine.

Now the nation is weeping for NYC (and yes, DC and PA and everyone else affected). Certainly the overwhelming majority of the mourners are sincere. But it makes me wonder about some of them.

Where are all those NYC-bashers? Have they had a change of heart? Are they just laying low? Are they weeping for DC and PA – or America – and not NYC? Or are they crying crocodile tears?

32

The only anti NYC sentiment I have ever come across myself is simply culteral bias. People with a small town mentality who simply mistrust people from a big city, and NYC being the biggest. It is a mistrust born out of watching too much TV and Too many Big Chuck Bronson death wish type movies. The other element may be the manerisms bred of NYC life that make someone from the “Big City” come across as rude and distrustfull to someone raisesd in a small town. All of this is superficial, and when it comes down to something on a scale like we are talking about now. Its like the estranged reletive you have a running fued with over over something trivial. You might go out of your way to avoid sititng at the table with them at a family reunion, but they are still family and by God you are still there for them in time of need. And God help the outsider who would do them wrong.

33

I may be the biggest rube on the SDMB.

In fact, to a sophisticated big city feller like stuyguy, I’m probably an ignorant beer-swilling redneck hick. Not only do I live in Texas, I live in ultra-rural Texas; Cowboy Texas.

bdgr has it right when he says that most small-town rural folk have a general disdain for big-city folk–be it Dallas, Houston, or even NYC. It may be a natural rivalry (city cousins v. country cousins), or it may have something to do with the open condecension we get from big-city tourists that are “shocked” to find that we have a bookstore, theather, art galleries, or a university, because, well, after all… we are just a bunch of inbred hicks, right?

I can’t say I’ve ever been offended by something I’ve read on the SDMB until today. At least, never so offended that I felt that I couldn’t NOT post a reply, but I can’t let this pass. Nobody in this town is anything but devistated by the tragedy in NYC and DC. I spent a couple of hours last night drinking at one of the Rubest, Hickest, Redneckest bars in Texas (where I–as an Dallas ex-pat who’s only been rural for the past ten years–may still be looked at suspiciously) and spoke with cowboys that don’t care for much of anything big city expressing nothing but remorse, regret, and anger for what’s happened to NYC and DC. People (myself included) waited hours to give blood. Our two local radio stations–and the only two we can get–have switched from Country music to non-stop news coverage. Flags are flying everywhere (in fact, in a land where the Texas flag is usually much more common than the American flag, people still flying the Texas flag instead of the American are criticized for not being Americans first rather than Texans). It’s the only topic of conversation and yet not one of the people I’ve talked to have expressed a view that NYCer’s are “not really Americans” like them–or, rather, us. Quite the contrary: we’ve never felt closer to any of our fellow Americans–especially our bretheren in NYC.

stuyguy, I’m sure you’re a fine person and all, but you’ve picked a piss-poor time to look for evidince to reinforce the negative stereotypes you have of us rural, small-town West Texans, and I’m sorry if the producers at Nightline that feel the same negativity have reinforced this. Try to overcome it.

God bless you and all your fellow New Yorkers in the greatest city in the world,

John

34

We are weeping for the dead who shouldn’t be dead. No one is “lying low” or selectively weeping just for the dead of one or two areas and not the other. We are weeping for people who were slaughtered. That they were New Yorkers, or from New Jersey, Washington or wherever doesn’t matter. It matters that they are dead. I would hope you would feel just as bad if the planes hit Dalhart, Texas or Felt Oklahoma as we do that New York was hit.

In your rant, you seem to want someone to bash New York City, someone to cry crocodile tears, someone to exclude New York City in their mourning. Possibly that’s natural, it would give you someone to lash out at. But from what I can tell from this board and the people I have seen the last week even in the areas that previously had little use for New York City, you’re not going to get it. We hurt right along with you. And we are sorry it happened.

35

“…to a sophisticated big city feller like stuyguy, I’m probably an ignorant beer-swilling redneck hick…”

Excuse me Pantellerite but your righteous indignation is misplaced with me. Please reread my posts and you will find none of the condescension you attributed to me, though you might find it in the snowball of repies that followed my OP, most of them misreading the intent of my post.

You may also find in my posts that I have little of the city-slicker arrogance that so many of the replies attribute to me. I go around on my bike or in my car or on my motorcycle to little towns that most “coasters” fly over precisely because I love the experience of meeting and seeing American people and places that so many other urbanites choose to ignore.

I can recount many, many stories of the kindnesses tendered to me on the road by total strangers – meals shared, shelter given and campfire stories exchanged. I have every reason to believe these people are as genuinely open-minded and good natured to everyone as they were to me, and I give them my unbounded gratitude. I have zero complaints with them.

But let me assure you, that is not the only type of person I encountered. There is a noticable portion of the population who did not like me and did not want me – because I was from NYC.

TV time, I appreciate your civil post. But, no, I am not looking for someone to lash out at; I’m trying to keep my perspective balanced. Because I have gone into some deep, off-the-beaten-path places, I’ve seen the petty ugly anti-urban prejudices that most NYCers don’t know exist.

(Metaphorically speaking…) On Monday I go into a bar all polite and unassuming in one of those places that (quoting TV time, with apologies) “had little use for New York City” whereupon some people talk down to me, or ignore me or hand me snide remarks – all simply because of where I grew up and live. Then on Tuesday, my hometown becomes the site of a horrific tragedy, and suddenly everybody loves me and my city?

Huh?

36

Stuyguy, I’m certainly glad some people in this country met your standards. The OP was about Texas high school football, as shown in a Nightline segment. Your question was whether going on with Texas football games was a slap in the face to people in New York City. Somehow, you’ve gotten around to wondering why suddenly everyone loves “you” and “your city.”
Some people definitely have prejudices about New York City. I don’t think that is going to improve much after the attack on the World Trade Center. After seeing the heroism of the firefighters and rescue workers, some people might form a new image of the city. I seriously doubt anyone suddenly loves you after this attack, and I don’t think anyone who firmly, if irrationally, believes NYC is a cesspool is going to change after this.
People are responding to the human loss. Washington DC was attacked as well, but I haven’t noticed any Washingtonians starting threads about the resumption of Texas high school football. The response would be the same if the terrorists had struck in Los Angeles instead of New York.

37

Yes, there has long been anti-NY feeling by some people in some parts of the country. It’s the biggest, the brashest, the richest, the proudest, the worldliest, the best city in the country. NY is therefore a rhetorical target for anyone who doesn’t like these qualities. DC similarly gets targeted as the home of big government and bureaucracy.

This “disdain,” as Uke called it, does not mean for a moment that even the people who ordinarily disdain NY and DC are glad that the cities were targeted by terrorists. I think there is near-universal solidarity with NYers in the country.

As for sports, or any other non-survival activity, going on, we don’t have a handbook for this kind of thing–I do not believe that any slap to NY or DC is intended–the contrary is seen in the memorials, blood drives and relief collections underway. Games and practices were cancelled for Tuesday through Friday where I live; soccer resumed on Saturday morning–should the date have been Sunday? next Saturday? (The audience applauded when we saw the first planes from Midway airport fly overhead at 8:00 am.)

I know I’m repeating what others have said; I wanted to say it too.

38

I spent most of my life living in NYC, but six years ago I moved to Alabama. I found a lot of people here who despised New Yorkers, and for that matter, “Yankees” in general. I also found a lot of people who were fascinated by NYC, or life in any big city.

Hell, there was a time when I thought everyone in Alabama lived in trailers parked alongside cotton and peanut farms. I didn’t know any better. Now I do. These are all reactions that are a result of not being familiar with life on the other side of the fence.

In my travels, I’ve met people from all over the country, some of whom think Big City folks are not to be trusted. Some think California is full of flakes, everyone in Texas wears a cowboy hat, and Southerners are inbred and stupid. Thankfully, most people don’t share these views, and realize that we’re all Americans, just living in different places.

I can’t say I’ve known every Alabamian’s idea of what a New Yorker is, or what someone from DC or even Pennsylvania is. But what I see now is people understanding that all of us in this country, no matter where we live, are all on the same team. I am truly touched at the outpouring of support that people in my community, and communities like it throughout the world, have shown this past week.

I have no problem with the HS football games. I was glued to all the news coverage like everyone else, but even I had to watch something else, even for just 30 minutes, to simply give my mind, eyes, and ears a rest from these horrific events. I see these games, and any other activity, as being the same. A break, a pause, and just as importantly, a feeling that we will not be intimidated into hiding in our homes.

One more note about the people I’ve seen here in Alabama, and probably the rest of the country and the world. There may have been those before last Tuesday who didn’t think highly of people from NYC, or DC, or America in general. Those ideas don’t exist as much anymore. How could anyone not have feelings of sadness and empathy over what happened? How could anyone not admire the efforts that are taking place at Ground Zero, or, more appropriately, Ground Hero? I think from this point on, New Yorkers will be seen a little differently.

As one who still considers himself a New Yorker, I don’t see any resumption of normal activity as a slap in the face. I can understand the feelings of those who played HS football, and I can also understand the feelings of people like stuyguy. I share a little of both, and realize that we all deal with these events differently.

39

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Ballybay *
**

How does a display of heroism support your argument that people who disdained New York before 9/11 will continue to do so?

40

I wasn’t very clear about this. Let me try again.

People who say they dislike New York for no valid reason have a prejudice. For example, I have a friend who insists he would never, ever go to New York just because he doesn’t like it. He’s never been there, so he’s not basing this on personal experience.

It’s easy to stereotype New York. It’s well-known and it’s portrayed often in books, TV and movies. I love Law and Order, but a viewer could get the idea that one can’t walk ten feet down the street without getting killed. People who’ve never been there are willing to say they “know” that New Yorkers are rude, everyone “know” that the city is dangerous. My friend’s never been to Des Moine, either, but he hasn’t vowed never to set foot in Iowa.

Prejudices are difficult to change. Subtyping is a phenomenon that protects stereotypes. Instead of getting rid of a prejudice altogether, people will create a new category. Thus, someone who irrationally thinks “All New Yorkers are rude and uncaring” won’t have their mind changed after watching the firefighters and rescue workers. I think he or she would instead formulate a new subtype, that “New Yorkers are mostly rude, but they can be nice and the firefighters are really brave.”