republican presidential candidate donald trump couldn’t win the iowa caucus, but last week during a high school basketball playoff game in iowa we got a glimpse (short, quick view) of how his comments on immigration are affecting emotion and attitude in the u.s. fans of the dallas center-grimes mustangs chanted “trump” in an effort to taunt (provoke) and degrade (insult) their rival the perry bluejays.
perry has a significant hispanic population that includes some of the bluejay players. the state of iowa has a population that is roughly (approxiamtely) 5% hispanic; perry is 35% hispanic.
fun english practice 
richyrocks english on youtube
justin surrency of whotv, a tv station in des moines, iowa, explained it like this
perry high school bucks the trend of what is typically found in a rural iowa setting…… they embrace that diversity and it shows on the basketball court with players of latino, native-american and african-american heritage.
buck the trend means perry is atypical, they don’t represent normal tendencies. embrace means accept and value.
perry student kevin lopez elaborated
we’re all aware of racism. it’s alive and well. in small portions, but it’s alive and well.
alive and well is used to emphasize that racism is NOT dead. it still exists, and in fact thrives (does well, flourishes).
however, surrency reported that
the bluejays have found a way to take the high road.
high road refers to sportsmanship or maintaining an ethical position.
one of the bluejay players, shammond ivory, told whotv
as soon as i hear something like that, it just triggers me. it just, it makes me strive more.
as soon as means exactly at that moment. trigger means the racist chants motivate ivory, pump him up, push him to play hard. strive means give a strong effort, work hard.
a heart guiding a mind
surrency also talked about
a checklist of sportsmanship traits [that] greets everyone who walks into perry high school’s gymnasium. they hope other schools can follow suit, and if not, they hope their play on the basketball court can change the hearts and minds of those affected by their race.
sportsmanship is an environment of fair play created by athletes and fans. traits are characteristics. follow suit means do the same, imitate. hearts and minds is a common expression that in this context means opinions, perspectives, feelings.
cheerleaders from perry high school (the perry news)
two of the sportsmanship traits that perry high school promotes (as seen in the video) are also useful:
**cheer for, not against. (cheer is what fans at a sporting event do. the cheers are usually not racist.)
**everyone is a role model
to their credit, some of dallas center-grimes’ students recognized the impact of the trump chants. one of the students, sonya harwood, appears at the beginning of this video from kcci, another des moines television station.
she observed
just to see how much we hurt perry, just hurt me inside.
and a little later in the vid she adds
i knew as soon as we saw this we had to fix it.
hurt here means they did emotional damage. it can also refer to physical pain. this johnny cash song is another example
scott blum, dean of students at dallas center grimes described his students’ mindset
they wanted to own up to their mistake. they didn’t wanna make excuses. our kids did not wanna go to perry today and defend themselves. they wanted to say we were wrong and we’re gonna own it and get better because of it.
own up to and the more fashionable own it both mean take responsibility. get better means improve.
harwood concludes the video with a message of love and unity. and passive voice (be learned; who needs to learn is not directly mentioned).
how we can come together as a community and support one another and love each other no matter what our skin color is—- that’s the important part and i think that’s what really needs to be learned here.
what do u think? is this an educational moment that can lead to better understanding? or is it just another typical case of american racism? does donald trump have to own any of this incident? share your opinion under leave a reply
