The Kenmore East High School girls varsity basketball team had one of the dumbest traditions you can imagine and now the team is suspended because of it. From Buffalo News:

Teammates would hold hands before their games, say a prayer together, then yell “One, two, three [N-word]!” before running out onto the court, according to offended students.

Holy shit! If you thought that sounded dumb, would you believe they continued the tradition when Tyra Batts, an African-American student joined the team this year? Believe it or not, Batts was offended.

“I said, ‘You’re not allowed to say that word because I don’t like that word,’” she recalled. “They said, ‘You know we’re not racist, Tyra. It’s just a word, not a label.’ I was outnumbered.”

I am speechless.

During a later practice scrimmage game, she said she and another teammate exchanged words over some physical roughness on the court. Tyra said she “said something dumb,” after which her teammate called her “a black piece of [expletive].” Then on Monday, she said, she saw the girl in school, threw her into a locker, choked and punched her. “It was a buildup of anger and frustration at being singled out of the whole team,” she said.

Both girls were suspended for fighting.

Tyra added that her teammates would routinely make racial references and jokes during practice, including ones regarding slavery, shackles and “picking cotton.” She said her coach, Kristy Bondgren, heard comments from other players about Tyra being black but was unaware of the pregame chant.

Well that’s a coaching career that is now over. It is so insane that these girls were able to justify this in their minds.

[Buffalo News]