Soccer Participant With Dreadlocks Receives Racist Letter
C.J. Holmes, a sophomore security on the Penn State College soccer group, posted an image of a letter on Twitter allegedly obtained by one among his teammates.
The letter contained racially charged language, prejudiced rhetoric and described Holmes’ teammate’s hair (dreadlocks) as “terrible.”
The letter is addressed to “Jonathan” and is shipped by a person who describes himself as an “older” graduate of Penn State.
The one Jonathan on the Penn State soccer roster is sophomore security Jonathan Sutherland. A younger Black man with dreadlocks.
This comes at a time when the policing of Black individuals’s hair, physique and general presence is seemingly at an all-time excessive.
The letter, signed by somebody named Dave Petersen, reeks of respectability politics and far of the sentiment related to a selected demographic of school soccer followers.
“Watching the Idaho sport on TV we couldn’t assist however discover your — nicely – terrible hair. Certainly there have to be mirrors within the locker room! Don’t you’ve mother and father or girlfriend who’ve instructed you these shoulder size dreadlocks look disgusting and are actually not engaging,” the letter learn.
“You’ll actually be enjoying ‘on Sunday’ sooner or later however we have now stopped watching the NFL as a result of disgusting, tattoos, terrible hair and immature antics ultimately zone. Gamers ought to act as if they’ve ‘been there earlier than.’”
The supply or authenticity of this letter has not been verified, however Penn State did situation a brief assertion through its official Twitter account:
“Whereas we don’t know the supply of this letter or the authenticity, clearly its content material doesn’t align with our values. We strongly condemn this message or any message of intolerance.”
