Jeremiah Chapman, the only black player on Charles City High School baseball team in Iowa was left hurt and angry by racist comments he heard from the crowd during an away game against Waverly-Shell Rock High on June 27.
Chapman said fans in the stands yelled: “You should have been George Floyd” and “Get back to the fields.” He also said he was called “Colin”, a reference to Colin Kaepernick the former NFL quarterback who knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality.
The young baseball player says he tries his best to be liked by everyone. So, it is “hard seeing that no matter how hard I try, people can’t accept me because of my skin color.”
“We make no excuses, because there are none,” Waverly-Shell Rock Community School District said in a Facebook post. “We do, however, wish to make a sincere apology to the Charles City school district and community and, in particular, the young man towards whom these comments were directed. We can’t undo what’s been done. But we are using this as a learning experience for the responsible party and, we hope, for many others in our schools and communities.”
Iowa became the first state to resume high school sports in June after weeks of shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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