Women’s Soccer Star’s “Blaccent” Deserves a Yellow Card

When kids go back to school this fall, there’s a pretty good chance their teachers will have posted a photo of the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) winning the FIFA Women’s World Cup in soccer. Does it deserve this honor?

Since their victory, the women’s soccer stars have been presented as heroes and role models, but their behavior seems to indicate they don’t all exactly live up to that responsibility. Yet the media and other supporters of the USWNT appear to have chosen to ignore behavior that is unsportsmanlike, impolite and indecent. While there has been criticism of forward Megan Rapinoe, it’s the behavior of goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris that is particularly troubling and largely overlooked.

What’s been largely overlooked is Harris’s use of potentially racially insensitive language. Racial insensitivity is something that essentially ended the career of comedienne Roseanne Barr last year. The media identified Barr as a conservative.

Members of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network are asking people to “raise the Barr” on the USWNT, Rapinoe and particularly Harris. They are calling for the actions of the team to be judged in the same manner Barr was judged for her own crass behavior.

As Project 21 member Derryck Green explains about Project 21’s new “Raising the Barr” feature:

There’s absolutely no question that political and moral double standards exist between leftists and conservatives. To the point, the left doesn’t acknowledge, nor is capable of living up to, the standards it sets for conservatives.

Take racism, for example. Leftists have rushed to label Donald Trump, Jr. “racist” for retweeting a tweet – from a black man – that questions Senator Kamala Harris’s racial identity. Yet barely a peep was made when, while then-senator Barack Obama was running for president, “60 Minutes,” Time magazine and Stanley Crouch all questioned Obama’s racial identity – inquiring whether he was authentically black enough to garner the black vote.

Further, since the 2016 election, leftists have repeatedly called President Donald Trump a racist. But they haven’t repeatedly called Virginia Governor Ralph Northam a racist, even after he admitted and apologized – and later rescinded both – for being photographed in either blackface or a Ku Klux Klan costume in his medical school yearbook.

These double standards exist because the left refuses to judge itself by the standards to which it holds conservatives.

Thus, the need for “Raising the Barr.”

In the case of the USWNT, as mentioned, there are plenty of things that should call the team’s role model status into question:

  • Rapinoe is well-known for her unwillingness to stand for the national anthem despite the longstanding consideration of athletes on national teams as de facto.
  • The team was criticized for unsportsmanlike behavior when it ran up the score against Thailand, and forward Alex Morgan mocked the British after scoring a goal against the English team.
  • A series of post-victory videos – many posted by the team – show drinking and lewd activity in the locker room and other places.

As Project 21 member Marie Fischer points out:

When I look at the videos and read of the actions of our women’s soccer team, I am reminded of myself and my sorority sisters when I was in college over 20 years ago. We were loud, rowdy and a bit obnoxious. But we were not going around presuming the guise of being role models to young girls in the U.S. and possibly the world.

Also, our actions were not recorded in infamy via social media.

And it is USWNT goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris who may have gone the furthest overboard.

At the victory parade held for the team in New York City, the team received honorary keys to the city. Harris, who grew up on central Florida’s “Space Coast” and went to the University of North Carolina, spoke in a manner that mocked black people in a video that was posted to social media.

Harris was obviously mocking Antoine Dodson, who became an Internet celebrity in 2010 after he was featured on a local news report about a break-in at his sister’s apartment in Huntsville, Alabama.

Back then, in a report broadcast on WAFF-TV, Dodson said about the break-in: “Hide yo kids, hide yo wife and hide yo husband because they rapin’ everyone up here.”

At the parade, while showing off her key, Harris said: “Hide yo kids, hide yo wife and lock yo f—in’ doors because we got the key to the m—–f—in’ city. And I’m coming for y’all b—-es.”

Coincidence? Not a chance. She was clearly mimicking Dodson.

Marie adds:

I am troubled in our current “rape culture” world. If a men’s team said the “Hide your kids…” statement, that would be the end of them media-wise. No one would want to interview them about their win. They might want to give them a tongue-lashing for their statement. Endorsement offers would dry up and existing ones would be canceled.

We now officially live in an Orwellian state where certain groups of people can appear to do no wrong in the eyes of the world, while those doing the right thing are lambasted and treated just short of criminal.

Ariana Grande has been criticized for using a “blaccent.” So have Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Cultural appropriation is usually a major offense. Usually. Why not now with USWNT’s Harris? Particularly why not now when it was used by her in a mocking tone?

Project 21 member Rich Holt says it probably has a lot to do with the left being able to control the narrative:

It’s typical of leftist whites to culturally appropriate black culture and act like it’s cool. It’s disrespectful for Ashlyn Harris to have participated in such an act of racial hatred. We all know that if this was a white conservative, there would have been riots in the streets.

The left-wing tactic of punishing anyone who doesn’t agree with them by labeling them “racist” or “sexist” really only works because they control the media. Real Americans have more sense than to fall for these deceptive manipulations. But liberal activism unfortunately disenfranchises the silent majority with abusive terror-like tactics. Liberal organizations such as anti-racism groups, pro-gay organizations and the like are not created to protect anyone. Instead, they are actually deceptive covers for elite teams that function like terrorist cells.

While it’s disappointing that athletes have made inappropriate comments on social media, they were dumb kids at the time, and perhaps we can let it slide. We do so because we, being adults, were often idiots at that age too. But why is it that we, as a society, can see these comments and say, “I get it, what an idiot” and accept an apology from an athlete — yet if someone is an outed conservative in the same circumstances, he or she is the spawn of Satan united in a conspiracy with the KKK to wage war on blacks/gays/women/etc.?

This makes no sense to a rational human being, but liberals aren’t rational.

Want a hero on the U.S. Women’s National Team? How about midfielder Kelley O’Hara? During the post-finals celebration, she rescued the American flag from being stepped on after it was careless dropped by fellow midfielder Allie Long.



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