Wrong knows no color

I'm not in a good place emotionally, right now.
Something happened recently that's been eating at me. I don't like it when supposedly grown adults mistreat children. That bothers me. It especially bothers me when the mistreatment could possibly be racially motivated.
That pisses me the hell off. It makes me angry. It makes me very, very mad.
It goes both ways.
Several years ago at Strong, when four starters off a state championship team transferred, the lone returning starter was Maranda Parker. A white girl on a predominantly black team, Maranda was billed as the best player and got a lot of credit for the team's success the previous year.
Apparently, some Strong fans thought she got too much credit and thought it might have been because of her skin tone.
During a game at Magnolia, the opposing team double and triple teamed Parker, forcing her into turnovers and just a bad game. Some black fans screamed at her on the court and made derogatory comments about her.
That was wrong. Adults targeting a child is wrong. It pissed me off then.
Saturday, white fans yelled negative comments about a player on their own team, who happened to be black. No doubt, the comments were racially motivated just as much as those were against Maranda Parker.
They pissed me off.
Maranda lashed out at the negativity in her own way, which I won't put into print because I don't use that type of language.
She didn't handle it well but then again, she was a kid.
The player who was targeted Saturday didn't handle their situation any better. In fact, they handled it worse because they stopped playing. The player got benched and deservedly so. If you're not going to play, you sit. That's common sense.
In the end, the white, red-necked fan won. They wanted to run the black kid off the team and they did just that. It bothers me that the kid fell into the trap and cooperated in their own demise.
Then again, it's a kid.
Maranda had the last laugh several years ago. She perservered and led her Lady Bulldogs to the state quarterfinals in a year when they weren't one of the top eight teams in the state. She's now celebrated in Strong, perhaps even by the fan who heckled her back in the day.
Sometimes good trumps evil. Sometimes it doesn't.
It pisses me off when evil wins.
Racism is always a factor. Let's not be naive. I talked to Maranda on Saturday and she admitted, a black fan yelling at her affected her differently than if a white fan had yelled the exact same thing.
It's human nature. We're not color blind. I see color. You see color. Don't freaking lie and say you don't. We all do.
When you admit that, it will allow you a certain sensitivity. I don't know what it's like to be white. I'm sure people of other races face problems I don't know about and perhaps couldn't understand.
Being black ain't easy either, especially in a predominantly white environment. Especially when people don't want you to excel. Especially when people openly root against you.
Especially, when you're a kid.
Wrong is wrong, no matter what color in which it's packaged.