Ugly incident at Providence goes way beyond racial tension

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Tuesday, May 04, 2010

By Michael Parente

Armchair psychiatrists are out in full force this week as we, the public, try to figure out why two student-athletes from the Providence College men’s basketball team would randomly beat the living bejesus out of an innocent classmate outside a store on the edge of campus.

Since the guilty parties are black, we’ve naturally gravitated toward the most common copout, which is reexamining Providence’s disturbing history as a predominately-white campus and trying to make a correlation between the school’s racial makeup and the disgusting behavior of freshmen Johnnie Lacy and James Still.

I saw the numbers – less than 1 percent of the student body is African-American – and I agree Providence isn’t nearly as diverse as it needs to be, but, sorry, this has absolutely nothing to do with why these two knuckleheads broke another kid’s nose and eye socket for no reason whatsoever at 1:30 in the morning.

This wasn’t a racially-motivated act. This was sociopathic misconduct in its most repulsive form and it speaks to a much more pressing issue, which is the continuous decline of standards among prominent Division I schools trying to outbid one another for the services of student-athletes who might be able to help their programs win.

Those blaming this incident on racial tension at Providence – and that includes former basketball player Corey Wright, who is quoted this morning as suggesting this might not have happened if a bunch of black kids threw a party the night before – are missing the point. First off, the victim was a senior residential advisor from Kazakhstan, not a white kid, so unless Lacy and Still found “Borat” incredibly offensive, I fail to see the connection.

We as a society would be better off if we stopped providing psychopaths with an excuse for their behavior. Racial tension or not, taking the first kid who turns the corner and cracking his skull is in no way shape or form a rational response to any injustice that occurs on a college campus. Period. In fact, the entire premise of this incident stemming from racial tension is even more racist than the act itself, as if we’re suggesting the only way minorities can – or should – deal with injustice is by resorting to violence.

I dealt with real racial tension 12 years ago as a student at the University of Rhode Island when the school newspaper’s questionable decision to run a racially-charged editorial cartoon resulted in a group of black students protesting outside of our office. The story grabbed national headlines and we all felt the tension on campus for nearly three weeks, yet no one caught an unprovoked beating as a result of the ongoing hostility, so spare me the nonsense about this incident at Providence having anything to do with race.

Blame the real culprits, specifically head coach Keno Davis, who committed a colossal error in failing to forecast a potential dilemma when he recruited two students who clearly lacked the social skills to interact with others on a college campus. You don’t need to be a psychic to know who does and doesn’t belong; you need common sense. Either Davis lacks the ability to read people, or he let his desire to win cloud his better judgment. Whatever the case may be, this is his problem and he needs to address it.

Why more fans aren’t up in arms over the long-standing tradition of shady recruiting is beyond me. This is a problem that actually might have an adverse effect on important issues, such as whether or not your kids get into the school of their choice. Instead, we care more about tabloid fodder, such as who is using steroids or how many bar skanks Tiger Woods slept with.

We can clamor for Providence to address its lack of diversity and, at the same time, put this ugly incident in proper perspective. The bottom line is Lacy and Still are savage meatheads who should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. For once, let’s leave race out of this and address the real issues. Villains like this don’t need excuses – or our sympathy.

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