High school black baseball player says fans yelled ‘You should have been George Floyd’ and ‘Back to the fields’

Chapman said he was even called “Colin” at one point, which he believes was a reference to Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback widely known for kneeling during the National Anthem in an effort to protest police brutality.

Iowa resumed sports in high school in June, and Chapman told CNN he was excited to return to normal after the coronavirus pandemic halted his senior year. But after hearing several discouraging comments during Saturday’s game, he said he was angry and hurt.

“I do my best to make everyone love me because that’s just my personality,” Chapman said. “And it’s hard to see that no matter how hard I try, people can’t accept me because of the color of my skin.”

Chapman’s mother, Keisha Cunnings, told CNN that she was not in the game, but was flooded with mixed emotions when her son called her to tell her what happened.

“I was angry because as a parent, this is the only fear I have for him,” she said. “The other part of me was a little relieved that it happened because it opened Jeremiah’s eyes to not be so naive, color blind and ignorant to the fact that things like these still happen.”

Cunnings said he does not believe the people responsible for the comments were trying to be racist.

“I feel like they were kids and they were just trying to say what they could say to get him (Jeremiah) out of his game and unfortunately they took him on the run,” he said.

It is unclear who made the comments.

The Charles City and Waverly-Shell Rock school districts found the booth comments unacceptable.

Other players of color have come forward in the past with similar stories of racial comments and actions while playing road games, Charles City Community School District Superintendent Mike Fisher told CNN.

Administrators have tried to address some of the incidents by sending staff with varsity teams to events outside, Fisher said.

“However, we realized that even this job has been a band-aid,” he said. “We want to see systemic change and shed light on this continued disgusting behavior. We wanted to bring the conversation to the forefront and demand that we as a society do better. We want to make sure that all of our students of color know that we have their backs in private and in public “.

After some of the comments, the referee asked Chapman if he wanted to stop the game, but Chapman said no because he didn’t want to disappoint his teammates.

“That really meant a lot to me,” he said. “I didn’t expect him (the referee) to really care that much, but he was really ready to act.”

“We have no excuses, because there aren’t,” said the Waverly-Shell Rock Community School District publication. “However, we would like to offer a sincere apology to the Charles City school district and community and, in particular, to the youth towards whom these comments were directed.”

“We cannot undo what has 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.”