It’s doubtful there are other high school football teams in Massachusetts with a play-calling system full of anti-Semitic barbs. That shameful honor belongs to Duxbury High School, whose football coach, Dave Maimaron, was suspended and later fired.
But it’s naive to think anti-Jewish expressions are rare in locker rooms. Just last week, Miami Heat forward Meyers Leonard was suspended after he was caught using an anti-Semitic slur while streaming a video game on Twitch.
And last summer, DeSean Jackson shared anti-Semitic quotes on Instagram wrongly attributed to Adolf Hitler — and was backed up by Stephen Jackson.
At Outsports (where I moonlight as deputy managing editor), we often write about the prevalence of casual homophobia. Whenever a pro athlete utters a homophobic slur, such as PGA star Justin Thomas, the focus wrongly falls on the individual act itself. No reasonable person thinks Thomas is homophobic, simply because he was caught say something regretful on a live mic.
Instead of issuing a self-flagellating apology, it would be more productive if Thomas worked to eradicate that repugnant word from the golf course. In conservative golf culture, it’s acceptable to throw anti-gay slurs around. That’s the root of the problem, not Thomas’ slip-up.
That brings us to the incident at Duxbury High. When Duxbury played Plymouth North earlier this month, their players used play calls ranging from “Auschwitz!” to “rabbi,” reports Dan Shaughnessy. Obviously, the ultimate responsibility lies with Maimaron, the supposed adult in the room. He was absent from Duxbury’s following game.
“I want to extend my apology for the insensitive, crass, and inappropriate language used in the game on March 12,” Maimaron said in a statement to the Globe. “The use of this language was careless, unnecessary and most importantly hurtful on its face — inexcusable. We have taken responsibility for the incident.”
But it's telling not a single parent or player thought there was something wrong with screaming "Auschwitz!" at the line. That means there's a problem with the culture -- not just in Duxbury, but everywhere.
Taking responsibility for the incident involves more than suspending Maimaron, or even firing him. It will require looking deeper and asking why this kind of behavior was deemed acceptable in the first place.
Oftentimes, one of the answers is ignorance.
Leonard said he didn’t know what his anti-Semitic word meant, and was “deeply sorry” for saying it. Perhaps that’s the case. Now we’ll see if Leonard makes an effort to educate himself about Jewish history, and why those slurs are so painful.
Accepting Julian Edelman’s invitation to Shabbat dinner would be a nice start.
It’s admirable for Edelman to seek compassion in moments like these. Education is one of the best ways to combat bigotry.
With that in mind, it would be great for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association to partner with Jewish organizations, and seek to raise awareness about Jewish history in locker rooms across the state. With anti-Semitic crimes on the rise, it would be the perfect time to do it.
Reprimanding Maimaron and moving on won't prevent the problem from happening again, because the issue isn't that Duxbury's football team used "dreidel" as an audible call.
The issue is, this will likely happen again -- perhaps at the lunch table, or maybe on the school bus. As ignorant kids, hateful terms can become embedded in our vernacular. The key is, removing them.
That is accomplished through hard work — not one suspension.