Philadelphia Weekly

"If a white adult calls a 9-year-old African-American girl an 'effing animal,'" says Walter Stewart, "I think that's racial. They're calling her less than human."

When the Anderson Monarchs--the only traveling African-American girls' soccer club in Pennsylvania--visited the Shissler rec center in Fishtown last week to play an all-white team, coach Stewart admitted to being nervous.

Turns out he didn't need to be. The Monarchs' under-13s won the indoor five-on-five game 3-1. There was no racist abuse. No name-calling. No obscenity. No refusal to shake hands.

But at a game in South Philly Jan. 20, it was a different story.

The under-11s' league match between the visiting all-white Fishtown team and the Monarchs at the Marian Anderson Rec Center was marred by a walk-out and, some parents say, racial abuse.

"Fishtown came out playing very physically, says Stewart. "I said to the referee that he had to get the game under control or something not good was going to happen ... By half-time we were up only 2-0. It wasn't a blowout or anything like that."

But midway through the second half, says Stewart, the Monarchs were leading 5-1--and some of the Fishtown parents reacted badly.

"They were just coming out--not talking to their coach--just taking their kid by the hand and dramatically leaving the gym."

And it was then, says Stewart, that the behavior of at least one Fishtown supporter crossed the line from bad sportsmanship into racism.

"I didn't hear the words, but I was told by people near the door they were calling us 'animals,' and--I can't say it, my Catholic school upbringing--'effing animals.'"

Janelle Moore of University City has four daughters in the Anderson Monarchs. She heard the remark.

"It was a mom about two seats away. She said: 'Oh, we don't have to deal with this S-H-I-T. I'm not dealing with these effing animals.'"

"We're not putting up with it," says Stewart. "There's no reason to take this. There's never a reason to call a 9-year-old girl�--or any person--a racial name. The Monarchs' parents are really upset. They're writing letters. They're trying to get city officials involved. They might go to human relations. Some people are talking about a lawsuit."

Earlier in the game the referee warned spectators to be quiet or he'd clear the gym.

"He didn't say it to anybody in particular," says Stewart, "but it was the Fishtown fans who were out of control."

A representative of Fishtown under-11s didn't respond to PW's phone calls.

Last fall, says Stewart, one of his teams was called "bitches and trash" by parents in Middletown, Del. And during a game in 1999 a player from a Roxborough team abused a Monarchs player with a racial epithet.

Stewart says that just three such incidents in more than nine years is indicative of how little overt racism there is in grassroots soccer, but adds that's no reason to excuse it when it does occur.

Parent Janelle Moore is less sanguine. She says that while overt racism might be rare, prejudice, discrimination and de facto segregation are commonplace.