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The One Story: HBCUs And The Gatekeeping Of Black Culture
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TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY Blanca Morel A p

Source: ELMER MARTINEZ / Getty

A high school basketball announcer was caught on a hot mic hatefully directing the N-word at players as they kneeled during the playing of the national anthem before the contest started. And that’s not even the most shocking part of the story.

Matt Rowan, the suspected white supremacist who owns and operates the streaming service that was covering the girls basketball game in Oklahoma, called the Norman High School players the N-word, modified by an expletive, and said he hoped they lost the game because they chose to employ the now-commonplace peaceful protest against police violence. And it was all preserved on video.

“They’re kneeling?” Rowan could be heard asking in disbelief as the national anthem played. “F***ing [N-words.”

Rowan followed that gem up by wishing them the worst.

“I hope Norman gets their ass kicked,” Rowan said. “F*** them. I hope they lose…”

Watch the fateful footage of the moment Rowan went full-blown white supremacist.

However, Rowan forgot to mute himself and everybody watching the steam heard him utter those hateful words about the high school girls.

Once confronted with his racism, Rowan actually had the audacity to inexplicably blame it on the fact that he has diabetes.

Rowan admitted to making “racist comments believing the microphone was off.” He offered a host of irrelevant mea culpas, like how he was a youth pastor and is married with children and a practicing Baptist.

But then, Rowan went there.

“I will state that I suffer Type 1 Diabetes and during the game my sugar was spiking,” Rowan said in part of his statement that was released Friday. “While not excusing my remarks it is not unusual when my sugar spikes that I become disoriented and often say things that are not appropriate as well as hurtful. I do not believe that I would have made such horrible statements absent my sugar spiking.”

Rowan was trying to dismiss his racism as a side effect for hypoglycemia, a condition that occurs when blood sugar is low. However, the website for the Mayo Clinic falls to include racism as a side effect for hypoglycemia. It does say that hypoglycemia getting worse can cause “Confusion, abnormal behavior or both,” but only in the sense of “the inability to complete routine tasks.”

But that’s a stretch to assign blame to that considering Rowan can’t be the first sports announcer to purportedly experience hypoglycemia while working. But he just might be the first to blame it for his racism.

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