Red Sox permanently ban a fan from Fenway Park for using a racial slur

One night after Baltimore outfielder Adam Jones said he was subject to racist taunts at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox reacted swiftly to another racially charged incident at their ballpark.

The organization issued a lifetime ban to a fan for using a slur while speaking to another fan attending a game Tuesday night with members of his interracial family. Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said he thinks it’s the first time a fan has been barred for life from Fenway.

“I’m here to send a message, loud and clear, that the behavior, the language, the treatment of others that you’ve heard about and read about is not acceptable,” Kennedy announced to reporters in the press box during the Red Sox’s game against the Orioles on Wednesday night.

The ejected fan’s name was not released to the public. The Boston Globe described him as “a middle-aged white man, wearing a Red Sox hat and T-shirt.”

After a woman from Kenya finished singing the national anthem, the man turned to a stranger, Calvin Hennick, and used a racial slur to describe the performance, according to the Globe.

“I was sitting there with my mixed-race family. The more I think about it, the more I think it was a deliberate thumb in the eye,” said Hennick, a 35-year-old white man who was with his biracial 5-year-old son and father-in-law, who is originally from Haiti .

“He wanted to prove that he could say whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.”

Hennick repeated what he thought he had heard and asked the man if that was what he said.

“Yes, that’s what I said, and I stand by it,” the other fan told Hennick, according to the Globe.

After Hennick told him such language wasn’t acceptable and the man asked why not, Hennick reported the man to an usher. Security moved Hennick and his family to better seats, then asked Hennick to come to the concourse to identify the fan and tell them what he heard.

The other fan denied using the slur but was barred for life nonetheless, the Globe reports.

“I’m glad the Sox are encouraging fans to come forward,” said Hennick, a freelance journalist who has written essays on raising a biracial son for Yahoo and Ebony. “I was just pleased that they took it really seriously.”

Kennedy said: “We have to recognize that this exists in our culture, it exists in Boston, and it exists in other cities around the world. It’s not an indictment on Boston and this marketplace, it’s an indictment on the ignorant people and intolerant people who utter these words and say these things, and they need to be held accountable.’’

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Twitter: @chewkiii

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