Update and Correction: the felonious attack on the Bakers’ Dozen choral group was not politically motivated at all. They were not beaten up for singing the national anthem, as I originally posted.
Instead, it seems that the unprovoked beatings were due to some overgrown children with a toxic mixture of too much testosterone and alcohol, and not enough sense (I am deducing the alcohol, given the backgrounds and ages of the miscreants).
The story is still much the same, though the attackers’ motivations are much clearer and more detailed:
The alleged assault [note: the assault is not “alleged.” The allegations are confined to the individuals who took part in it. The broken jaw that resulted is not alleged either –D] on Yale’s a cappella choral group Baker’s Dozen may have stemmed in part from a rivalry between two San Francisco Catholic high schools with a history of tension, the mother of the party’s hostess said Wednesday. One singer, 18-year-old Sharyar Aziz, had his jaw broken during the attack.
“It was a quote-unquote S.I. party,” said Leanna Dawydiak, whose daughter, Rose, a Yale student and St. Ignatius College Preparatory alumnus, co-hosted the party. The uninvited aggressors, Dawydiak said, were either students or recent alumni from Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, a rival of St. Ignatius.
…During the party, at which the sport coat-clad group led a sing-along of the Star Spangled Banner, some guests began taunting them, hurling epithets like “faggot” and “homo.” One guest, whom Dawydiak identified as the son of a prominent pediatrician and a Sacred Heart alum, apparently led the jeering.
– – – – – – – – – –
The singers decided to leave when it didn’t appear the animosity would let up, traveling in small groups to the house around the corner where they were staying, sources said. But when they reached the corner of 15th Avenue and California Street, a group of young men jumped out of a van and began to attack them, tripping Sharyar Aziz and kicking him…
It also appears that the police are going to pursue this case more aggressively than seemed to be the case when the story first came out:
“The initial call was of a fight amongst 20 people, so numerous people have been interviewed and there are more people who need to be interviewed,” police Sgt. Neville Gittens said Wednesday. He said the issue of whether the students would return to view the lineup or if inspectors would head south was “being worked out as we speak.”
And even as I write, I apologize to all patriotic San Franciscans for believing the original reports that the attack was due to the Bakers Dozen having sung “The Star Spangled Banner.” Those boys probably don’t even give a damn. They were simply jealous of all the attention the singers were getting.
I should have known. One of my family members is a musician and I must say, the girls do flock, and the boys do fume – sometimes it just seems to be part and parcel of many gigs. Add alcohol to the mix and immature male jealousy can get out of hand, just like it did here.
In a way I find this encouraging. Not the specific instance here, of course, but the notion of high school boys in San Francisco engaging in such macho activities as school rivalry degenerating into fist fights.
I came to San Francisco as a 15 year old high school sophomore in 1968 from Fairfax, Virginia. Talk about culture shock! In Fairfax I
attended a segregated high school ( last year of that) and fist fights and threats of fights were how high school boys established the pecking order. Fairfax High boys might, on occasion, do battle
with Annandale High boys on Friday
nights. Being called a homo or a queer almost guaranteed you had to fight or lose all social status.
San Francisco was deep into hippie culture and at the small prep school I attended the idea of high school kids drinking beer and fighting was not part of the culture. Drinking alcohol was out and smoking dope and taking LSD in.
Fighting was only done by black kids and when, on occasion, one of
my classmates was attacked by local
blacks from the Fillmore I was shocked by their pacifism. “Why didn’t you fight back you fool’ I’d
say. The idea being that showing fear or pacifism only encourages bullying and a fierce counterattack even if you lose gains much admiration from your foe.
Anyway, why do I find this event encouraging. Well the hippies of yesterday seem to be having children who, despite all the P.C.
instruction to the contrary, still
call rivals homo and queer even in
San Francisco and are behaving just as the pre-counter culture high school boys did.
yeah. Welcome back 1950’s.
Only problem is, the boys who end up with broken jaws…not because they didn’t fight back but because of the overwhelming # of macho brats.
That poor kid was a freshman. He only joined the a cappella group in October. It’s a truism that freshman year sucks, but this kid got it in spades. How can you sing if your jaw is wired shut?
Not so fast – I live here in the Bay Area, and if your information is coming from the SF Comical (Chronicle), be very careful.
In these parts, it is still OK to bash any patriot, no matter the alma mater. 🙂 [i just love that meter in those two together: matter & alma mater]
Just ’cause they are from SI or Sacred Heart isn’t the point, nor is the alcohol. There is a very strong current of anti-Military and slam-the-patriot around here. Just take the latest SF City legislation that bans ROTC at schools, and no military recruiters allowed on campus.
I’m still, because I was born and raised here, and always will believe, the catalyst was the song itself. And that is truly my bias, because I have been on the rotten end of the stick driving around my own neighborhood, standing around the breakroom, and listening to the local news.
My truck has been vandalized because of my USAF stickers. They’re just friggin’ stickers, people … 🙂
“The Belly of the Beast”