This past Sunday, a Detroit Lions fan posted a Snapchat story that called two black fans who remained seated during the national anthem "ignorant n*ggers":
That same fan (who has not been publicly identified) has now agreed to relinquish his season tickets, as the Lions organization says he is no longer welcome at their stadium, Ford Field.
The woman who was captured in the above picture, known only as Stacey, gave her two cents on the violation to Fox2 Detroit after she became aware of it. "Everybody has an opinion," she said. "He probably could've stuck with 'he wishes we would've stood' and I would've been like 'OK.' But to write that under our picture... no words."
"We gotta build our country back together, we gotta come together," she continued. "Whatever that may mean. But that's going in the opposite direction. The racial slur, that's going backwards." Stacey, who's also a season ticket holder, further added that she opts not to stand because of "the lyrics in the third stanza about killing self-emancipated slaves," which can be found in the longer version that they thankfully (for lots of reasons) don't stretch out before sporting events.
While the fan who is alleged to have posted the image hasn't been publicly identified, he did reportedly deny that he took the picture or wrote the caption. "I didn't post any pictures, any collages, anything... I don't know where that even came from," said the man, who is a local business owner in nearby Pontiac, Michigan. (Fox2 Detroit noted that he seemed to have changed that story in a Facebook post before deleting his account, which is unfortunate, because it's not exactly clear what that means.)
As for the Lions, they also deleted the nosy fan from their list of season ticket holders, though they didn't specify if his ban is a lifetime one or temporary.
Additionally, head coach Jim Caldwell (who is black, last we checked) chipped in his two cents on the undoubtedly unwanted Week 1 headache. "We do have a fan behavior code of standards, and I think without question that our organization followed up, found out who the individual was, and obviously he no longer has season tickets in our stadium," Caldwell told the Detroit Free Press. "So I think it was handled appropriately, and I think those things happen sometime."
