Students in banana suits taunted black rivals at basketball game

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BRENTWOOD, Pa. — Some Pittsburgh-area parents are complaining that students at a largely white high school dressed in banana suits at a basketball game and taunted their majority black rival with racial slurs.

Brentwood schools Superintendent Ronald Dufalla said Wednesday that two costumed students were thrown out of Friday’s game after they ran past the Monessen High fan section “causing agitation and disruption.”

But he also says he has reviewed game tapes and talked to school officials and has “seen no other activity that confirms the allegations made.” He says the two students in banana suits have done that at previous games.

Monessen parents say that other students hurled slurs including “monkeys” and “cotton pickers.” That district’s superintendent has demanded an apology and says Dufalla has sugar-coated the situation.