Bruins fans, argues Boston.com’s Eric Wilbur, “don’t boo (Montreal’s) P.K. Subban because he’s black. They boo him because he’s fucking awesome.” Quite possibly, but he’s also black, and in the wake of Subban scoring the game-winner in Thursday’s night’s Eastern Conference Semi-Finals opener at the TD North Garden, Wilbur’s bummed that resulting racist twitter abuse of Subban isn’t being written off as ravings of sundry anonymous numbskulls. “Because of its deplorable history concerning the matter, the media will always collectively knee-jerk to a ‘Racism in the Hub’ angle faster than you can say Washington Redskins,” contends Wilbur, conveniently ignoring Boston’s own deplorable history.
I’ll fully admit that I’ll never know to what roots prejudice may continue to run in the city, in New England for that matter, but I absolutely understand my right to defend my city when it’s a select few being portrayed as the majority for the sake of clicks, ratings, and fodder for talk radio. Hey, everybody. Grab a mat. It’s time for “Super Happy Fun Time with Generalizations”.
Cue the audience: “Racist Boston. Same as always.”
Two years after Joel Ward ended the Bruins’ playoff hopes in 2012 – resulting in another roll call of racist mentions – here we are again. Except this time, we’re only just past Game 1, not Game 7, and the series is going to have to now revolve around the cretins who we, as the media, have given traction. Egads, the subject was such a prevalent topic after Friday’s morning skate (Mr. Chara, are you aware there are evil people in the world and they may wear a Bruins sweatshirt? Care to comment?) that the Bruins felt compelled to actually release a statement on the matter, lest the organization be lumped in with not denouncing the behavior of .00000000011 percent of its fan base.
According to one person tweeting north of the border last night, a racial epithet for Subban was trending in Boston after the game. It wasn’t. The whole deal might not have even been a story line this morning if many on social media avenues didn’t feel the need to have to defend themselves from delving into a bleepstorm others created. Then, the Bruins went and addressed it thanks to the audible “tsk tsking” from the media corps on hand at the skate. To not address it would be to show they didn’t care. Unfortunately, acknowledging that there are idiots in the world gave the story traction.
I’m certainly tired of white people thinking it’s so important to write an article about how they are being picked on by people pointing out a history (and not just old history, but ongoing culture) of racism just because they feel like the racists are a minority. It’s certainly a fair point that the media work as if they are all puppets tied to the same string, inundating us with stories in a way that often over magnifies the importance of particular stories, and it’s even pretty fair to point out that Bostonians certainly are not all of one mind on the issue. But until the city and it’s fans start doing something major to show they won’t tolerate their fellow fans’ racism, then it’s hard to be so indignant that nobody notices how not racist you are. That said, I think it’s important to say the same thing about cities across the country. For example, how about the nearly exact same way Rangers fans reacted to Wayne Simmons’ hat trick for Montreal the other night. The real question to me is why it takes particularly sensational types of stories to finally cause action? For instance, why does a secretly taped private conversation to ban Sterling for life, and yet his many previous racist statements and his multiple lawsuits for discrimination in housing and even the outcry of hall of famer Elgin Baylor doesn’t even merit a slap on the wrist?
“why does a secretly taped private conversation to ban Sterling for life, and yet his many previous racist statements and his multiple lawsuits for discrimination in housing and even the outcry of hall of famer Elgin Baylor doesn’t even merit a slap on the wrist?”
Because TMZ generates far more public (and media) attention than anything previously mentioned by the newspapers (or this blog).
Yep