ramblin_rosie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ramblin_rosie) wrote2010-06-25 10:28 pm
ramblin_rosie) wrote2010-06-25 10:28 pm
Entry tags:
Bzuh?
(Warning: baseball talk ahead, but with a purpose.)
So apparently Carlos Zambrano had a meltdown and got himself suspended. He used to be an ace but hasn't done so well this season or last and apparently thinks his team isn't doing what they should to help him out--but he pitches for the Cubs, so it doesn't really matter to *me* whether he plays or not. I mainly read the article and the comments out of curiosity.
BUT.
Some idiot in the comments took the occasion to launch into an anti-Hispanic rant, claiming that *all* Hispanic players are uneducated, ill-tempered, etc., and not worth the money they're paid, and that (paraphrase) "you won't see the Japanese players acting like this" (!!!). I couldn't make myself read the whole thing, but that was the gist of what I did read.
Now there might conceivably be sports about which you could change that "all" to a "most" and have the generalization be true enough to let slide. It's even possible, though highly unlikely, that the "all" could apply to the subset of Hispanic atheletes who play one specific sport. Baseball's the only sport I really follow, and I don't pay much attention to what happens beyond the NL Central, so I couldn't say for sure--though I seriously doubt it.
What I can say for sure is that "all Hispanic players are dirty, dumb, and violent" is NOT true of baseball. To take only two examples, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina are two of the very best players in the Major Leagues today, and I'm not just saying that as a Cardinals fan. The numbers speak for themselves. They're also very well-spoken, if you can understand their accents, and very active in the community, just like the other members of the team. They seem to be genuinely nice guys, too. Yes, they lose their tempers occasionally, but so does *every other player*--and when Prince Albert gets mad, especially at the other team, he frequently hits homers. (I don't recall either Albert or Yadi breaking his hand by punching the dugout phone box after a particularly bad inning, as Julian Tavarez once did when he played for the Cards. Tavarez's dad even told him he was an idiot for doing so.)
There've been explosions in several fandoms lately over "racefail" of various kinds--I've read the most about a very thoughtless RPS fic in the Supernatural fandom, but I've seen rumblings that there were similar discussions in other fandoms, some of it having to do with the kerfluffle over Arizona's new immigration law (I think quite a lot of the chattering class would have a different opinion on it if they actually lived close enough to the border to know what's really going on). Some people's racism detectors are waaaay oversensitive in my experience.
But "all Hispanic baseball players are dirty, dumb, and violent"? THAT, my friends, IS racist. And I would hope that anyone who has the sense the Good Lord gave a saucepan would be able to see that.
So apparently Carlos Zambrano had a meltdown and got himself suspended. He used to be an ace but hasn't done so well this season or last and apparently thinks his team isn't doing what they should to help him out--but he pitches for the Cubs, so it doesn't really matter to *me* whether he plays or not. I mainly read the article and the comments out of curiosity.
BUT.
Some idiot in the comments took the occasion to launch into an anti-Hispanic rant, claiming that *all* Hispanic players are uneducated, ill-tempered, etc., and not worth the money they're paid, and that (paraphrase) "you won't see the Japanese players acting like this" (!!!). I couldn't make myself read the whole thing, but that was the gist of what I did read.
Now there might conceivably be sports about which you could change that "all" to a "most" and have the generalization be true enough to let slide. It's even possible, though highly unlikely, that the "all" could apply to the subset of Hispanic atheletes who play one specific sport. Baseball's the only sport I really follow, and I don't pay much attention to what happens beyond the NL Central, so I couldn't say for sure--though I seriously doubt it.
What I can say for sure is that "all Hispanic players are dirty, dumb, and violent" is NOT true of baseball. To take only two examples, Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina are two of the very best players in the Major Leagues today, and I'm not just saying that as a Cardinals fan. The numbers speak for themselves. They're also very well-spoken, if you can understand their accents, and very active in the community, just like the other members of the team. They seem to be genuinely nice guys, too. Yes, they lose their tempers occasionally, but so does *every other player*--and when Prince Albert gets mad, especially at the other team, he frequently hits homers. (I don't recall either Albert or Yadi breaking his hand by punching the dugout phone box after a particularly bad inning, as Julian Tavarez once did when he played for the Cards. Tavarez's dad even told him he was an idiot for doing so.)
There've been explosions in several fandoms lately over "racefail" of various kinds--I've read the most about a very thoughtless RPS fic in the Supernatural fandom, but I've seen rumblings that there were similar discussions in other fandoms, some of it having to do with the kerfluffle over Arizona's new immigration law (I think quite a lot of the chattering class would have a different opinion on it if they actually lived close enough to the border to know what's really going on). Some people's racism detectors are waaaay oversensitive in my experience.
But "all Hispanic baseball players are dirty, dumb, and violent"? THAT, my friends, IS racist. And I would hope that anyone who has the sense the Good Lord gave a saucepan would be able to see that.