The End Of The Road

I'm not comparing them at all......I'm stating that there is a line that some athletes cross that makes me not want to root for them. NO PLACE did I compare Torii to Hernandez, NO PLACE.

At least on NFL player killed someone in a car accident where he may or may not have been drinking, would you root for him? Several (many?) have beat women on multiple occasions, you ok rooting for them?

apparently murder is the line, child abuse isn't :-)

http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/images/shows/southpark/vertical_video/season_16/1609/south-park-1609-raising-the-bar-FDD-clip10.jpg

We get that and your line is when an athlete says something or has beliefs that you don't agree with. It must be extremely hard to be a sports fan today.

Not actually my line, it is more complex than that. If it was 1 time, or 1 issue, I am much more tolerant of intolerance......

I've been wrestling with the homophobia thing and the attention paid to it.

 

My 96-year-old grandma is a racist, or at least has said racist things to me. I don't plan to bring that up in her eulogy. And I still think she's a great person.

 

I think you can find the homophobic sentiment terrible (and I do), without wholly condemning the person who made the comments. That comes from personal experience. Almost anyone who is my age (48) was probably homophobic. I know I was in 1985, when I was 18. I know my parents went through something similar.

 

Thirty years ago, homophobia was the default stance taken by society. I imagine that if you were raised in Arkansas, as an African-American man, and immersed in a locker room culture for the last 25 years, that default stance is still pretty ingrained.

 

If I was to condemn everyone my age who ever expressed a homophobic attitude, I would condemn myself, most of my peers, my role models, my brother, my parents, etc. And I can tell you that most of the ones I remember have changed their tune upon further reflection. If I would have let those attitudes define them, I would've missed out on some great people and would not have experienced the happiness that they felt from letting go of a position that was based in fear and ignorance and difference.

 

I think this is hard - maybe impossible - for anyone under the age of 35 to understand. For them, the default stance is exactly the opposite. I don't think we've seen an issue like that for a while. A few years ago, talking to a grassroots organizer, he explained the reason that anti gay marriage amendments were being created. It was because something like 80% of those 50 and older were anti gay marriage and 80% of those 40 and under were pro. We went through a seismic shift in attitude over a 10 year period from one generation to the other.

 

I cut everyone towards the higher end of that shift a lot of slack on the subject. It may just be a journey that they haven't taken yet. And I try to cut some slack to the younger folks who can't understand what kind of monsters could have such terrible views. They might find themselves needing to face a similar journey on a different topic that might make them more understanding.

 

So, no, I don't think Hunter's views on homosexuality should define him. I think it's fine to note them, audibly reject them and then move on to the other 99.8% of the person. And it's OK to still admire that person for that other 99.8%.

Sorry I'm not a fan of excuses for anyone under the age of 85 to be having and saying these things, not in 2015 certainly.

Hopefully hunter can change, it certainly is possible if he will have even a slightly open mind. But ultimately that's on him, doesn't effect my life. I learned long ago that athletes aren't the best people to "look up" to.

I have some extended relatives who have these outdated and disgusting views as well, I choose to simply not keep in touch with them whenever possible. People shouldn't give passes to this type of behavior due to "oh well this USED to be the norm" times change, time to grow up.

It's odd that if it was child abuse, he still has joint custody.

Follow the US courts much?

What % of him is the racism towards Dominican and Latin players though?

 

"Dominican" and "Latin" are not races, they're nationalities and ethnicities. The players in question that Torii disparaged were members of the same race as Torii- can one really be "racist" against members of his own race? The term you were looking for was probably "anti-cultural bias" not racism. Torii was very clumsily trying to explain why the cultural experience for American blacks as a minority group is "authentic"... versus the experience of non-American blacks who come from a culture where their race is in the majority.

"Dominican" and "Latin" are not races, they're ethnicities. The players in question that Torii disparaged were members of the same race as Torii- can one really be "racist" against members of his own race? The term you were looking for was probably "anti-cultural bias" not racism. Torii was very clumsily trying to explain why the cultural experience for American blacks as a minority group is "authentic"... versus the experience of non-American blacks who come from a culture where their race is in the majority.

You know the point I was trying to make.

Great post, John. My grandmother was a horrible racist, and that did effect my relationship with her. I have plenty of ex friends that are racists. I don't see why I should just ignore Torii using his profile to campaign against a group of people, and to disparage certain members of his race.

I'm 51, I wonder how Torii feels about older people that hate black people, does he just excuse them as being old and it doesn't really matter because supposedly less young people feel that way? I doubt it.

No one (I don't think) is saying that his views on this fully define him as a person. What I can say I am saying is, that his position as an entertainer doesn't fully define him as a person. What many sports fans seem to think, imo, is that it does. That we should blindly root for players on "our" team, no matter what they think or do. I don't share that belief, and I don't understand those that do hold that belief.

You know the point I was trying to make.

It's kind-of important when you use one of the most politically charged words in American culture- like "racist", to use them with precision (or else their meaning becomes diluted). It's the same sort of semantic inelegance that Torii demonstrated when trying to explain why his experience as an African-American was different ("more valid") than that of Caribbean Latins of the same race. Quite simply, his behavior was more benign than being worthy of being called a "racist", and also definitionally inaccurate.

It's kind-of important when you use one of the most politically charged words in American culture- like "racist", to use them with precision (or else their meaning becomes diluted). It's the same sort of semantic inelegance that Torii demonstrated when trying to explain why his experience as an African-American was different than that of Caribbean Latins of the same race. Quite simply, his behavior was more benign than being worthy of being called a "racist", and also definitionally inaccurate.

Given what you read "off the record", I'm not sure most Latins that don't know him agree that it was a benign statement.

Given what you read "off the record", I'm not sure most Latins that don't know him agree that it was a benign statement.

Lots of reasons why lots of people choose to take offense at things. The language about "imposters" was indeed pretty crude stuff- and there's probably an economic argument to be made that more speculative American black baseball players have priced themselves out of the market when there is an easy alternative in that you can sign maybe up to a dozen young Latin players at around the same price as one black ball player in the first 10-15 rounds in the draft ,and certainly when salaries start to quickly accelerate at the major league level .  Both of these feelings are probably still a pretty widespread sentiment among the African American community, especially when phrased with less-charged rhetoric than Torii's verbose rant.

With regards to "authenticity", if you recall, in 2007-8, there was a strong movement in that same community that Obama wasn't an authentic-enough African American to be deserving of the mantle- I don't recall cries of racism being thrown around during that dust-up. 

FWIW, I had a chance to coach an inner-city high school team for 10 years. I learned through multiple occasions and testimony that the resentment against the African immigrant and refugee communities is widespread among the African American community.

Given what you read "off the record", I'm not sure most Latins that don't know him agree that it was a benign statement.

And I didn't say it was "benign"... I said "more benign than deserved of being called a racist". See how subtle semantic differences altered contextually can so quickly change the quality of a discussion?