DrZoidberg
Contributor
It's funny how many sports officials keep getting deposed over racist and sexist remarks. It's not slowing down. People with well paying jobs, they worked all their lives to get, talk like this all the time as if it's completely normal. Which it obviously is. Then get fired.
It's so obvious how there's parallel worlds now. There's the media world of pretend speech where nobody says what they really are thinking. And the real world.
With the advent of the Internet normal people are training themselves to express themselves freely (like we're doing here). When normal people get catapulted into the world of fame and power they aren't always aware that now they need to stop talking like they normally talk.
I think it's absurd that we're demanding sports professionals to have gender and racial sensibilities that require a university degree to master. These are working class people who worked their way up in life. They're not academics. I think it's cruel and stupid to wreck their careers just because they make the mistake of just talking like normal people talk.
Whether or not the people who make these remarks are sexist or racist is anyone's guess. But I highly doubt working class people who use colorful language are literal at all times. Perhaps it's attempt at humour that fails. Or any other non-nefarious explanation. Or they really are racists and sexists? Is that so bad? It's just sports. If you are good at sports you do well. The racism of the organisers of competitions doesn't really matter. Does it? The Nazis failed to stop Jesse Owens from scoring big in 1936.
I think our insistence of ideologically perfect and pure speech is intellectual snobbery and contempt for the working class.
I don't like it. I don't think it's a good thing. I also don't think it will do much to stop racism or sexism. Can't sports be the one place in the world where we let people just be themselves in all their horrible glory? Just so we have one little zone where we get to hear what normal people really think.
It's so obvious how there's parallel worlds now. There's the media world of pretend speech where nobody says what they really are thinking. And the real world.
With the advent of the Internet normal people are training themselves to express themselves freely (like we're doing here). When normal people get catapulted into the world of fame and power they aren't always aware that now they need to stop talking like they normally talk.
I think it's absurd that we're demanding sports professionals to have gender and racial sensibilities that require a university degree to master. These are working class people who worked their way up in life. They're not academics. I think it's cruel and stupid to wreck their careers just because they make the mistake of just talking like normal people talk.
Whether or not the people who make these remarks are sexist or racist is anyone's guess. But I highly doubt working class people who use colorful language are literal at all times. Perhaps it's attempt at humour that fails. Or any other non-nefarious explanation. Or they really are racists and sexists? Is that so bad? It's just sports. If you are good at sports you do well. The racism of the organisers of competitions doesn't really matter. Does it? The Nazis failed to stop Jesse Owens from scoring big in 1936.
I think our insistence of ideologically perfect and pure speech is intellectual snobbery and contempt for the working class.
I don't like it. I don't think it's a good thing. I also don't think it will do much to stop racism or sexism. Can't sports be the one place in the world where we let people just be themselves in all their horrible glory? Just so we have one little zone where we get to hear what normal people really think.