He shoots! He Sco--- Banana?

Absolutely this act was racist. Who brings a banana to a hockey game? A racist who wants to throw it at a black player. Why didn't he throw it at one of the white players? Plenty of them to choose from.

 

Or, retard, you could read the thread and see that someone said that they sell bananas throughout the stadium.

Anyway, I seem to be the only person whose "I don't give a shit meter" is shooting through the roof about this. Someone threw a banana on the ice? Whoopteedoo.

I don't even understand the racist undertones of the act. Is banana a black people only fruit? Was he calling the black player a monkey? An ape? Are we comparing fur color to skin color? Because many monkeys have light colored skin under their fur.

 

I think it is more racist to assume that it was racist in intent. I would have thought of it as someone throwing food onto the ice if someone hadn't started screaming racism.

Just because there is a black person in the vicinity of a banana, or a banana in the vicinity of a black person doesn't mean that there is racist intent. I think this is a lot of people forcing outrage to show how cool they are because they aren't racist.

Besides, the monkey = black person thing is a bit 1900-1950. If he wanted to be racist he would have brought watermelon/fried chicken.

 

It's cool, we're taking it back.

 

This incident isn't about racism, it's about idiots assigning racist motives to a non-racist act. I'm far more scared of the dangers posed by knee-jerk PC idiots crying about race than I am those posed by just about any racist organization.

Where I live, I'm bombarded by this idiocy on a daily basis.

Early this year, a Dayton woman was sentenced for cooking her infant in a microwave. Shortly after, fucking PETA came up with the wonderful idea of making a billboard to compare cooking the kid to cooking animals in microwaves. Stupid idea, careless idea, and no one would put the ad up, but when news of the attempt came out, the NAACP and SCLC were up in arms about how black babies were being called animals, and how racist it all was. Perfect example of, again, taking something completely unrelated to race and shrieking "THATS RACIST!"

Anyone wanting a good example of racism, look at Rodney King. Better yet, look up this little thing called affirmative action and watch how well THAT thread goes.

 

From a player's perspective, I'd rather have a banana thrown at me, racially motivated or not, than a battery like people used to throw.

This reminds me of an incident in high school. People at my school started throwing tortillas onto the field during football games. I don't know who started it and I never actually saw it happen but there was a big uproar. The city where I grew was something like 75% hispanic and the school I went to had one of the largest percentages of white kids so people thought it was racially motivated. The people I knew who were involved said it was just because tortillas are easy to throw and you can get pretty good distance throwing them like frisbees.

In other assault with food news: Some dude got arrested for throwing chicken wings at a chick. (witnesses reported it weren't no thang)

 

True, but I was saying the Banana is passe.

 

This whole thing was started by and perpetuated by the media.

Hell, maybe it was Bettman himself. There's no such thing as bad publicity right?

I never would have thought racism either, like many members have said. Is this something the KKK did before the burnt the cross. Hey let's throw some bananas at them people. Come on, give me a break.

 

If the motive was racist, he'd have used a watermelon.

 

What if I saw a black homeless person with a cardboard sign that said "Hungry... please help. God bless" and I gave him a banana. Would that be racist? These are the question we as a society must ask ourselves.

 

Are we seriously pretending that, given the history of Western civilization and specifically the last few centuries of Canadian and American history, we're unfamiliar with the trope of the black men being called monkeys or apes?

I present exhibit A. There are a million more like it:



Look, we can pretend that ANYTHING isn't a racial symbol if we want. "Oh this isn't about lynching per se, it's just a rope tied to a tree!" "Oh, I wasn't making fun of his eyes in that picture. We were all just squinting!" But at some point, it is an exercise in being willfully obtuse. I would submit that black man + banana is verging on that territory if not deep into it.




Also, never having racism cross your mind in situations like this is one of the nice privileges of being white. We can go about our days treating race as a non-issue. It's not like that for many minorities.

 

This is directed to everyone who said that racism hadn't even crossed their minds when they heard about this, the media are knee-jerk PC idiots, etc. A personal observation. Personally, I've been called a terrorist enough times that when someone questions my patriotism, implies I wouldn't serve in the military, etc, the first thing my mind flashes to is, "Is it because of..." Even when it's not necessarily rational, that's where my mind goes initially, before I reel it in. So, if you were one of the few black players in the NHL, and a banana is thrown at you, I don't think that it's inconceivable or wrong for you to wonder if that's meant as a racist thing. That's something that that guy has to deal with that you don't. I know it's tough for people on this board to empathize with other people (cause fuck anyone that's not me, right?) but it's pretty key here.

Amen.

 

I think you're really giving the mouth-breathing idiot who tossed the banana too much credit. When was the last time you think he associated a black with a banana?

This isn't the deep south here, and yes there is still racism up in the Great White North. Maybe I shouldn't call Canada that, somebody might mistakenly take that as a racist comment.

Apparently though, being white negates my opinion.

 

Dude, this is totally missing the point I was making. Also, i wasn't talking about the banana thrower in the statement you quoted. I was talking about the larger discussion around whether or not the act was racist.

It's not that a white person can't have an opinion on what is or is not racist, or minorities are never too quick to label things as racist. Obviously either of those statements are silly.

The point is that perhaps we, as white people, are generally less observant about this sort of thing and less likely to see the implication of certain actions. As racism is unavoidably a part of life for many minorities, they have a first-hand experience that we don't have, and thus might be more attuned to such things. The same extends to a homophobia, sexism, transphobia, etc. We ought to hesitate to say "Stop being so sensitive" or label something as OBVIOUSLY not racist, because we might be lacking some context that comes from experiencing racist acts/attitudes first hand. We're pontificating on an action that we are generally not the recipient of, so perhaps we should try to tread lightly.

 

All the bad shit that happens in the world and here we sit dissecting the possible offensive nature of someone throwing fruit. I forgot the comedian, but someone once said that being offended doesn't cause cancer. It won't kill you.

 

A friend of mine, via facebook, made a good point: you can pay money to watch a sport where men beat the shit out of each other and often cause bodily injury, but if you dare throw a banana on the injury, you get charged with a provincial offence?

And then some idiot came along and commented, "wasn't the banana racially charged?"

It summed up the situation rather pithily if you ask me. Maybe the banana was or wasn't racially charged, but the fact that this has to be done post-hoc is silly and childish. It's like we're the dumb kid at school. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha... wait, was that insult directed at me?"

 

The banana / black monkey association is clear. And while I see how maybe this wasn't a racially motivated thing, it's a hell of a fucking coincidence. I mean throwing a banana at one of three black guys in the league? Has he also just accidentally thrown a ham sandwich at one of the five jewish guys in Basketball? Does it not seem more plausible that he's a fucking dick, rather than this was an honest mistake blown out of proportion?

Alternately, how many bananas have been thrown at guys who aren't black in the last five years worth of hockey games? 690 players in the NHL, 3 of them are black, if this is a coincidence, there must have been hundreds of bananas thrown over the last few years right? Show of hands, everyone who's ever been to a hockey game and seen bananas thrown at white guys?

 

I've got to admit, this does seem disproportionate compared to most other professional sporting bullshit. I mean racism and obnoxious bullshit is rampant among every professional sport. This is a pretty huge reaction to a pretty small act. It's true.

But wouldn't it be nice, really, if every instance of obnoxious racist bullshit got this kind of response? A city wide hunt for the asshole who can't support his team without being a racist fuckhead to at the very least permanently bar that dickhead from league events? And I dunno, maybe he doesn't deserve to be neutered and sent to jail with a note passed around his cell that he's there for raping kids... but wouldn't it be nice if anyone who gets banned from a public sporting event for racism was also banned from all children's sporting events in future?