Tonight I watched a segment of 20/20 about John Rocker. In his defense he made the following statements:
He admitted that he was stupid for saying those things
He said that the “fat monkey” comment to a teammate was not made toward a black teammate, rather a Latin teamate who is a friend. He says that he has jokingly called this guy that name to his face several times before…that it’s a joke between them and that his friend retaliates with insults toward him (Rocker) all meant as a friendly jibe…
He pointed out that during the NLCS games in Shea Stadium, the NYPD had SWAT Team snipers positioned all around the stadium due to the propensity for violence of Mets fans.
He made the point that in MLB, when a player hits his first homerun, he isn’t known as a “homerun hitter”…he says that he doesn’t think that he (Rocker) should be branded as a racist because of one slip of the tongue
He says that multiple times he has opened his home to black friends to live with him.
Krispy Original – voted SDMB’s 19th most popular poster (1999)
I’m sorry but a slip of the tongue would be if I called you Krunchy Original by mistake.
His paragraph-long diatrabe about foreigners in Times Square and the “queers” on the 7 line is just a hallmark of stupidity and blabbling without thinking “Gee, this might upset some people besides Met fans”.
Oh, Guiliani just did that because he heard that a Met fan was carrying a porno mag.
I have yet to read exactly what Rocker said in SI that was so racist. All I heard is that he made jokes about how ethnic NYC is (foreigners who have trouble speaking English) and the poor people you see riding the subways (drug users, AIDS victims, welfare recipients). These comments aren’t targeted towards any group in particular, like blacks.
Are these jokes about NYC any worse than you hear on popular tv shows: Letterman, SNL, Howard Stern, Tonight show, Taxi re-runs, Night Court re-runs, Welcome Back Kotter (with the sweat hogs), Barney Miller re-runs, etc.? I dont think so. I just don’t see why Rocker’s comments upset so many people.
My only guess is that it depends on the setting. There is a double standard. It’s ok for certain TV shows to make jokes like this, but people don’t want to hear pro-athletes make these jokes.
Baseball is a sport, but it is also entertainment. Rap music is also entertainment. Did anyone ever bother to read the lyrics of these “entertainers”? Blatant attacks on whites are all through they lyrics, but all you liberals think this is just lovely.
Did any of these nice folks have to explain themselves to the masses?
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.
I wish for you the courage to be unpopular. Popularity is history’s pocket change. Courage is history’s true currency. Charleton Heston
I saw the interview, and frankly, I kinda felt sorry for the guy.
Here’s a guy who lived in Georgia all his life. He was obviously raised a certain way. I would wager that a lot of people with his upbringing harbor the same feelings, but they don’t throw 98 MPH and get covered by the media. And they also don’t get pelted by batteries and spit on by caustic New Yorkers. (Met fans… UGH!)
I hope that maybe he has learned something from this. I’m sure many will not let him forget about what happened, but I for one can see WHY he feels the way he did, and is only now beginning to see the big picture as to how wrong it was.
If only Captain Ed could learn…
Yer pal,
Satan
First Place
Most Popular Poster of the 20th Century Competition
As overseen by Coldfire
Ah, so it is O.K. for Private First Class Ed to say “Negros [sic] are mentally inferior” and “they are not humans, but animals that have learned to mimic human speech,” but NWA is supposed to be held accountable for “Fuck Tha Police”?
Oh, and apparently “liberal” means “anyone who doesn’t hate Negros.”
Er . . . yeah. Please die soon, OK?
“It’s my considered opinion you’re all a bunch of sissies!”–Paul’s Grandfather
See, here’s the thing. I know that Satan is too loyal a Yankee fan to go Shea, but I have been out there for several games (Blush. It was to see the visiting team, honest!). The fans he’s so mad at are white. The crowd at Shea is maybe the whitest place in New York that doesn’t have a precinct number attached to it.
The fact that his anger at all those Long Island white guys somehow came out as immigrants on 42nd St. is pretty clear evidence that he’s a real live bigot. The fact that the article also has quotes where he makes bigoted statements about non-New Yorkers is more evidence.
I’m not sure what, if any, sanction is appropriate (although I will say that a psychological assessment is exactly wrong for lots of reasons). But he’s a bigot.
Oh, and the SWAT teams? We’ve got them everywhere now. But the trains run on time, so it’s OK.
Straight outta Jersey
crazy muthafucka named Ed
gives new meaning to the term “brain dead”
Got mad opinions like Bob Ewell
comes across like a racist fool
Sig line says “discriminating people discriminate”
Should apply that to his stats, they’re way out of date
and so on. Maybe Cap’n Ed and NWA should put out a single together…
Clever lyrics Mojo, but let’s keep the Ed bashing in Satan’s “Ed is a racist…” thread. Getting back to the topic at hand…
In the other threads I read more exactly what Rocker said. It sounds very bad, worse than I first heard. It’s worse than the jokes you hear on TV shows. I think the other threads adequately discuss what should be done about Rocker, so I will talk about a different perspective.
A movie just recently came out about pro football called “Any Given Sunday”. I heard it is full of stories about racism in the NFL.
Also, another movie is coming out now called “Hurricane”. It is about a black boxer who was wrongfully arrested for murder and sent to jail for 19 years.
Is this just a strange coincidence that Rocker’s controversial comments in SI make the national news at the same time these movies come out? I doubt it. Perhaps the media was looking for a pro athlete who would make these comments. The SI article helps publicize the movies, and the movies help publicize SI. That’s the way the media and entertainment industry work.
John Rocker was quoted recently as saying “The 7 train is full of queers with purple hair and black boxers just released from prison. Which is reminiscent of the movie Hurricane starring Denzel Washington. Opens this friday, check your local papers for showtimes.”
1991: Ice-T’s “Cop Killer” is banned upon the shooting of a police officer, during which the perpetrator was listening to the song in his automobile. A protracted legal 1st Amendment dogfight ensues, the product of which is the warning labels which we see on the majority of non-Smith rap albums today.
The point: “Cop Killer” would have stayed banned if it hadn’t been for that pesky Amendment. “Fuck Tha Police” would be banned if it weren’t for that pesky precedent. The Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint, so we (meaning Sports Illustrated or the recording industry) can’t legally stop either Rocker or Ice-T from preaching the hate before they do so. However, Ice-T was branded for the rest of his career, as Rocker now will be.
As far as Rocker’s ill-considered comment about a “home-run hitter,” I say to him: a person who kills once is still considered a killer. Although, apparently not if he’s 13-year-old Nathaniel Abraham…but that’s another thread entirely.
The IQ of a group is equal to the IQ of the dumbest member divided by the number of people in the group.