Our excellent Reds blog, Red Reporter, is dwelling on something Jeff Brantley said during Thursday’s broadcast of a Spring Training game.
Reds Blog: Accidental Racism Is Still Racism
↵↵Brantley: That was one of the toughest assignments I’ve ever had was doing the World Baseball Classic and doing the Taiwan team and the team from China. Trying to pronounce those names. (chuckles)
↵Kelsh: Was that back in ’06?
↵Brantley: Aw, man, I was struggling!
↵Kelsh: That got you ready to go, though, didn’t it?
↵Brantley: Oh, I was ching-chang-ing to death. It was hard.
↵↵In an exhaustive examination of Brantley’s remark, Red Reporter concedes that Brantley was probably not making a conscious effort to be racist, while at the same time rightfully pointing out that these sorts of remarks are not okay.
↵↵...it is [a racial slur], make no mistake. It is a slur, an epithet, and an insult. It says, you are different, you are a freak, and you don’t belong here. It creates and reinforces the idea that Asians aren’t welcome.
↵↵After the post, which is well worth a read in its entirety, an interesting discussion has developed in the comments. Head over there if you’re up for some intelligent discourse on race issues (emphasis on “intelligent”).
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