You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
“..an old, familiar image of this city as a den of racist white sports fans.”
That’s how The New York Times described Boston this morning.
It’s just like them, isn’t it, to ask the question that no one is asking: What’s the most racist sports town? Because they love nothing more than to try to make a thing more than what it is. So the good people of greater Boston, painfully disappointed folks whose favorite hockey team just lost a heartbreaker, are called to answer for some crazy (probably anonymous) Tweeters who used racist language to describe the Washington Capitals' Joel Ward, the African-Canadian right winger (ahem) who scored the game-winning, series-winning goal in overtime the other night against the Bruins. The Capitals now advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, where they will face the New York Rangers on Saturday afternoon.
To the elite media, being angry or a little morose when your favorite team loses is too base to comprehend. I mean, what are we, Neanderthals? Interest rates on student loans are about to double, and you are angry about a stupid *game*?
Unless, of course, Boston is a racist city. If Boston is a racist city, then it all makes sense.
Here’s what happened: The goalie for the Bruins is Tim Thomas, a self-identified Republican who opted out of the traditional White House visit last year after the Bruins won the Stanley Cup. This was not received well in Left world. When the black Ward beat the white Thomas with his goal, some Bruins fans in the Twitter-verse responded with vile language, including the use of a racial epithet. A sports blogger at The Nation instantly connected the dots and discovered that they revealed an ugly truth:
Tim Thomas is the player who created a sports media firestorm by refusing to join his team and meet with President Obama after the Bruins won the 2012 Stanley Cup. To be clear, I have zero problems with athletes refusing to be part of presidential photo ops, but his political reasons are not irrelevant to what caused last night’s spasm of hate. Thomas is a proud, financial supporter of the Tea Party. He counts Glenn Beck as a hero and once emblazoned the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag on his helmet. When asked by reporters why he wouldn't meet with Obama, Thomas didn’t comment and instead referred people to his Facebook page, which had a paragraph about “out of control Federal government.”
To see no connection between the Tea Party, Glenn Beck and the politics of racial resentment is to subscribe to either blind ignorance or political cowardice. (Even Beck, last December, inferred that racism in the Tea Party drives anti-Obama animus.)
And so this is how we arrive once again, via an unlikely route through the NHL, at the familiar charge that Tea Party and small government folks are motivated by racism against a black president. No point trying to twist your way out of this one, Boston.
Here’s the fun part. Watch for yourself the supposedly inferred racism of Beck’s comments. What you will find, in fact, is a distortion, peddled by Think Progress (way to link outside the bubble, Nation blogger) of what Beck is actually saying. He does NOT infer that Tea Party members are racist. What he does is actually pretty sophisticted (Nation blogger’s head explodes). Beck, in a flight of “what if” type questions, says that if the Tea Party supports Newt Gingrich (whom Beck thinks is a progressive, just like Obama) but opposes Obama, then the Tea Party needs to ask itself whether it is motivated by racism. That’s a far cry from what your friendly Nation sports blogger implies.
Anyway, back to Beantown. I was interested in learning about Boston sports’ tricky history with race. But what could that possibly have to do with the Capitals' victory over the Bruins? Did Tim Thomas himself use the “N” word after Joel Ward scored the goal against him? That would be news. Did someone on the Bruins, or representing the team, make a racist comment? Would also probably be a story. Did the fans chant racist things as they left the Garden? Front pager.
But, no. None of those things happened. To find the racism in this story, you need to begin looking for it in the tangled weeds of your own assumptions. This is where the liberal media is so good at what it does: Boston has a history of racism. A black guy scored a goal. The goalie is a white Tea Partier. The Tea Party is racist. Somebody on Twitter used the “N” word. Add it all up?
Boston is a racist town.
We got ourselves a story here fellas. Run it.
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May '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Ursula, you overlooked key line of evidence. Don't Tread on Me is a slogan from Revolutionary times. During the Revolution, the British army was forced out of Boston by George Washington. George Washington owned slaves.
Apr '11
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Heh, talk about one-upmanship.
May '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Oh, please! Do not describe the sports fans of Boston as "painfully disappointed folks." The recent successes of the Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins make them even more insufferable and feeling more entitled than your average New Yorker.
As for Boston's racism, I have but two words: Pumpsie Green.
May '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
EJHill: Oh, please! Do not describe the sports fans of Boston as "painfully disappointed folks." The recent successes of the Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins make them even more insufferable and feeling more entitled than your average New Yorker.
As for Boston's racism, I have but two words: Pumpsie Green. · 1 minute ago
Agreed. Before I was born, the Vikings lost the Superbowl 4 times, some in which they were heavily favored. In my lifetime, the Vikings have lost the NFC championship game 4 times, including 1999 at home when they were 15-1 and had the highest scoring offense in history, and in 2009 when Favre threw an interception that killed the game-winning drive and led to a New Orleans victory in OT. Not to mention the Twins winning their division 6 out of 10 years and always losing to the hated Yankees in the playoffs.
Oct '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
The left has lost all credibility on race after Trayvon Martin. I saw a lot of good Tea Party leaders spend a great deal of time and effort in 2010 to tamp down on violence. They succeeded in keeping violent types out of the movement.
Why do we always fall for the left's attacks? They have no problems with inciting violence; they don't even have that much animus towards racism. They are pretty amoral people.
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
And don't forget the election of Scott Brown -- more racism!
Sep '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Thank you for this insightful post.
I *love* it when they use someone they have already proclamed to be completly crazy (Glenn Beck) as a witness for the prosecution. So is Beck crazy or sane? Is he sometimes sane and sometimes crazy? If so, is it possible he was crazy about this, or is he just insane when you don't agree with him? Oh, he didn't say that anyway, nevermind. You can go back to believing him insane, but you are lying. Next....
May '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
You had me at "sports blogger for The Nation." I daresay Woody Allen could create an entire movie around that character.
May '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
I guess I am blindly ignorant.
Being from the Boston area originally, I know that the area has a checkered history with race relations both on and off the sports field/court. That being said, I think the aforementioned "sports blogger" is making quite a logical leap to connect Thomas, the Tea Party, and these racist tweets. Most reporting doesn't cite any specific examples or offenders, but the NYT also makes the leap that the offenders were "seemingly from resentful Bruins fans". However most/many of the examples that I could find here, don't have overt Boston ties (though many of the accounts have been deleted). Some obviously support other NHL teams, and some tweeters even appear to be black.
So, is Boston a racist city? I don't think so. and I am not blindly ignorant if I don't believe that a handful of essentially anonymous commenters prove it so....
Jul '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
His dragging Tim Thomas into it is real jerkery. While he conspicuously declares that he doesn't have a problem with Thomas' rejecting participation in Obama's Stanley Cup photo op, he then shamelessly draws a line between the racial nastiness by some fans and the poor hapless goalie.
Identify a problem, magnify its significance, then blame it on the nearest Republican. Why would The Nation's sports reporting be any different from its political reporting?
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
I saw some of those racist tweets from Boston fans after the Caps win. What these journalists have done is take a legitimate story about (prayerfully relatively few) stupid fans and turned it into sheer silliness. Great work, progressive blogger.
Mar '11
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Even that is being generous. This does not even qualify as a story, "I just discovered that many commentators on the Internet often use crude and derogatory language, stop the presses!". Excuse but did this reporter just sign up for their AOL account last week?
Jul '11
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
The only thing that went in to my mind when my favorite team lost was the skin color of the guy who beat them. What a joke. Tim Thomas shook the man's hand and congratulated him like the class act TT is. How disgusting some people are, the few racists who said some garbage and the idiots who lambaste a kind, devout family man with thoughts he would never have.
Aug '11
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
So, does that mean a Tea Partier who likes Joel Ward would be an impossibility? Ward is a former Nashville Predator. I urge progressive blogger to show up at Bridgestone Arena next week--he'll find no shortage of Tea Partiers who like Joel Ward.
Nov '11
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Sophisticted is an excellent word to describe Glenn Beck. Portmanteau of "Sophist" and "Derelicte'D".
The MSM is so desperate for racism stories that they're getting them from Twitter now. Remember this one? Or this one...no, wait, racism clearly not motivating any of those people, just stupidity and hatred.
People are saying nasty things on the Internet? Front page news.
May '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Racism doesn't exist. It's all tribalism now.
Jul '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
You know why it's so easy to see through the racism racket nowadays? The card has been played so often it is worn down to about a micron thickness. In other news, Tatler has an interesting 9000-word article about one of Obama's major intellectual influences, Derrick Bell. Space ships figure in it.
Jul '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
Ursula, Will no one mention Biden's comment that "Obama has a big stick." One of the ugliest racial stereotypes.
Nov '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
As an outsider living in Boston now for 6 years, I can attest to the fact that what town you're from matters. I talked to a bouncer at a bar in Boston who was from Somerville (next to Cambridge). He told me plainly that he doesn't associate with (insert expletive) people from the South Shore.
I see more classism than anything though. Thomas Sowell says he'd have no problem walking through Irish neighborhoods when he lived in Cambridge as long as he was dressed in blue-collar clothes. If he strolled through wearing his Harvard cardigan, well, things might've been different.
Nov '10
Re: You Lose. And, By The Way, You’re a Racist.
I'm almost positive that Biden said, "The President has THAT big stick." referring to TR's quote that he mentioned in his previous sentence.
Dave Weigel's favorite line from that speech was "Now is the time to heed that timeless advice."