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Charles Jaco has written opinion and commentary pieces for dozens of magazines and newspapers. Each week, read and comment on a fresh on-line version. The discussion page enables you to share your view points world wide. If you would like to make a comment go to the " Join the discussion" link below. If you would like to view past editorials visit the Editorial Archive. Editorial: 12/26/99
Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker is either dumb as a...well...rock, or he's
a genius at cynical media manipulation. When he went on a Sports Illustrated tirade
about New York City and its resident immigrants, gays, welfare mothers, and punks with
purple hair, he was either revealing his inner racism and xenophobia, or he was
playing to the media. The more Rocker squawked about New York during last year's
playoffs and World Series, the more attention he got from reporters. So maybe he
decided that becoming Dennis Rodman wearing a sheet was a smart career move.
Either way, the professionally pious want him fired. The mayor of Atlanta wants
him canned. So do several members of Atlanta's city council. So do columnists from
the Big Peach to the Big Apple. Blacks want him fired because he's a racist.
Liberals want him fired because he's a racist and anti-foreigner. Some conservatives
of the chamber of commerce variety want him canned because he might affect the bottom
line of his corporate big daddy, Time-Warner, which oddly enough, owns both the Braves
and Sports Illustrated.
Rocker's protection under the First Amendment doesn't mean much to his critics,
presumably because they can't count to one. His right to express an opinion, however
odious and stupid, trumps the right of corporate big brother to get rid of him because
he might cost them money in lost gate receipts. It also trumps the right of the
excruciatingly politically correct to have him fired because they dion't like what he
said.
But consider another uncomfortable thought--maybe Rocker is a sitting duck because
he's a white male who shot off his yap in public. A white Southern male at that, which
makes him the last legitimate target for scorn at the dawn of the new century. An MSNBC
columnist with a consonant-rich last name ripped Rocker as "a redneck" because he
doesn't like immigrants. Call Rocker a redneck and the world yawns. Call the columnist
a Carpathian goat herder and watch what happens.
New York City, home of Latrell Sprewell, is attacking Rocker, and rightly so, for
his idiocy. But this is the same NYC that has embraced Sprewell, even after he choked
his old coach with the San Francisco Warriors. Sprewell then drove his car full-tilt
the wrong way up a California highway entrance ramp, nearly killing several motorists.
Hel-lo?
Also stop to consider Rae Carruth, the Carolina Panthers pass-catcher accused of
masterminding the gangsta hit on his pregnant girlfriend. She's dead. The baby's
alive. Carruth faces the death penalty after he was caught cowering inside the trunk
of a car, on the lam in Tennessee. Carruth suppirters have come out of the woodwork,
opining that he couldn't have done it, that he's a misunderstood young man, etc.
Oddly, Rocker's foul comments have garnered a lot more media exposure and talk radio time
than Carruth's alleged murder-for-hire plot.
One reason for all this may be that Carruth and Sprewell are African-American, and
that the pundit and political classes have seen fit to give the products of the
inner-city underclass a free ride for as long as possible. Misunderstood. Deprived.
Improperly socialized. Pick your own adjectives.
Rocker will face all sorts of grief from his teammates. Anti-immigrant comments
won't go over too well on a team that has 14 men who were born outside of the United
States. Black fans, Hispanic fans, gay fans, immigrant fans, and white fans offended by
his blather will raise the roof whenever he appears. And he's been revealed, in
public, as a pinhead. That's probably punishement enough for expressing an opinion.
But firing him? Not unless Sprewell is fired. Not unless the major league
play-by-play announcer who jokes about "race mixing" and "stupid black ballplayers" to
his ruling class golfing buddies is fired. Not unless the black players who form
a clubhouse clique and complain about "white ***holes" are fired.
John Rocker already faces plenty of punishment. He gets to live the rest of his
life as John Rocker.
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