In news that shocked only people who assumed they would be quoted later, during an NHL pre-season game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Detroit Red Wings played in London Ontario, an anonymous attendee threw an empty banana peel at a black player who was taking a penalty shot. This late breaking hockey news took the long way to Vancouver, so I can say it literally ripped around the world.
The media flurry that has followed the incident, which I have dubbed “the banana hockey thing”, has focused mainly on convincing the supposed target, one Wayne Simmonds – Black Man, that it was indeed a racist act instead of a plain case of littering.
Having lived in and around London for most of my life and after spending 7 years in Ottawa learning what bigotry doesn't look like, I can assure Mr. Simmonds, Sir, you are indeed the victim of a hate crime. For this to not be true, we would have to assume that some drunken buffoon simply wanted to test the strength of his arm against the benchmark of the precisely measured lines of a hockey rink. The man (or woman, I guess they're racist too) looked at his hand to find only the banana he ate hours before and threw it.
But we can rule out the drunken frat folks from Western being there because they don't attend sporting events during the school year, since Old School taught them about grades. Hence, we have a hate crime! The assailant brought the banana peel with the intention of throwing it, but did not throw it until the game was over and in a shootout, an eventuality that couldn't be counted on to happen, and Simmonds being picked to shoot could have easily not happened too. So the guy brought a banana to the ice rink to commit a hate crime but waited for a bunch of happenstances to line up before he threw it. Nothing about this incident really adds up, but that doesn't fit the version of events I'm running with so just ignore it. Littering just isn't sexy enough to be piss awesome.
Living in London for the better portion of your life, you get used to hearing things. Hateful, mean, shortsighted things that you ignore because you're white and it's not like there's anyone around to be racist at. Early in my construction career I did call out a co-worker on a particular comment by inquiring if he had ever seen the film American History X, myself trying to promote a decent dialogue about racism where his comment would be put in an ironic light and make us comrades in the war against bigotry. But instead I was struck dumb by his elated response of “That's that flick where Ed Norton curb-stomps that n*****, right?”. I wish that was a joke. A series of questions then revealed that he saw the movie and took nothing away besides the hideous violence. People can actually miss the point that hard. Luckily, I recently talked to lifelong Londoner and James Betty Comrade Against Bigotry - Danny, who shared a humanity-affirming candid reaction to the public display of racism, saying “Surprised? No, not at all”. He didn't think he would be quoted. He has no faith in my writing career.
Hoping to break some cutting edge journalism, I crawled into the air conditioning vents over the emergency city council meeting convened the morning immediately after the banana hockey thing. The council members were very worried about the repercussions of an international scandal, the largest being de-friended by sister city Nanjing and who would feed the sea lions after tumbling tourism numbers close Storybook Gardens. The first spin tactic was forging footage of a man dressed as comedy legend Charlie Chaplin throwing the peel onto the ice, making the whole incident not a reflection of how kind of racist London is, but a wildly misinterpreted attempt at some wacky slapstick. That idea was shot down when the council googled Chaplin and realized he had that moustache. The Hitler one.
Since their only idea failed before lunch, fearless Mayor Joe Fontana stormed out of the council chambers and told the first person with a tape recorder that damn it, we let the only racist person in town into the game, and he's kind of a retard too. That's our bad, ya know, but don't judge us as racist because it's seriously just one guy. Most of the city was shocked at how Fearless Joe could say something so naive as there being only one racist guy in London, considering one of his opponents in the 2010 election ran on the white power ticket.
I can forgive Joe for his naive presumptions about the scope of the problem because he is so often surrounded by quoting machines and the people who wield them that good 'ol folks who hold un-classy opinions don't speak in his presence. Also, having the confident presence of a professional politician, Joe manages to command a certain amount of respect that keeps the uncouth mouths shut. He's also maybe a mulatto, and might be left out of the loop because of that. We'll go with that one, the mulatto thing.
Now I'm not saying London is Canada's Montgomery or anything, but in the efforts of accuracy we could at least acknowledge that we hear that shit all over the place. It's not just one person. Maybe it's time for me to explain to the world exactly what is going on in little London Ontario that no one told Joe about. Maybe it's time for me to do some PISS AWESOME JOURNALISM!
The University of Western Ontario, also known as the Jewel of London, currently employs Dr. Phillippe Rushton, who's life work has centred on studying links between race and intelligence and also race and crime. Most of the academic world knows him as Professor Racism. When he yells “Excelsior!” children of all colours cry. He's been accused of enough bad science to fill his own article, the most hilarious of which being citing non-scientific/semi-pornographic sources like an article from Penthouse Forum in an piece he wrote on racial differences in sexuality. Academics have called bullshit on the way he gathers data, the published conclusions he draws and everything else in between.
His most controversial work is one in which he ranks the races in order of intelligence. The list goes Asians, Whites, Blacks. This has formed the basis for a policy we here in London like to call “The Chain of Bigotry”. The study has been taken on as policy because, as we understand it in London, once something is published as science it is no longer considered in terms of morality or community or shame.
Think of it like a free trade zone for hate speech. Whites racisize the Black people, and the Yellow ones get to dump their hate on Whites. They don't, because they're kind of timid, or maybe just nice, but since we started living under the legislation I always assume that when I'm eating thai food and they turn and talk in their language that they're making fun of my lack of ass or how I can't go outside without getting skin cancer or something. Never anything clever or even overly personal though. Makes me wonder why they got top billing. Their presumed racism isn't that inspired.
In my experience, you generally don't see racist things being levied against Blacks on the streets of London, because that would involve a face to face confrontation wherein consequences could reprocuss all over the white person. It's a cowardly racism that we have here, one where the racial tensions manifest in more subtle ways, like white people yelling at TV screens and xenophobic rants at parties about how the government should stop letting foreigners in. But an opportunity arose when Mr Simmonds lined up for his penalty shot. He presented a target that could not retaliate in any form for someone who had the luxury of being in an anonymous crowd. It was a perfect opportunity for a display of how progressive a policy we have here in London and someone did their civic duty by taking full advantage.
In keeping with the laws of London, everyone who was in attendance and holding a banana peel but didn't throw it will get a quiet talking to by a nice old lady in a private space who will set things right, since we've discovered that public shamings are ineffective for rousing people to racism since the person feels attacked and immediately shuts out everything anyone has to say.
In hindsight, we probably should have told Mr Simmonds that being nice enough to put his hockeying talents on display for our little town would result in such a dick move on our part, not that he really seemed all that shocked though, since he totally scored anyway. With the Free Trade of Hate that exists in London, the most unfortunate thing about the banana hockey thing is that there's no Asian player on either team who could have put the Whites in check after they got Mr Simmonds so well, as the balance of hate is what has kept this city from flying to rage shards, and could have cooled this international incident before it embarrassed anyone. The real problem here is people not being informed about the policies we here in London operate on. Luckily, I'm here to do PISS AWESOME JOURNALISM and tell the world the straight facts about everything. Because I'm all about facts. And hearsay. I do that too. And fiction. Love fiction.
Live Breaking Update!: Wayne Simmonds just decided to spend all his sympathy calling Sean Avery a faggot. The Rangers management took it under advisement and sent Avery to the minors, so the NHL decided to take no action against Simmonds. So yeah, that kind of language is fair game at the rink, I guess. Getch'yer'fill.
No comments:
Post a Comment