On the actual topic, one thing that’s made me scratch my head a little bit is the POV that this was some “evil” act, or that it was aggressively malicious, or that (because it was those things) it wasn’t a “hockey culture issue.”
I can’t quite see this being true, and I think this might be a case of people categorising it as evil or isolated because it’s easier to understand and accept. “There are evil people in the world that do evil things and that fits nicely into how I view the world.”
I think what’s more concerning in my mind is that this likely wasn’t malicious or evil. It was probably just profoundly ignorant. It was enabled by hockey culture, being very macho and bro-ey and crass, and an isolated culture in general. I read through the old thread that Oling posted and then looked up the Raffi Torres thread. Both from around the same time as this incident, and there were plenty of posters who genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with blackface. Some posters didn’t even know what blackface was and had no concept of why it even COULD be “wrong.” Do I think those posters are evil or malicious, most definitely not. Some of them I would even call pretty progressive and enlightened in any interactions I’ve had. Surely, they’re not the only people who were ignorant about blackface or even racism in general.
I’m not sure what my point is. Maybe just that I’m glad things have come as far as they have. Being ignorant about it then doesn’t mean it was in any way excusable. But I’m sure a lot of people have done things they would take back, knowing today what they know now, and I’m not sure labelling those people as “evil” addresses the problem. We’re nearly a decade removed from these incidents, and ignorance isn’t gone yet. There are plenty of examples out there today and even on this board from time to time. Not evil people, just people that don’t know. And worse, people that even today don’t really want to know.
We call people snowflakes, or talk about “cancel culture” or whatever, but ten years ago blackface wasn’t a big deal to a lot of people, and eventually people came around. Maybe people could ask themselves instead of getting so upset that visible and invisible minorities are “offended”: can I confidently say I am without ignorance? and would it be easier to seek some understanding instead of calling people names and dismissing them?
Just a thought anyway. In ten years things people do today won’t be looked at favourably. It probably serves us all well to at least try to be good people as much as we can. It never hurts to make others feel good about themselves.
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