Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
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....
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This is a good post to get things back on topic and I'll try to add to this discussion. I've questioned some peoples certainty whether the trainer was trying to be malicious or whether this was a stupid act meant to be a joke but clearly did dehumanize Aliu (so basically the definition of ignorance to the max).
I may be naive but most of the situations I've encountered with racism is that its not motivated by hate but rather based on ignorance. Racism should never be tolerated no matter what the factor. Ignorance, fear, stereotypes, prejudice or hate/power all can play into that and always should be called out and reprimanded.
So this is where I guess my post gets interesting as far as discussion goes. I don't think assuming whether the owner knew of the incident or if any of the current players condoned what I hope was an ignorant joke should be relevant at this point. I'll admit that 10 years ago I argued that dressing up as Mr T and painting skin as a costume was no different vs dressing up as Barney and painting skin purple as long as you were celebrating the icon. This in introspect is pretty ignorant.
I think what is important is that we give ignorant people the chance to learn.