Every one of us will laugh at some form of racist joke whether we admit it or not. Racism is so ignorant that most of the time there isn’t anything much to be seen of it. At times it’s harmless and other times it’s flat out disgusting, but hopefully we are in a society that has a better understanding that racism shouldn’t be accepted and tolerated. Comedians like Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock can get away with it because of the text in which it’s being used.
So do pro wrestlers.
Should they?
Each and every week John Bradshaw Leyfield is full of more racist comments than David Duke at a National Forest Fires Prevention Dinner. Bradshaw has gone so far as to even videotape a skit with himself “kicking” a Mexican family back across the Tex/Mex Border declaring “you get back in your country and tell your friends that John Bradshaw Leyfield will be waiting here!”. Bradshaw has even lost his job with Fox News because he did a Nazi Salute at a wrestling event in Germany. His punishment? The WWE Title.
Jim Hellwig “Warrior” made a speech at a Connecticut College recently and made several comments including declaring that “Queering doesn’t make the world go round” and telling an Iranian girl to “Go get a towel!”. In 1997, DX made several racist references on an episode of Monday Night Raw when they broke into the Nation Of Domination’s Locker Room and spray painted such phrases as “Go back to Africa” and “No KFC”.
Does anyone find this offensive? Granted, I believe that anything can have some humor to it, but at times it goes a little far. Even Ric Flair once referred to one of his African American opponents as “Shaka Zula” in the 1970’s. Wrestling should have a certain real-life aspect to it and racism is a true reality here in the United States, but this is one subject that serves no purpose than “shock value” and has no place in the world of professional wrestling.
Now on the flip side, wrestling has it’s characters that use Racism as an empty cry of “foul”. Muhammad Hassan has come out week after week complaining how his “people” have been discriminated against. Last I checked, Vince McMahon was paying Hussan a six figure salary to be absolutely useless. That doesn’t sound too racist to me. His buddy Davari has even made real life comments saying that he and Hussan speak the truth and that the fans should “shut up because they haven’t lived it”. D-Lo Brown and Alex Wright also used the “whoa is me” racist angle only to lose lucrative major federation deals.
I believe that both sides are wrong and this is truly an issue that should be written out of the story lines period. Perhaps Vinnie Mac himself has never experienced true racism and cannot relate to the seriousness of the issue. Perhaps I’m just being a whiny wrestling fan.
Or maybe I’m just being humane.
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