In the few days since Tony Bruno tweeted,“Bochy is a coward for having his illegal alien pitcher hit a guy since mighty Frisco boys ...",, the criticism of his words has been as swift as it has been predictable. Condemnation has come from Hispanic and Latino groups and sensible adults around the web. But, what I’m interested in are the comments of your common, basic sports fan from around the country who, in a particularly American conflation of sports & political talk radio, has his/her opinions on this bit of basic racist rhetoric. These comments are from the San Francisco Chronicle Sports section:
• Tony was giving Ramirez a complement...Anyone who lives in SF knows ILLEGALS are gold (free health care, food, schooling, childcare, medical care, etc), ILLEGALS even have a "get out of jail free" card in the likely event they get arrested....Only a fool would stay in Mehico.
• Typical whiny, ultra PC, sensitive Giants fans making a federal case out of some harmless trash talking. It's probably something that you say to your friends and shouldn't be tweeted but either way it doesn't automatically make you a racist. I'm Mexican I actually thought it was a little funny. People are way to PC and sensitive here.
I consider these types of comments to be more in line with the America that I know. The America where anyone who is brown is a Mexican (and subject to the stereotypes and slanders associated with the relationship of the United States of America and the United States of Mexico including the boogie man of the "illegal alien"). This even though Ramon Ramirez is from the Dominican Republic. I’ll keep an eye open and continue to review what I see and hear.
Some stories from the web:
http://www.hispanictips.com/...
http://www.sorrybrosports.com/...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...