The other day, I posted a video clip where sports announcer Bob Griese made an absolutely unnecessary and offensive comment during a nationally televised college football game on ESPN.
PLEASE WATCH BEFORE READING THE REST
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-VJWBtOCQw]
As you can clearly see, Mr. Griese makes the comment jokingly and later apologizes (which was clearly advised by his superiors).
So getting back to Being Latino… when I posted the clip, I asked if anyone else saw this to be offensive. Through the series of comments, I saw some who said yes and others that said no. The people that said no had a similar “It’s not that big of a deal” type of response. I was a bit taken back by this type of response and would like for those who responded as so to ask themselves the following questions:
1) Was this the time or place for a ethnic jokes or are the announcers jobs to talk about the game at hand?
2) How do you think that the viewers took this comment?
3) Had it been one of the African-American players in the game that he was commenting on and he said something about them eating fried chicken… is that any different?
4) Why isn’t it “that serious’?
Here are my responses to those questions asked:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WriCiWsBbus]
About Being Latino Contributors
A moment for Griese to be educated. He apologized and it’s cool.
He apologized on national TV right away he made a mistake,hopefully he sees this and which I’m sure he will,has.
His is nothing compared to what Imus,Rush and many others continue to do with racist comments against all races.
Or the football player from the KC Chiefs calling a player of a few gay remarks of which I take insult to.
A Woman,Latina,Disabled,Hard of Hearing(born)& a Lesbian has now seen the hate&disrespect against each term I represent in her lifetime.
So no this doesn’t bother me as much as to what I’ve seen,heard and read actually since this time last year up till now.
I agree with Lance Rios. There is a time and place for jokes. It’s about time that the trash talk stops. Children are watching sports events and we have to set an example for our future leaders. It’s time to break the cycle and give respect to all people no matter what ethnic background they’re from. You have to give respect in order to get respect. Let’s start now.
I was offended. At my job I had ignorant people say hey taco. Like you said im not loosing sleep over it. But its offensive. Or they would call me puerto rican ana. I know who I am do I have to remind you who you are. They think that were just supposed to sit there and take it. Well those days have died my anglo friends so watch what you say about any race. It annoys me that when we wanna speak up about something like this some people just wanna act like we are over reacting. We need to be more like the african americans and come together speak up and say no its not cool.
These comments do bother me. It is becoming more and more often that jokes like this are made on the streets, in public in front of latinos as if we are suppose to laugh at them. Guess what America, we are not laughing. A racist or stereotype remark of any kind is a racist remark there is no in between line where we should say this is ok and that is ok. Giving people the “ok” to say remarks like this gives them the ok to ridicule our culture. Do not give anyone the satisfaction or the go ahead to do say or do anything wrong against any culture. This is the lesson we should teach!
feo feo comentario, cerrado este hombre..
It’s recognizing the problem where it starts. The few words weren’t the worst thing that he could have said, BUT they must be stopped immediately. Hence, why this little blog was produced (by an amateur).
I echo many of the sentiments of those above. Ultimately, Griese’s joke about Montoya’s ethnicity is tired, old, and not funny. To me, it is out of bounds to make an attempted “joke” about one’s ethnicity. Jokes happen in every sports broadcast without involving one’s ethnicity and Griese will hopefully learn why what he said was ignorant and disrespectful.