How was your Saturday? I had a solid day, doing my mom's taxes, playing euchre, watching a pretty good Mike Tyson documentary and my Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada. And oh yeah, defending myself for condemning the wearing of blackface and staving off threats from blackface wearers and sympathizers.
It all started when I saw a photo of two Habs fans wearing blackface and afro wigs on Deadspin. That prompted me to write Subbanator Habs Fans Find New Way to Offend. I couldn't believe these guys were allowed in the building, nor could I believe they were actually shown on television. Of course I had to write about it.
While I slept, friends of the two guys who wore the blackface and afro wigs found my entry. In addition to justifying the behaviour and ridiculing me for buying the media's lies and writing for hits, xmod threatened to bring down this entire site.
I have connections... ddos... ever heard of that..
A DDoS is a distributed denial-of-service attack and is usually carried out by consuming a web server's computational resources, such as bandwidth, disk space, or processor time. Somehow, despite xmod's threats, this site stayed online all day.
Then, the flood gates opened. All day long, comments poured in. Eventually I heard from one of the two men in the offending picture who went by the name "wantthis1488". He's the guy on the left and throughout the day we communicated both in the comments of that entry and via email.
wantthis1488 argued long and hard in defense of his blackface and afro wig. The arguments got more and more absurd, ranging from the movies "White Girls" and "Tropic Thunder" to the fact many Habs fans wanted pictures with the two and "we have now a black president". He closed with one final baffling threat.
wow man i am done with this forum u r going to be stupid and say that i am saying its ok to use th n word .. then it is no point to talk to you dumb ignorant douchbags thats how you said it.... what i was is that we are moving on and moving foward and u can now be proud .. and u can let go and stop trying to be the publics fan... and i have not even been contacted about this whole slander so i will be getting a hold of my lawyer .... ill see you soon mike
Assuming I survive his friend's DDoS attack, I'll be hearing from his lawyer. I'm more concerned with the several people who came to his defense and this promise wantthis1488 made in the comments.
ill do it again and again sweetheart ... and i dont have to tuck anything between my legs i am proud of what i did.... anyways everyone here is one minded theres no talking to you guys bye and toronto mike you said u were not doing this for promotion or to make yourself popular then stop twittering it and stop promoting it
That was my 9907th entry. In 9907 entries, I don't believe I've ever been as dismayed and disappointed in the general content of the comments. Still, amidst the ignorance, insensitivity, racism and generally offensiveness oozing from the majority of comments, a few sensible voices gave me hope.
Thank you Jim and Ajax Mike, for having my back and fighting the good fight, but I'll close this entry with the words of diehard Habs fan metricjulie.
Oh dear. Oh god. Oh, the humanity.
I am SO sorry, you guys. I, myself, am a Habs fan. I love Subban just as much as anyone and want him to develop in the AHL as long as he can before Montreal calls him up and ruins his career like we have seen happen so often (Latendresse, Price).
But man. Like Roy said, "The logic being used by the black face defenders is hurting my brain."
It hurts my brain too, and it hurts my pride and hurts to show my face as a Hab fan when these things happen.
Not to plug myself or anything, but I have written an entry on my blog called Your Guide To Being A Habs Fan: http://tinyurl.com/yzrm6fc
It's bad enough we are known for booing the US national anthem. I never thought I'd have to go and edit it to add a #6: Be blatantly racist, then defend your actions to the death.
It is so shameful that people are not only doing this, but that others are defending them and saying that they either "didn't know", "didn't mean to be offensive", "were supporting them, hence weren't trying to trash him so it makes it better", etc. Shame on all of you.
It is embarrassing enough to be a Habs fan without the people of Montreal looking like complete racists and senseless morons.
So for everyone on this thread who either wore blackface, defended blackface or was not completely appalled by blackface, I apologize. I apologize to the world for subjecting you to such blatant ignorance, insensitivity and hatred. And don't give me the "oh but they love Subban and were supporting him." DUDES PAINTED THEIR FACE BLACK. That is some aggressive perpetuation of racism. So don't even. Don't even.
Mike, you said "But thank you for validating my life-long hatred of Habs fans. Really... that's the fire you've truly fuelled here today."
and I don't blame you. I just hope that like me, you believe that 92% of the population ANYWHERE is stupid, and that somewhere in the shallows of Montreal are the 8% who are opposed to their behavior and are truly embarrassed and saddened that in TWENTY-TEN these events are still happening.
Because we exist, and we are so sorry for what happened.
A gentle reminder that there are reasonable, intelligent people who cheer for the Habs.
