Sunday, June 08, 2008

should've just shut his ass up

Of the widgets on my Google homepage, a couple are news feeds about soccer. I get the little headlines about international soccer and sometimes a tidbit about our own Major League Soccer. I rarely actually click on any of them, only skimming the headlines often enough to know when they change.

HERE is a story I did click on, and I'm curious as to what people think about it. A fan captured on video another fan yelling a racial slur at a player who had just scored. The filming fan posted the video on YouTube, and the racial slur somehow got the attention of MLS. They claim that the racist fan will be barred for life from all league games as soon as they can learn his identity.

Racism has no place in sports (or anywhere else for what it's worth) and it's especially ugly in a sport that can be argued to have brought more of the world's people together than anything else.

So, is a lifetime ban taking away the rights of the fans to express themselves, or is it completely justifiable in the attempt to stamp out the ugliness of racism?

P.S. Maybe soon we'll see more people willing to stand up against homophobia in sports as well as players finally start to come out and admit they are gay.

1 comment:

Michele said...

Any private business or organization has a right to ban anyone they please from doing business with them, they also have a right to have codes of behavior at their events or in their place of business. That being said, individuals have rights to boycott those businesses or organizations if they disagree with their codes.
Guess he'll have to watch soccer at home.
That being said, I think being an individual jackass is a human right, and he shouldn't be barred by law from having his unpopular beliefs and thoughts. That would be Orwellian.