50 replies to this topic

[RedOctober3829]

Thomas beaten by shot from a black hockey player. Karma says maybe he should have gone to the White House?

https://twitter.com/#!/RonBorges/status/195347528101806081

Should Borges be reprimanded by his bosses based on this comment on his personal Twitter account? I think so. Even though it's a personal Twitter account, he commented on an issue directly related to something in his profession.

Thoughts?

[Hendu's Gait]

Borges is a racist and an asshole and not that good at his job, considering his experience.

Case closed.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

What a dickhead. I'm reluctant to even go here, but the only way Ronnie might have had a point would be if Thomas had refused to go to the WH because Obama is a black man. Since that wasn't the case, I'm going with "Ronnie is a dickhead."

[JohnnyTheBone]

Borges is a convicted plagiarist. What makes this tweet even worse is the likelihood that Borges copied the line from a writer in Seattle.

[24JoshuaPoint]

Wow. What a tool.

[AimingForYoko]

I literally made my twitter public to light into this jackass.

Wonderfully, Bertrand has been really spot on about the barrage of assholery. Though I don't know if this tweet has become an issue.

[ivanvamp]

What a dickhead. I'm reluctant to even go here, but the only way Ronnie might have had a point would be if Thomas had refused to go to the WH because Obama is a black man. Since that wasn't the case, I'm going with "Ronnie is a dickhead."

I know what you mean. I think it's clear that your last statement is correct.

But I always wondered this, and maybe someone could help me because I admit my ignorance. Obama has a black father and a white mother, but he's "black". Tiger Woods has a black father and an asian mother and he's "black". Zimmerman (of Trayvon Martin notoriety) has an Afro-Peruvian great grandfather, and is of mixed racial heritage, but some call him "white" and others call him "Hispanic". Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz are both Hispanic (or Latino....I don't know the difference between the two terms either) but clearly they have very different skin tone, etc.

PBS has a very interesting site on race here (http://www.pbs.org/r...000_00-Home.htm). I think so often we want to use easily definable racial terms but race is a very complex thing.

Nonetheless, getting back to your point, Borges is indeed a jackass and really, why isn't his job on the line after a tweet like that?

[AimingForYoko]

I know what you mean. I think it's clear that your last statement is correct.

But I always wondered this, and maybe someone could help me because I admit my ignorance. Obama has a black father and a white mother, but he's "black". Tiger Woods has a black father and an asian mother and he's "black". Zimmerman (of Trayvon Martin notoriety) has an Afro-Peruvian great grandfather, and is of mixed racial heritage, but some call him "white" and others call him "Hispanic". Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz are both Hispanic (or Latino....I don't know the difference between the two terms either) but clearly they have very different skin tone, etc.

PBS has a very interesting site on race here (http://www.pbs.org/r...000_00-Home.htm). I think so often we want to use easily definable racial terms but race is a very complex thing.

Nonetheless, getting back to your point, Borges is indeed a jackass and really, why isn't his job on the line after a tweet like that?

Race is a complex thing but you can be a white Hispanic. Just as you can be a black Hispanic person.

[ivanvamp]

Race is a complex thing but you can be a white Hispanic. Just as you can be a black Hispanic person.

Right, I know that. So "Hispanic" isn't really a "race" then. It's more of a "culture"? And that's interesting to me, but I still don't know why Tiger Woods is black and not Asian, or why Obama is black but not white - when their parents are of different ethnicities. Again, it's all very confusing to me how these labels work.

[cromulence]

Right, I know that. So "Hispanic" isn't really a "race" then. It's more of a "culture"? And that's interesting to me, but I still don't know why Tiger Woods is black and not Asian, or why Obama is black but not white - when their parents are of different ethnicities. Again, it's all very confusing to me how these labels work.

Well, Tiger Woods and Barack Obama both appear more black than white. Their skin is darker than the typical Caucasian person's. Thus, they're referred to as black.

[AimingForYoko]

Right, I know that. So "Hispanic" isn't really a "race" then. It's more of a "culture"? And that's interesting to me, but I still don't know why Tiger Woods is black and not Asian, or why Obama is black but not white - when their parents are of different ethnicities. Again, it's all very confusing to me how these labels work.

Re: the "black" label. I think that it's a cultural thing that goes back to the days of slavery. Even after slaves were freed, if you had so much as an ounce of "black" in your family history (and yes they did check), you were automatically black and there was nothing you could do about it. And if you couldn't "pass", you were really screwed.

Edited by AimingForYoko, 26 April 2012 - 10:23 AM.

[Carmine Hose]

It seems that Borges is more implying that Thimas is a racist and not one himself.

[Smiling Joe Hesketh]

It seems that Borges is more implying that Thimas is a racist and not one himself.

It's a stupid point to make and something Borges shouldn't be doing. Thomas never indicated that his refusal to visit the WH had anything to do with Obama's race.

[JohntheBaptist]

It is interesting to hear how people took it exactly because it makes so little sense. I took it as Ron seeing "black people" as this monolithic entity that, when one of them is insulted (based on race or no), all are, and thus karma gets adjusted accordingly.

Brilliant analysis.

edit-some clarity

Edited by JohntheBaptist, 26 April 2012 - 10:47 AM.

[AimingForYoko]

It seems that Borges is more implying that Thimas is a racist and not one himself.

Whatever he was implying does not matter. Ward's race does not matter, (especially in relation to the fucking President) and Borges is an asshole for bringing it up.

If he had said that the B's losing was on Thomas because of karma for not going, he'd still be an idiot but at least he doesn't bring race into this.

Edited by AimingForYoko, 26 April 2012 - 10:36 AM.

[FL4WL3SS]

I know what you mean. I think it's clear that your last statement is correct.

But I always wondered this, and maybe someone could help me because I admit my ignorance. Obama has a black father and a white mother, but he's "black". Tiger Woods has a black father and an asian mother and he's "black". Zimmerman (of Trayvon Martin notoriety) has an Afro-Peruvian great grandfather, and is of mixed racial heritage, but some call him "white" and others call him "Hispanic". Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz are both Hispanic (or Latino....I don't know the difference between the two terms either) but clearly they have very different skin tone, etc.

PBS has a very interesting site on race here (http://www.pbs.org/r...000_00-Home.htm). I think so often we want to use easily definable racial terms but race is a very complex thing.

Nonetheless, getting back to your point, Borges is indeed a jackass and really, why isn't his job on the line after a tweet like that?

I have a really good friend of mine that is bi-racial and if someone openly calls him black* he goes out of his way to correct the person and tell them that he's bi-racial. I have a lot of respect for him for doing so, it would be an insult to one of his parents to associate with only one race.

*I've never heard anyone call him white, but I'm positive he'd go out of his way to correct that person as well.

[lostjumper]

Borges needs to get publicly reprimanded for this, if not lose his job. Thomas clearly stated that his decision to skip the whitehouse visit was due to politics. People have slammed him for this, but during the whole fiasco no one ever brought up the race issue. It was pretty obvious why Thomas didn't go. To issue a tweet like this is an attempt to frame Thomas as a racist, which is a very serious issue and obviously false. Really, Borges should be fired over this.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

Yeah, I think Borges is going for, "you offend one black guy, another will get you in the end" angle, and I think that reflects most poorly on him. He'd be a dick if he was calling Thomas a racist, but he's just a racist for being unable to disassociate a person from his skin color.

[ivanvamp]

I have a really good friend of mine that is bi-racial and if someone openly calls him black* he goes out of his way to correct the person and tell them that he's bi-racial. I have a lot of respect for him for doing so, it would be an insult to one of his parents to associate with only one race.

*I've never heard anyone call him white, but I'm positive he'd go out of his way to correct that person as well.

That's what I wonder about vis-a-vis Obama or Tiger Woods.

Look here:
http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.432069!/img/httpImage/image.jpg

I think there's plenty of family resemblance there. Isn't it insulting to his mother to not acknowledge that at all, but only identify Woods with his black father?

Here's Obama with his mother and his half-sister (it's an old picture, obviously):
http://msnbcmedia4.m...0a.grid-6x2.jpg

I think there's a lot less resemblance between Obama and his mother, so I understand more why he's considered to be black. But still, he's bi-racial, not black.

Oh well, no biggie....I just find it to be a very confusing topic and when people start talking about racism, I want to ask people to define race for me, and to show me examples of people of different races. That pbs site I linked to earlier actually has a "test" you can take to place people in particular racial categories.....it's REALLY hard to do.

[shlincoln]

I think so often we want to use easily definable racial terms but race is a very complex thing.

This reminded me of the thought process that went into Chappelle's Racial Draft.

[FL4WL3SS]

Skin color has nothing to do with race, it's really defined by blood type.

[ivanvamp]

Skin color has nothing to do with race, it's really defined by blood type.

???? My blood type is B+. What does that make me, racially-speaking? Or what is my skin color based on my blood type?

Or........what in the world are you talking about? (now I can't tell if you're just messing with me)

Edited by ivanvamp, 26 April 2012 - 12:40 PM.

[Myt1]

It is interesting to hear how people took it exactly because it makes so little sense. I took it as Ron seeing "black people" as this monolithic entity that, when one of them is insulted (based on race or no), all are, and thus karma gets adjusted accordingly.

Brilliant analysis.

edit-some clarity

Exactly.

[Bucknahs Bum Ankle]

???? My blood type is B+. What does that make me, racially-speaking?

Gullible.

Edited by Bucknahs Bum Ankle, 26 April 2012 - 12:39 PM.

[ivanvamp]

Gullible.

LOL. Yeah, almost certainly true!

[GreenMonster49]

I have a really good friend of mine that is bi-racial and if someone openly calls him black* he goes out of his way to correct the person and tell them that he's bi-racial. I have a lot of respect for him for doing so, it would be an insult to one of his parents to associate with only one race.

Stephen Fry has told the following anecdote about being in Kenya in November 2008:

I spoke to a member of the Luo tribe, from which Obama’s father came, and asked if he was pleased that America should not only now have a black president, but one from his people. “Very pleased of course,” came the reply, “but you should consider that had Mr Obama been elected president of Kenya, he would have been our first white president.”

[AimingForYoko]

I wonder if any of the usual sports media will address this. The hate speak last night was pretty pathetic all around, but this asshole is supposed to be a "journalist".

[Van Everyman]

It takes a lot to make me sympathetic of Thomas' boycott of the WH. But Borges has some talent.

[FL4WL3SS]

???? My blood type is B+. What does that make me, racially-speaking? Or what is my skin color based on my blood type?

Or........what in the world are you talking about? (now I can't tell if you're just messing with me)

It makes more sense to determine race by blood type than skin color - people with similar blood types are more closely related than people with similar skin colors in some instances.

[Rocco Graziosa]

Borges responds:

My brief and somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment on what I perceived to be the karmic consequences of Bruins [team stats] goalie Tim Thomas [stats]’ decision to snub the president of the United States has somehow been turned inside out, and so the Herald urged me to explain what I was thinking.
If you are a writer by trade, that is the first sign you didn’t do a good enough job of explaining or thinking, so we try again.
One thing that struck me after Joel Ward slapped home the game-winning shot (with the help of a little old-fashioned goalie interference by Mike Knuble) in overtime Wednesday night to eliminate the Bruins was the odd juxtaposition of a number of unlikely things.
The rarest thing in the history of American politics is an African-American pres-ident, Barack Obama being the first.
Few would argue that among the very rarest of things in North American team sports are hockey players of color, although Grant Fuhr was among the greatest of goaltenders, and certainly Willie O’Ree and Anson Carter acquitted themselves with distinction during their years with the Bruins.
Lastly, the team that sent Thomas home was, of all teams, the Washington Capitals, the team representing the city where Barack Obama lives and works ... apparently not to Thomas’ satisfaction.
Karma, in case you are unfamiliar with the concept, is considered “the sum and consequences of a person’s actions during the successive phases of his existence, regarded as determining his destiny.’’
So what struck me was this karmic notion: Thomas refuses to go to Washington, thus snubbing the first black president in our country’s history, and is a few months later eliminated by a black hockey player who had only six goals all season — and only that one in the seven-game playoff series.
It didn’t strike me as racial, it struck me as ironic.

http://www.bostonher...438&format=text

Edited by Rocco Graziosa, 27 April 2012 - 08:31 AM.

[Wills Eeks]

What a terrible explanation. It's clearly a race thing, not an irony thing, and the irony only even makes sense if you think of everything in terms of race. Ward is an Obama proxy -- what because they are both foreigners????

[BigSoxFan]

"Karma, in case you are unfamiliar with the concept, is considered “the sum and consequences of a person’s actions during the successive phases of his existence, regarded as determining his destiny.’’

This guy is even a dick in his apologies. Note to Borges: everyone knows what karma is. And your explanation is garbage. Would it be karma if a young black journalist took his job after this? Or just ironic? I'm confused.

[Doug Beerabelli]

It's beside the point that Borges got his facts wrong. Joel Ward is not black. He's Canadian.

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

Oh irony, I get it. Like a person who can't write very well somehow gets a job with a newspaper.

It all makes complete sense now.

\

[DrewDawg]

If it takes you 300 words to explain a 20 word tweet, maybe you just shouldn't be tweeting it in the first place.

[lostjumper]

"Karma, in case you are unfamiliar with the concept, is considered “the sum and consequences of a person’s actions during the successive phases of his existence, regarded as determining his destiny.’’

This guy is even a dick in his apologies. Note to Borges: everyone knows what karma is. And your explanation is garbage. Would it be karma if a young black journalist took his job after this? Or just ironic? I'm confused.

Agreed, what a Dick. Here's what I got from his explanation. What he wrote was fine. Unfortunately for him no one else is as smart as he is, so we mis-interpreted his tweet. Ironic indeed.

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

That explanation is exactly what we all thought he was thinking. The president is black and the hockey player is black! Crazy! You snubbed a black guy, and now a black guy got you back! Karma!

Yeah, that's racist because you see inherent similarity between two people only because of the color of their skin.

Also, it wouldn't be irony. It would be coincidence, dipshit.

[AimingForYoko]

Borges responds:





http://www.bostonher...438&format=text

That's not irony, you dick.

We're black people, not the Borg.

[DrewDawg]

That's not irony, you dick.

We're black people, not the Borg.

It's like raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, on your wedding day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ivanvamp]

Essentially what he said was, "I know my tweet was all about race, but it wasn't really about race, it was about irony. As in, what are the odds that a guy who just happens to play in Washington and who hasn't scored many goals got one by Thomas to win the series, especially given that that guy was black and given that Thomas snubbed Obama, our first black President. Hahahaha I'm so smart and if you think I meant something regarding race, then karma is going to bite you."

In other words, he's a colossal idiot.

[Andy Merchant]

That was a bit more tame than I expected considering it came from Borges. At least he didn't totally put his foot in his mouth and say that he thinks that all black people know each other.

[cornwalls@6]

In Borgie's defense, I'm certain that he didn't actually write the tweet himself.




edit: beaten to a plagerist crack in the second post of the thread. Nice reading job by me. D'oh.

Edited by cornwalls@6, 27 April 2012 - 10:38 AM.

[OnWisc]

"African-American", "of color", "black", "black"

"didn't strike me as racial"

Fuck you, Borges. If people were stupid enough to buy that explanation, you would never have had to make it in the first place.

[BannedbyNYYFans.com]

Obama is the 44th president. Ward is on the 4th line and scored in the 4th period. Now do you get his tweet? The whole black thing didn't even enter it. Stop slamming this bastion of journalistic integrity that is Ron Borges.

[TheoShmeo]

Tweeting is rather quick and easy. What took more thought? Ron's karma missive or his 934th article on the folly in letting Richard Seymour go. I'm thinking it was the former.

http://www.bostonher..._seymour_value/

What a consistent, unrelenting douche bag. Even if he was picking on Thomas, he should have known that he was stepping into sticky manure.

[minischwab]

Somehow it hasn't been mentioned in here, but Borges is Cape Verdean and considers himself a "minority." Personally, I think that makes his comment even worse.

[Andy Merchant]

Somehow it hasn't been mentioned in here, but Borges is Cape Verdean and considers himself a "minority." Personally, I think that makes his comment even worse.

Wow, really? Borges is a Portuguese name, but I've never heard that he was of Cape Verdean descent before.

[SaveBooFerriss]

The funny (not ironic) thing is that of all the stupid things Borges has written over the years, this probably doesn't make the top 100.

[Buck Humphries]

I think Borges eats his corn the long way. That said, as someone that is crazy enough to try to get away with publishing other people's ideas and probably assumed he'd get away with it, he knew what he was getting into. He's could very well be racist and not good at what he does for a living, but are you talking about him right now? He probably reads this stuff then rubs one out.

[pedros hairstylist]

"Not considering" something is racist doesn't make it not racist. In fact, it often confirms that it is racist.