[Yahoo] The Philadelphia Flyers and Detroit Red Wings played in a neutral site exhibition game Thursday night in London, Ontario. While the 4-3 win for the Red Wings was the result, the story was an apparent racist incident during the shootout. Flyers forward Wayne Simmonds was in the middle of his shootout attempt when a fan inside the Labatt Centre threw a banana peel in his path. Simmonds, of African-Canadian decent, wasn’t shaken by it and beat Red Wings goaltender Jordan Pearce. Simmonds, who grew up a little over two hours from London in Scarborough, took the high road talking about the incident after the game with the Philadelphia Daily News’ Frank Seravalli: “When you’re a black man playing in a predominantly white man’s sport, you’ve got to come to expect things like that,” Simmonds said. “Over the past 23 years of my life, I’ve come to expect some things like that. But I’m older and more mature now, I kind of just left things roll off [my back]. I try not to think about stuff like that.” Sources told Seravalli that the perpetrator was not caught.
Can someone explain to me what a banana peel has to do with African-Americans? How is that racist? Wanting someone to slip and fall during a shootout attempt against your team is prejudice thinking? Many people enjoy bananas. Common snack for all kinds. They’re pretty tasty & good for you – just look at how jacked gorillas are. They eat ‘em all the time. The peels also double as a balance deterrent, similar to an oil slick but a lot less cumbersome to carry.
Sure, throwing something on the ice to interfere with the outcome of the game is a pretty dick move, but I wouldn’t call it bigotry. I think it’s a gargantuan leap to make in thinking some dude knew there was a black guy on the Flyers, so he was going to the arena armed with a banana peel in his back pocket to toss at Simmonds. That’s insinuating he KNEW the game would go into a shootout, he KNEW which side the Flyers would be shooting towards, and he KNEW Simmonds would be one of the 3 skaters selected. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s not exactly a gimmie either.
You know who’s racist? Everyone that’s making a big deal about this & calling it racist. Think about it. You saw a banana peel hit the ice while a black player was skating and the first thing that popped into your heads was “black people are monkeys” without even knowing the guy’s intent when he threw it. That’s pretty fucked up.
