Boxer suspended for racial slur
by: Dr. Samori Swygert
I previously wrote an article addressing the warranted jubilee expressed by NBA players and other sports affiliates on the NBA’s decision to ban Donald Sterling for his racist remarks. My angle was that the NBA’s ruling will set a historical precedent that can also apply to the athletes on teams and other sports. I gave an example of how Riley Cooper could get banned or suspended now if he said his earlier statements after the banning of Donald Sterling.
I asserted and extrapolated what the future implications of the decision would be. My hypothesis is that athletes can soon expect to be banned from sports when they utter expletives like: nigg*/nigg*r, fagg*t/ que*r and other racial and sëxual oriented insults when they become emotionally fueled on and off the court.
In the comment section I was berated for having foresight and understanding how America applies precedents and interpretations after monumental rulings. However, no more than a week later, this has begun to manifest in boxing.
According to the Daily Mail, an African-American boxer named Adrien Broner has been indefinitely suspended until he publicly apologizes to the WBC, his opponent, and explains what he meant to the satisfaction of the world for tweeting that he “beat the f*ck out of a Mexi-can.”
This is an excerpt from the statement released by WBC, as reported by Daily Mail article :
‘The World Boxing Council holds human equality as its banner and will not accept a former WBC champion to make racially offensive statements.
Since words have different meanings and can be interpreted in different ways , the WBC is issuing this open letter to Adrien Broner to either clarify what he meant with his words or to issue a public apology if those words were intended to be despective and offensive.
Adrien Broner is hereby suspended from participating in any WBC sanctioned Championship and will be excluded from the WBC Ratings until the time he makes a public apology satisfactorily to the public of the world.’
So as I said in my previous article, it’s good that the sports world and NBA are holding Donald Sterling responsible for his racial diatribe with his girlfriend, but athletes need to be cognizant that this is not a one-way street: You can and will be banned and suspended for what you say. Furthermore, I encourage commenters to think a little, extract, and then extrapolate information into future scenarios before casting such belittling commentary. I only try to provide my perspective without disrespect to the readers. Thank you and peace
