ESPN “SC6” co-host Michael Smith had a strong reaction Tuesday to a group of Boston Red Sox fans using racial slurs towards Baltimore Orioles center fielder Adam Jones Monday night with one fan throwing peanuts at him.
Gov. Charlie Baker (R-MA) and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh both apologized and shot down any notion that Boston is a racist city, but Smith refused to accept their apologies.
“If you are a city in America, you are a racist city,” Smith stated.
Partial transcript as follows:
Why does it take such an extreme act of obvious racism and bigotry to get people sickened and disgusted? You want to know why in 2017 this still happens? It’s because we don’t recognize racism when it’s in our face every day. It’s because the nuanced, subtle, beneath the surface racism every day is argued and shut down because we’re in a “post-racial society,” because we’re past that.
But let somebody say the n-word — “Oh, this is disgusting.” What about the people that think it every day, that act on it every day in policy and practice that are saying it, maybe not to players on the field, but are saying it to other patrons in the parks or when they go outside in the streets.
When you say this is not when we’re about, we’re better than this if you are a city in America, you are a racist city. That’s who we are as a society still and unless until people come to grips and get comfortable with discussing every day day-to-day racism and bigotry, not just the n-word or not just throwing a banana on the field or peanuts on the field, we [are going to] still spin our wheels when it comes to this conversation.
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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