I Can't Seem To Find Anything Racist At All With This Philly.com Headline
The Phils have been playing some damn fine baseball lately. They’ve won 9 out of their last 10 games and in doing so, they set a new MLB record for highest K/9IP ratio over the first month of the season. So what have the Phillies been doing lately? They’ve been killing teams via strikeouts. So Philly dot com writer Bob Vetrone Jr runs to his closet, finds his word play hat, puts it on backwards and goes to work with this headline that reads “Meet The KKK-illies”. Because, you know, the teams’ real name is the Phillies. And the letter K is the abbreviation for strikeout in baseball. We like to have a little fun around here. But apparently, there are people in the world who hate fun. And apparently, there are some people who immediately made a connection between this headline and the Ku Klux Klan. And to be perfectly honest, I am both shocked and appalled by the insensitivity of some people today. Because if you see this headline and your immediate reaction is to think about the KKK killing black people, well then that makes YOU the racist. Because we’re just over here having a little fun and talking baseball. They’ve been hanging opposing hitters out to dry. They’ve been burning opposing teams at the cross. They’ve been beating the shit out of their opponents with their bats. And if that all invokes the Klan to you, well then maybe it’s time for you to take a good long look in the mirror. Because again, we’re just talkin’ ball here and you’re the one who decided to come in and make it all about racism. Fucking bigots. You make me sick.
Obviously Philly.com has since changed the headline which now reads “Meet The Special K Phillies”. Which offends me as a cereal lover but I’m willing to let this one slide. Here’s the apology they issued on the post.
We apologize for a headline that appeared earlier today on this blog post. The headline was changed quickly. The author’s mistake was careless, not malicious, but it is unacceptable nonetheless.
I believe him. Bob Vetrone didn’t even make the connection between the KKK-illies and the Ku Klux Klan because he’s not a racist. He doesn’t see people in colors. We’re all one species. Again, you’re the racist one if you did make that connection.