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Guest Editorials
EDITORIAL: WWE still exploiting racial stereotypes despite what Vince McMahon has told Rev. Al Sharpton Sep 25, 2009 - 6:15:15 PM
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I find it very interesting that Al Sharpton is willing to host Raw this week for a number of reasons. First, it's pretty clear that the "past racial insensitivity" isn't really in the past.
Just in the past week, we've had Tony Atlas laughing like an idiot (and more on him in a minute), two Sanford and Son references, a shot at the "blackness" of Shelton Benjamin, and that was just on ECW.
On Raw, there are caricatures like MVP and Mark Henry, and on Smackdown, you have Cryme Tyme, who are presented as two "gangsters" who are out to steal as much as they can. Even if you overlook Mark Henry (the World's strongest man gimmick has been used on white wrestlers in the past, such as Ted Arcidi), you can't ignore the others. Would they put the MVP or Cryme Tyme gimmicks on a white wrester? And no, John Cena doesn't count.
Second, with the notable exceptions of Booker T and The Rock, (and the Rock's Samoan heritage was heavily emphasized with the Rikishi angle among others) there has NEVER been an African-American wrestler in WWE pushed at the top of the card for an extended period of time.
Booker was treated as a joke for most of his WWE tenure, and they even ran a race angle with Triple H and him in the lead-up to WrestleMania 19. The number of offensive racial stereotypes in WWE over the years is absolutely staggering.
This is by no means a complete list, but some of the more egregious ones need to be pointed out: Umaga, Ricky Steamboat's karate moves (which he never used in WCW/NWA), Kamala, Slick, Akeem the African Dream, the Mexicools, the Nation of Domination (with DX spray painting racial epithets in their locker room), Junkyard Dog, Barry Horowitz, etc.
Special mention should be made of Tony Atlas's "Saba Simba" character. That might have been the single most offensive display ever put on by ANY entertainment company. Again, could you imagine any other "entertainment" company putting a character out like that one and treating him as a joke? Has Tony Atlas ever played a character who is not a racial stereotype?
But the most interesting angle to all of this is the fact that Linda McMahon is running for Congress as a Republican candidate. It will be very interesting to see whether she shows up on Raw this Monday. It's a delicate balance, as Connecticut is a pretty liberal state but she runs the risk of alienating the GOP base by showing up on the same show with a polarizing figure like Sharpton. Not to mention Jerry Lawler, who is running for mayor of Memphis on a conservative platform.
So, we have one of America's civil rights leaders showing up on a TV show that continues to demonstrate racial insensitivity and has at least two people running on conservative platforms for major offices. Interesting timing for WWE, and you have to wonder how they are going to reconcile Sharpton's political stances with their own.
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