Photo by MPR529/Flickr (Creative Commons)
Dodger Stadium during a game, May 2006
An insightful comment came in this afternoon in response to the racial tension that’s surrounded the attack on opening day at Dodger Stadium of Bryan Stow, a San Francisco Giants fan from Santa Cruz. There has been a racial undercurrent to the story since it was reported that the two suspects who violently beat Stow, who is white, were described as Latino.
Soon afterward, anti-Latino comments began appearing beneath the news reports online. This phenomenon has spread, bubbling into the mainstream via the talk-radio circuit. I wrote about this occurring in a post last Friday, which in turn generated more anti-Latino reaction. There was one comment on the site that I had to delete, which I wrote about earlier today.
In response to today’s post, a reader named Jose posted the comment below, which I’m reprinting in its entirety, with slight copyedits. While I haven’t closely followed the saga of of the team’s owners, which he writes about also, he makes interesting observations about the climate at the stadium and more:
As a Mexican-American and having grown up both a Dodger fan (dating back to 1974) and as having been raised in Northeast Los Angeles, I cannot say that the attack surprised me.
Slowly, but steadily I have witnessed the product deteriorate in terms of not only the team, but its management, and the atmosphere surrounding Dodger Stadium itself.
I am not here to give whites or any other racial or ethnic group a a free run at generalizing us, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans and Latinos in general, in terms of us being supposedly nothing but misfits and degenerates. However, the sad truth is yes, the Dodger management has allowed a certain gangster/thug element to run roughshod over the Pavilion sections as well as the parking lot. And it happens to be mainly made up of Latino gangsters and thugs.
And this is due to the bottom line of the McCourts, which is the heck with family entertainment, a good and competitive team year in and year out as well as a safe and enjoyable atmosphere before, during and after the game.
The problem has existed for a long time (what was it, Rupert Murdoch, who owned the team before the McCourts?), but has been exacerbated by the neglect to the Dodger institution by the McCourts in favor of their leveraged mansions in Malibu.
Lastly, this problem is seen in thugs of all shades and sizes and will continue to fester until someone is killed by one of these thugs and attendance/revenues fall or better yet, a new ownership comes to the Dodgers and has Chavez Ravine in focus instead of Malibu and Beverly Hills.
Blame and punish these gangster thugs with the justice system and by MLB removing the McCourts from Dodger Stadium, in that way family and class will be restored to the Dodger name and headlines…but do not vent hatred and your secret racism by attacking the Latino population of Los Angeles County, which supports in mass the Dodgers with their hard (earned) money spent on a ballgame, just like all other loyal Dodger fans.
The Dodgers held a drive-through fundraiser today for Stow, a paramedic and father who remains in a medically-induced coma and has shown signs of having sustained brain damage in the beating. No arrests have been made yet, in spite of a reward offer.
