The Oakland Athletics are a major league baseball team that is not going to last long. They have the least number of wins and the lowest number of fans watching their games. Is anyone from the Left Coast tuning in to watch their games, or popping open a Bud Light? The A’s must keep their broadcasters on staff for nostalgia reasons or someone else, but it looks like one of them will be out of work soon. Longtime A’s Announcer Glen Kuiper seemed to use the most racially offensive slur Friday night.
Kuiper, along with his broadcast partner Dallas Braden, a former A’s pitcher (who pitched a perfect-game in the distant past when the Oakland Athletics had a baseball team of major league caliber) were in Kansas City to cover the Athletics Friday night game against Royals. Kuiper told an A’s fan (or maybe more, or even five) who was watching that he and Braden had “a phenomenal day today”: Negro League Museum, Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque. Except he didn’t say “Negro.”
Kuiper’s actual words sounded like a strange word, which only rappers or people who are supposed to be the target of this slur can use without fearing being fired, cancelled, denounced and shunned. Braden didn’t blink an eye. Neither did Kuiper. Kuiper did not intend to slur the word, but he unintentionally did.
Who knows? Kuiper may have had a few beers, though not Bud Lights, to wash down the Arthur Bryant’s Barbeque, and to prepare himself for another A’s game. His tongue was not as agile as it used to be in the past, when he would describe the exploits and achievements of real major leaguers and not only those on the other team. He didn’t intend to say the Forbidden Word above all forbidden words, whether he meant it or not.
Kuiper learned about the controversy in the sixth inning, when he played the Royals. He then said, “A little earlier on the show, I had said something that didn’t quite come out the way I intended it to, and I just want to apologize if I sounded differently than I intended it to be.” I wanted to apologize.
The woke Athletics’ management (wait, do the Oakland A’s even have management? The Athletics management (wait, the Oakland A’s have management? On Saturday, half an hour after midnight, they posted on Twitter: “The language Glen Kuiper used during today’s broadcast was unacceptable.” The Oakland Athletics will not tolerate such language. “We are working to resolve the situation.”
As of the time this post was written, fourteen hours after the original posting on Saturday, it was still the latest update on the account. Kuiper may be terminated at any moment if he’s not already received his walking papers.
Kuiper’s firing would be a tragedy, not only because it was so obvious that he didn’t intend to use such a word. Glen Kuiper is an A’s announcer. He has been since 2006. Kuiper has announced hundreds of games. I used to watch the Athletics almost every day, before baseball and all other major sports went woke. I have probably heard him announce more than a thousand games. He has never shown any sign of racism. It would be a further manifestation of the appalling madness that is our time to destroy his career and reputation.
Is the Left so unforgivingly totalitarian that even if someone accidentally says a forbidden term and apologizes quickly, they must still receive all the punishments that would be handed out to someone else who used the word deliberately, knowingly and cheerfully with the intent to cause offense? Yes, that is the answer. Has the Left grown so immature, that it treats this forbidden word as if it had some magical power to anger and appall? Even unintentional use of the word can be taken as proof of some deeper evil, even “systemic”, for which the speaker should be penalized. Yes, again. You’re right, of course.
All decent people should wish Glen Kuiper the best of luck in his career. He deserves to be given the proper management and ball club.
