And I used to like Bonnie when I watched the football games!
"ESPN reporter makes racist remarks about Palestinians"
"ESPN's Bonnie Bernstein was a guest on Mike and Mike in the Morning Wednesday, and when the subject turned to a high school basketball player who is considering playing professionally in Europe instead of going to college, Bernstein made an extremely odd comparison between American high school basketball players and Palestinian suicide bombers.
I've just reviewed the show in question and transcribed the full text of Bernstein's comments below.
It's sort of like, you know, and this isn't -- I'm prefacing this by saying this is in no way an analogy to sports because I know we live in a hypersensitive society -- but I remember a while ago I was reading an article in the New York Times about Palestinian suicide bombers and I just remember being struck by the notion that from the point of birth, people in Palestine are taught to think that dying in the name of God is a good thing.
They grow up wanting to be suicide bombers. So bringing it back to sports -- and again, I'm not making the comparison or the analogy -- if a young talented basketball player is being told at an early age that they are destined, it is a good thing to focus on basketball and not worry about what's going on in the classroom, why are any kids going to be worried about what's going on in the classroom?
Bernstein seemed to know that what she was saying would offend people, and sure enough, it did.
Ray Hanania of the National Arab-American Journalists Association
to the
Mike and Mike
show:
I think it was very inappropriate for Bonnie to use that racial stereotype of Palestinians as an example to back up her comments that NBA hopefuls "are programmed" to make it in the NBA the way Palestinian children are "programmed" to become suicide bombers ...
I don't need to explain that suicide bombers are not a race or ethnicity, or that there are 7 million Palestinians and have been only 50 suicide bombers over the past 15 years.
Obviously, Hanania is completely correct that Bernstein made an inappropriate comparison there. In fact, Bernstein seemed to realize the comparison she was making was inappropriate, which is why she hedged her comments "I'm not making the comparison," even though that was exactly what she was doing.
http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2008/06/27/espns-bonnie-bernstein-says-pa...
Why am I not surprised that the person making these comments happens to be a Jew ? Wow, when taking about professional basketball she finds a way to tie in Palestinians and make a racist remark. That's remarkable, these people are so hateful and they're taught to hate from a young age.
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