Griese apologizes for Montoya remark

[underpants]

Source: AP

MARTINSVILLE, Va. — ESPN broadcaster Bob Griese apologized at the end of Saturday's Ohio State-Minnesota football game for a remark he made about NASCAR driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

Earlier in the telecast, during a promotion for coverage of NASCAR's Chase for the championship, a graphic listed the top five drivers in the points race. Fellow analyst Chris Spielman asked where was Montoya, who is Colombian. Griese replied that he was "out having a taco."

As the telecast was wrapping up, Griese, the Pro Football Hall of Famer and former Miami Dolphins quarterback, apologized for the remark and said that Montoya is one of the best drivers in NASCAR.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLqnZm2oP5f7wIF2_48VBWsVUERQD9BHO1IO2

[IndianaGreen]

1. Not only was Griese's comment bigoted, it was also ignorant

Montoya is Colombian, not Mexican, and he was a gifted Formula One driver before he went to NASCAR.

[classysassy]

3. Did mr beck and mr lembaugh

call him out on his racist remark,i'll bet my last peso they didn't?.

[firedupdem]

2. Wow...what an ignorant, bigoted statement. n/t

[Grassy Knoll]

4. Say it ain't so GREASY !

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. What an ass

[TeaBagsAreForCups]

6. Wow, what over-reactive, thin skinned comments here...

....Bob Griese and his family are truly fine people, devoted to many credible and notable philanthropic efforts, and represent the better elements of life in general and sports in particular - inclusive of a professional career and an intellect that few men or women could ever hope to equal.

I respectfully suggest that those who take offense over a very quick, thoughtless, "throw-away" comment referencing an ethnic food with a price tag of 99 cents have way too much time on their hands and need to grow a pair - that would be "un par."

It would not surprise me, at all, if in the next week the subject of Mr.Griese's reference also told those so sensitively preordained to "get a life" and leave Griese alone. Pronto.

[TommyO]

7. If this is what he says in public

What is he saying in private where the rest of us can't hear him?

[bertman]

18. That's a bullshit argument, TommyO. When I'm around a bunch of friends I often say things

that I would be skewered for if I said them in public--because I'm being e a smartass, or funny, or sarcastic, or lame. The people I hang out with know I'm not a bigot so they don't get all frickin' huffy about it.

Griese screwed up by saying what he did, but we all make stupid off-the-cuff remarks. Or at least those of us who aren't perfect do.

[donquijoterocket]

9. thin skin

If anyone is evidencing thin skin I'd say that'd be you. All I've seen is people thinking that a former pro jock ought to take some responsibility for a careless "throw away" remark which, IMO, are the sort usually most telling of the nature of a persons character.JP Montoya is at least as accomplished in his field as Griese ever was in his and no one is ever going to suggest that Griese might be found some time out getting a schnitzel, and I expect you'd throw a minor fit if it ever happened.I also expect you're part correct that JP will likely ignore the whole thing he is after all contending for the championship in his sport.

[Alcibiades]

10. Griese's comments were simply IGNORANT

of NASCAR. Montoya wasn't on the list because he's ranked 6. If he knew anything at all, he would have said that Montoya has been having a good year, has over 5700 points and has earned over $4.6 million, which is more than Kurt Busch and about the same as Mark Martin. The only thing he hasn't been able to do is win, but he's been pretty consistent.

If Griese thinks Montoya has simply been eating tacos, he misunderstands how difficult NASCAR really is.

[pokercat999]

29. nascar difficult....lol

It's bumper cars at 160 MPH. It's difficult in the same way dog racing is difficult for the dogs. Number 4 gets sideways in the turn and there's a big crash sometimes the dogs get hurt but they race anyway. The real difficulty in nascar is getting your car through tech inspection.

[RantinRavin]

44. Obviously the closest you've ever been to a racecar

is watching highlights on ESPN.

[dr_aswan]

11. no racist screwups are allowed on TV .. Career done..

(unless you are a minority)

[marmar]

15. Good grief.....you guys are coming out of the woodwork (like roaches) tonight.

nt

[Forkboy]

23. Yeah, you'll last long.

:rofl:

[marmar]

14. Mr. TeaBags has spoken.....

..... Everybody recant what you said about Griese's stupid, bigoted comment. :sarcasm:

[MaineDem]

39. They may be truly fine people

But the remark was stupid and uncalled for.

[boobooday]

47. It was an ignorant, bigoted remark

He may be a lovely person, but he should learn not to speak this way on national TV. People are complex, and often hold both productive and repulsive attitude at the same time. That doesn't mean we excuse racism.

My husband is Mexican, and if I heard such a remark made about him, I would be offended, and think the speaker was racist.

And what does the price of a taco have to do with anything?

[Sabriel]

50. Only a white person would say it's a "throw-away" comment

It's part of white privilege...the privilege of not having to take language as a personal insult.

To other people, words have real power and HURT, regardless of the speaker's intent (or apology).

For the record, I sometimes say stupid stuff, but it certainly isn't racist, ignorant bigoted stuff.

Edited to add, if you consider yourself an ally, then this incident should bother you, very much.

[trevjr]

8. These are the kind of racist

remarks that are overlooked by white people every day. One does not have to be a racist to make racist remarks such as this. These kinds of thoughts float around in people's heads and every once in a while they come out. Even Thom Hartmann the other day thought that the illegal alien costume was funny and people should lighten up. I have no idea what is in white people's heads, I don't know if they have these kinds of thoughts all the time and have to control saying them out loud, I just don't know.

[imdjh]

13. Juan Pablo Montoya is white.

[marmar]

16. He's Latino.....He might be technically "white" by prescribed racial classifications.

But in the real world, he's Latino.

[imdjh]

17. In the real world he's white. That's a stupid game.

Last week everyone was having a hissy fit because the world wasn't denouncing Columbus for being a white piece of shit who tried to murder all the poor innocent brown people of the world. This week we're back to trying to define white or caucasian as blond haired and blue eyed. It's bullshit. In between you and various others pull out Miss Sally's magic viewing scope to decide who is and isn't indigenous, and you know damned well that if Montoya was the president of Bolivia you'd be whining and crying that he had somehow screwed "natives" out of the control of the country.

This is as stupid as that jackass Wendy Whathername saying that Lucia Whalen "Is not what I would call a white woman." because she's half or quarter Portuguese.



Was Desi Arnaz white? You bet your ass he was, otherwise we wouldn't know who Lucille Ball was or have seen episode one of I Love Lucy.

Jesus Christ- Che Guevara was Irish.

What kind of bullshit are you playing?

[Bette Noir]

22. Desi Arnaz was white, and he was Latino.

For your information, Lucille Ball was a movie star before she met Desi. When she wanted to do a TV show, she wanted to do it with her husband. The network objected, because they strongly disapproved of mixed marriages, but Lucy had some power-- she owned her own production company-- and insisted.

In my experience, Latinos in California are not subject to discrimination if they are fair skinned, tall, have money, and speak English with an American accent. Desi was fair skinned, tall, and rich, but, with that thick Cuban accent, he did suffer discrimination.

[imdjh]

25. I am aware of Lucille Ball's career. I _am_ gay.

However, she would have been an "old movie star" or starlette actually had she not had I Love Lucy which she would not have had had America seen her marriage as "mixed". Desi Arnaz was Cuban, of Spanish ancestry. There is no history of the US treating Spaniards as a stairstep to blackness, and indeed as you noted our attitude toward Mexicans has been largely to prefer those who were most European but to accept that it was a difficult if not impossible line to draw, which is odd when you consider how accomplished were were/are at deciding who is black.

BTW, Montoya is the man on the right. The man on the left, in the driver costume and virtually indistinguishable from Montoya is Scottish and Italian. Would anyone say that he's "not white"?

[marmar]

28. This post indicates just how clueless you are on the topic.

nt

[imdjh]

34. That must be it.

[Tansy_Gold]

48. Race as social construction not necessarily tied to skin color?

After all, the Irish weren't alway white, nor the Italians, nor the Greeks, nor the Jews.

It's more a matter of the "real" white people deciding who they wanta let in the club.

:puke:



TG

[imdjh]

53. What is the difference between Scots throwing potatoes on the field before a game...

... with Ireland, and this thing with Montoya, other than Griese getting the national food wrong?

[Bette Noir]

20. Thom Hartmann is very anti-immigration.

A few weeks ago, he went so far as to say that babies born in the US shouldn't be citizens unless their parents were citizens. He speculated about the coalition he'd have to put together to amend the Constitution to make that happen.

He may be a leftie in every other way, but he's not at all sympathetic to Latinos.

[imdjh]

21. Close the baby show loophole. nt

[Kolesar]

32. Thom Hartmann is very un-interesting

I have a free trial of XM with my new car. I certainly would not pay $10.00/month to listen to Thom Hartman. The only good show on Air America is the Bill Press Show. He's great.

[imdjh]

12. So if he had said "hot dog" or "bao" would it have been OK? Is being mistaken for Mexican an insult?

Or mistaking a taco for a generic Latin American food?

[bertman]

19. If he had said "he's out having a GREASY taco" I'd be offended.

[Odin2005]

24. Maybe it's my Asperger's showing, but I don't see the racism.

If one were to get mad at anything it would be the fact that tacos are a MEXICAN thing IIRC, not all Latin America is not a cultural (or culinary) monolith.

[alcibiades_mystery]

31. If he has said a black driver was probably out eating fried chicken and watermelon

Would that have registered?

[Altoid_Cyclist]

35. Remember how much of a flare-up there was when Fuzzy Zoeller said this about Tiger Woods?

This is basically the same thing. If Zoeller was considered racist, then why shouldn't what Griese said be construed as racist also? At the very least, it was an incredibly offensive and stupid thing to say on air.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ufpU3X-t4w

[alcibiades_mystery]

36. That's precisely the incident I was thinking of

Of course, there were also tons of people then who told everybody to lighten up. Luckily, they lost that argument, as will the new breed of "Oh, lighten up" pseudo-racists lose the new arguments about Latinos.

Demanding common decency is never "over-sensitive."

[Altoid_Cyclist]

37. "Oh, just lighten" up seems to be the new catch phrase.

People, some not all, seem to think that they can say anything that they want and if it offends someone..... well that person just needs to "lighten up".

My parents must have raised me the wrong way I guess. I was taught that if you say or do something that hurts another person, whether it's a physical or a verbal injury, then you accept responsibility and do whatever it takes to try to correct your actions.

They weren't perfect nor am I, but too many people refuse to accept that actions or words can damage equally.

[Odin2005]

42. Fried chicken no, Watermelon yes.

[Ter]

46. I think that's a lot more racist

That's a total stereotype. It's not racist, for example, to say that us Italians eat more pasta. Still though, his comment was highly stupid.

[imdjh]

55. What we really need to do is knock off the passive aggressive sensitivity bullshit.

Good manners are supposed to make other people comfortable, not keep everyone walking on eggshells.

[Botany]

26. I watched the game and was appalled by the remark

But both Griese and ESPN have apologized for the comment and that is a good thing.

[DallasNE]

27. This Is Not The First Time Griese

Has made insensitive remarks about a minority group where he has had to later apologise. Others, like Don Imus, have been fired for similar comments. ESPN would do well by going back over Griese's history of degrading remarks about minority groups and distancing themselves from these remarks.

[pokercat999]

30. Most Nascar fans won't care, they'd say much worse. But

had Griese known Nascar well and had time to discuss the truth he might have said Nascar is much more about the mechanical end of the game and the ability of the technicians to get around the rules (cheat) than about the luck involved in the actual driving of the race.

[Kolesar]

33. I am sure that oxygen-uptake ablity does not make a difference in the outcome of the race

Heck, I make a point of doing interval training just to enhance my recreational cycling and walking in the countryside looking at trees and prarie flowers. Montoya probably does weight training and aerobic training, but his athletic skill does not determine the outcome of the "race"*.

*Brought to you by Sunoco, and ARAMCO, the Saudi National oil company

[One_Life_To_Give]

54. Don't know much about driving a stock car?

Heck it was just yesterday that Mark Martin, although the top gym rat at Hendrick. Couldn't keep muscling the car to stay up with teammate Jimmy Johnson for more than a few laps.

[jayfish]

38. Not This Nascar Fan.

I love Juan Pablo Montoya. He's a breath of fresh air in the sport along with many of the West Coast drivers. Now about the technical difficulty of Nascar I'm going to have to disagree with you. JPM has been a champion in every other series he's competed in with the exception F1. If not for Ferrari he would have been a champ there too. He's also won some of the most prestigious marquee events in all of racing. So what's going on with Nascar? He's got 1 win under his belt and an average finishing position of 20th in three full seasons with Nascar. It's a difficult series is whats going on. Drivers from other series have a difficult time in Nascar. Look at the two road course races in the Sprint Cup schedule. There are ringers up and down the grid and they always fail. Look at the other open wheel drivers who have made the transition. ...alsorans. As far as cheating goes, I'm sure they all do it. Is it that big a factor in the outcome of races though? Are Jimmy Johnson and crew better cheaters every week or is he just a dominant driver?

Jay

[IndianaGreen]

43. There is less cheating and politics in NASCAR than in Formula One

and, quite frankly, I wish F1 would adopt the same consistent application of the rules that NASCAR does.

[rocktivity]

40. There was a golfer who referred to then-rookie Tiger Woods as "that little boy"

and suggested that he "not to order fried chicken or collard greens" at an upcoming awards dinner. Hasn't been heard from since...
(link)


rocktivity

[saigon68]

41. That was "Fuzzy" Zoeller,

Frank Urban "Fuzzy" Zoeller, Jr. (pronounced /ˈzɛlər/) (born November 11, 1951) is an American professional golfer.


But at the 1997 Masters tournament, Zoeller made an off-hand remark regarding Tiger Woods. After finishing tied for 34th place with a score of 78, Zoeller, referring to the following year's Master's Club Champion's Dinner, for which the defending champion selects the menu, said, "He's doing quite well, pretty impressive. That little boy is driving well and he's putting well. He's doing everything it takes to win. So, you know what you guys do when he gets in here? You pat him on the back and say congratulations and enjoy it and tell him not to serve fried chicken next year. Got it." Zoeller then smiled, snapped his fingers, and walked away before turning and adding, "or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve."K-Mart and Dunlop ceased sponsoring Zoeller after the incident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_Zoeller


Zoeller's endorsement value quickly turned around, and he continues to be one of the most popular professionals on the Champions Tour. On June 1, 2009, he launched a new venture, "Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka."<6>

[rocktivity]

51. Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka?

That's a Home Shopping Channel segment just begging to happen! See you on QVC, Fuzzy!

:rofl:
rocktivity

[obietiger]

45. I heard him

say it. I really thought I had misunderstood him because I was not paying close attention but the more I thought about it, the more I was sure. It bothered me all day. I was not sure which announcer had said it so today I did a google search for "racist commentator of osu minnesota game" and got LOTS of hits on his name.

[TeaBagsAreForCups]

49. Well, with the exception of those that....

... need to be perpetually offended, one that, by personal circumstance, would be closest to the "offense" at hand and also, as well, to the presumed "offender" has a much different take. To wit:

"...Sabates, a Cuban American who used to reside in Miami, considers Griese a "very good friend," and said he believes Griese's remarks were a poor attempt at humor.

"I think he was just joking," Sabates said. "I didn't take it too serious. He needs to get his geography corrected because they don't have tacos in Colombia. Other than that, I don't see anything wrong with it. He was just trying to be funny.

"Bob is such a great guy, sometimes he says stupid things. How many times have I said stupid things? (On national TV?) Hell, yeah there. How about Dover, Delaware in 1990 when I called Dave Marcis a frickin' idiot on national TV. Then I had to apologize for the frickin' part and then the idiot part. I was wrong by doing that — but he wrecked Kyle (Petty).

"I know Bob — well, well, well, well. Bob would never say anything like that as a racial slur. That's just not him. Bob is not the funniest guy in the world but he's straight-forward. I think he probably tried to put some humor into it and it backfired on him. No big deal. No harm. No foul."

... except to those who need the drama of a "big deal and perceived fouls" in their lives, Felix.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/10269640/Montoya-team-co-owner:-Griese-was-%27just-joking%27

As predicted in my post above, I suspect that there will be many more before this week is over to tell the those desperately needing to find offense where there was, indeed, none: "no harm. no foul." and to find better things to do with their time and their contrived angst.

[LanternWaste]

52. Seems a lot of people thing that taco

Seems a lot of people thing that taco is much more benign than watermelon when applied to the context of race. It's not.

I imagine the sportscaster must himself have a lot of fans to dredge up the justifications I'm reading.

[imdjh]

56. And sometimes a cigar is simply a stupid remark.

And I never heard of this guy before this discussion, Griese or Montoya actually.

[LanternWaste]

57. Stupid remark... no argument there.

Stupid remark... no argument there. Most remarks like that are pretty stupid.