Here is our obligatory Halloween post. This is our first and hopefully last installment of Is It Racist? Halloween Edition.
Before you answer, the correct response is yes. Yes it is. Coyote winger Raffi Torres is WTHII’s second favorite Raffi. Apparently, no one bothered to tell him that dressing in blackface is still considered uncouth and CRAZY offensive. (But do you see someone is dressed as Steve Nash? We love the SUNS!)
I will see your giant pink bunny and raise you blackface
After the break: Last week’s Create-A-Caption winner. Also, feel free to have an intelligent, informed conversation about race in the comments. We all know that is something the internet is very good at.
Last week’s comment winner.
“He looks like a pink nightmare.”
He looks like a pink nightmare
Everyone loves a good Christmas Story reference. Even better, there is no way I am calling Chara anything other than the pink nightmare from here on. Now we just need someone to talk him into donning that outfit during a game. Might as well try anything to stop this horrendous slide they are on.
What the HELL is Icing? 
I disagree. “Racist” means making a generalization over a race of people as well as attributing a negative quality to all members of that group. I do not think either applies here. Torres didn’t go out and called himself “every black guy ever”. He called himself “Jay-Z”. He was imitating a single person, not a race of people. I also doubt he was attributing negative qualities toward Jay-Z.
The thing about blackface is that it is an exaggerated and insulting imitation of and generalization about all african american people. That is very much a bad thing. However, that is not what Torres was doing or even trying to do.
Isn’t he a crazy JayZ fan…….and of mixed race himself?
He is of Peruvian decent (I believe), so hardly African American.
Regardless, black face has a pretty awful history and whether or not he meant it to be offensive, it is. Does it make him a racist? Probably not. Was it racially insensitive and stupid? Definitely. And when the sport has already gotten flak this year about how it approaches race (people throwing bananas on the ice,) this was unneeded fuel to the fire.