An ESPN announcer is apologizing after joking that Colombian-born NASCAR racer Juan Pablo Montoya was "out having a taco."
During a promo for NASCAR that highlighted the top five drivers, ESPN analyst Bob Griese responded to Chris Spielman's query, "Where's Juan Pablo Montoya?"
"He's out having a taco," said Griese.
A taco? A taco?
As Seth Meyers would say on “Saturday Night Live, “Really? Really?!”
Why couldn’t he have said an empanada? Or Ajiaco stew?
Not many tacos in Colombia. I guess some people may have not gotten the intent of the joke, but I think we should raise the bar a little bit on the humor scale. There are plenty of other ways to poke fun at Colombian stereotypes that you don’t have to go steal them from other countries.
Griese later apologized.
Montoya didn’t think twice about the comment. He played along.
"I don't really care, to tell you the truth," Montoya said. "Yeah, I don't. I could say I spent the last three hours eating tacos, but I was actually driving a car. But that's OK, I don't care."
I’m sure he’s heard much worse and will continue to do so.
Update: Griese has been suspended for one game for the remark towards Montoya, network officials confirmed Monday. Click here for the story.
(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Would you have liked it better if he had said he was out selling drugs?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this story would be bigger had he mentioned a black athlete out getting "fried chicken"?
ReplyDeleteNo, he should have said "he was out in the coca fields making drugs for the U.S. consumer". You also need to work on your stereotypes. If you weren't inbred you would know that although Colombians are closely tied to Cocaine, the Americans (you) are the ones keeping us in business. Supply and demand. Go do another line of coke to keep us going!
ReplyDeleteObviously Griese should have stayed home in Griesehammer, Germany that day, eating wiener schnitzel.
ReplyDeletei don't know which is lamer: the taco comment, which i doubt montoya even cares about(mainly the media) or the fact that you quoted a very lame seth meyers, who is the worst of an awful SNL cast.
ReplyDeletetaco out,
Juan
probably chewing on cocoa leaves would have been better.
ReplyDeleteque te parace? fine fine fine
To Dave @ 5:01: You just proved the stereotype when you admitted the Colombians were selling the drugs Since I'm from the South, I take great offense at your inbred commenent, as well as having to support you and your illegal brethren. Nice job on my yard though!
ReplyDeleteMaybe espn, as a way of working on latino stereo types, will encourage the illegal alien population to exit the nation and return through the appropriate channels set up for such things.
ReplyDeleteESPN neeeds to hire Cheech and Chong to work on their Latino stereotype.
ReplyDeletenice comments Dave-ito.
ReplyDeleteKeep you drugs and country's sub par soccer skills away from me.
time to stop be so politically correct when it's convenient. They still call Notre Dame the fighting Irish; as a person of Irish decent I'm insulted.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if this story would be bigger had he mentioned a black athlete out getting "fried chicken"?
ReplyDelete-- The commnet is off the mark for two reasons
1)the stereo type of black people in the U.S. eating fried chicken is "accurate" for lack of a better word, because it is traditionally a staple of our diet. However tacos are not native to the columbian diet. Tacos are a staple of the Mexican diet.
2) black is a racial designation and Columbian & Mexican are national designations
To everyone born after 1945, quite a world you've created. Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteDave please speak for yourself and your family when you say us & we. I was raised in columbia. Not only was my family not involved in the coca trade but I never saw cocaine until I moved to the U.S.. I was also unaware of the stereotype of columbians growing coca until I moved to the U.S.. The media and U.S. culture like to exagerate the coca trade in many countries. The whole cartel thing never even occurred to me my whole life there until i got to the U.S. and the country that uses the most coca made jokes about columbia growing it.
ReplyDeleteI think Franco and the Observer should work on their Latino sterotypes. for a year they went around posting headlines about Taco trucks in charlotte that catered to latino people were being banned. In reality very few latino people consume tacos as part of their traditional diet. many of the trucks didn't even serve tacos.
ReplyDelete"Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteTo everyone born after 1945, quite a world you've created. Enjoy!
October 26, 2009 6:40 PM "
Yeah a lil' help here would be nice ol' timer, and I mean that seriously with no disrespect.
___
In the meantime San Francisco just passed local legislation, to NOT deport juvenile illegal immigrants from being deported...even when they stand accused of felonies.
The cities mayor disagrees by the way.
I get the feeling more of the wealth I do not have that obama is going to spread around is going to end up paying for some illegal aliens Play Station 2.
Thanks a lot for enforcing the laws of this nation.
Word police - thought police.
ReplyDeleteWhy can anyone of any "minority" group say anything at all (true or false) about White people with absolutely no consequences, while a White person can't say ANYTHING remotely related to another culture's habits (forget the fact these comments are usually completely neutral) without suffering extreme humiliation by the AMERICAN press.
ReplyDeleteFirst, if it was a joke, it was not funny. He got a little too comfortable. I wonder if he would have said the "joke" to a Latino. Probably not... I'm sure this joke was mild, compared to what he probably says around his "good ole buddies".
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you go back to a latino country.... I love how we turn the USA into everything but what it is, it's own nation. Let's celebrate latino history, black history, and all other ethnic groups. But the minute you say white or caucasian then your labeled a racist.
ReplyDeleteThis is NASCAR...
ReplyDeleteAnyone remember the black driver, Willy T. Ribbs? Or how about poor Dick Trickle.
If you can't laugh at yourself, you have no business in NASCAR.
aside - love that my "word verification" is gouter. Who picks out these words?
~Liberalism Sucks ~
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI do hope Mr. Montoya was not seriously injured by this blatantly racist remark. Is there a fund we can donate to, to help defray the cost of any psychological counseling?
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I was correct. Mr. Montoya has been permanently damaged by this incident. Just listen to the angst in his comment about that horrible remark:
ReplyDelete"I don't even know who he is," Montoya said. "Somebody mentioned it to me. I don't really care to tell you the truth. I could say I spent the last three hours eating tacos, but I was actually driving the car."
Too many people these days are too danged quick to take offense at remarks like this. Probably not the best and/or kindest comment he could have made, but it's not the end of the world. In the big scheme of things, Montoya lost nothing. No one lost anything of substance. But once again, we are making a mountain out of a silly little mole hill.
ReplyDeleteGet real people, get a grip and worry about things that amount to something.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteTom Tancredo POTUS, Mike Huckabe VIPOTUS :
ReplyDeleteI see all the programs of "The Universe", Astrophysics and Elementary Particles. Offered by the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, etc ...
There are an Infinite Number of Parallel Universes, many of them similar to ours.
In one of those Parallel Universes Tom Tancredo was elected president of the United States. And Mike Huckabee is vice president.
There are many concentration camps for the Latinos ( legal or illegal ) and the guards are the former Minutemen.
In that Universe Shawna Forde and Gunny Bush are doing nasty things to Latino Children and Women. The Minutemen have become like the SS of Heinrich Himmler, guarding the Concentration Camps and rounding up the despicable lower races. Many people are imprisoned by mistake, or because of a sun tan.
There are many trains loaded with "Aliens" and "Illegals" and some "Legals" and this has caused a great congestion and paralysis of trade and businesses in the Southern States of the Union. No Latin Trade.
Hitler gave priority to Trains loaded for Jews, to the fury of his generals in the Russina Front. They needed food and munition to supply the beleaguered Nazi Forces in Stalingrad, but Hitler's hate was all too powerful.
Hitler's overruling of von Paulus and von Manstein in Stalingrad, Kursk and Cherkassy were tragic Military Imbecility. ( In all those battles the Nazis were besieged and overrun by Russian Superiority )
Trains for the Jews, but not for the Wehrmacht, while Germans were starving and shivering in the Russian Front.
Mexico attemps to close the border with a "Tortilla" Fence parallel to the Republican Fence, to stop the trains and the evictions of the Minutemen.
And Tom and Mike are thinking of using Nuclear Weapons to destroy Mexico.
The problem is that there are some winds that blow to the North and could kill many Americans with Radioactive materials. Many animals migrate to the North like Ducks and Geese. Environmentalists are concerned !
And the Gulf of Mexico Currents could carry Radioactivy to the South, Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and even Boston and Massachussetts could become radioactive.
And some Whales and Tuna fish in the Pacific could carry radioactiviy as far as Portland and Washington State.
Sounds Stupid ????
Yes, indeed, extremely Idiotic an Stupid.
Like so many comments in the Internet
Like Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc ....
The Number of Idiots is Infinite - The Bible says.
Racists have been losing for a long time, are losing and will continue losing.
Their projects are sheer Imbecility !!
Raciality.com
Vicente Duque
I think Griese was out of line, and I also think the punishment was excessive. It's obvious that when Spielman said, "Where's Juan Pablo Montoya" Griese assumed Montoya is a Mexican, and then he made the taco comment. He made a quick apology while his game was still going on, and made a more detailed apology later the same evening. That, along with having to take a class on the different nations/cultures that fall under the Hispanic label, would have been punishment enough.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what I would LOVE to see, is more people taking Montoya's attitude when someone throws a racial stereotype their way. I would have had more sympathy for the Rutgers women's hoops team if Vivian Stringer had reacted like Montoya instead of insisting that what Imus said was equal to the beatings and other abuse that blacks endured during the civil rigts movement.
Why do we get so bent out of shape if someone calls us names????
I am sure bob griese ment no harm the liberal media, has to write on something. So they made a mountain out of a mole hill.And here WE all are making more print for them. I am sure they have all said a lot worse in sometimes in there lives so have I and all of you.
ReplyDeleteESPN was wrong because Griese's remark wasn't offensive. The whole "insensitivity" argument is a crock.
ReplyDeleteHate Crime Legislation is necessary to stop these Bastards :
ReplyDeleteRobert Hannah went to a gay area in Washington DC and beat a gay man to death in front of witnesses.
he REASON for this beating was that his victim was gay.
The sentence imposed by the judge on October 15, 2009 was 180 days, and $50 in court costs for misdemeanor assault.
As part of the deal the Judge Rafael Diaz also threw out an unrelated conviction for shoplifting.
This is very disturbing, There is a Racist Justice System and there is an Anti-Gay Justice System.
This Judge Rafael Diaz is a Perfect Idiot.
In July 2008 Luis Ramirez was killed by a gang of Six Thugs, Football Players, and Luis was a small man. After many Racial Slurs, and Racial Insults. In Shenandoah Pennsylvania. This murder had a lot of Sadism and Cruelty.
There were several witnesses of the Coward Action.
"While the men yelled racial epithets at Ramirez, they punched and kicked his head and body so severely that he lay foaming at the mouth with two skull fractures.
Once Ramirez was on the ground he was continually kicked until brain matter leaked from his skull."
If yelling racial slurs and getting violent to the point of beating someone to death is not a hate crime-I don’t know what is! Things
But the Racist Judge, Racist Prosecutor, Racist all White Jury, dismissed the case as an accident and the Six Coward Terrorists are now Scott Free.
If yelling racial slurs and getting violent to the point of beating someone to death is not a hate crime-I don’t know what is! .... And there were six Perfect Cowards.
More Information here :
Raciality.com
Vicente Duque
A. ESPN doesn't need to work on anything. Griese is an individual and as far as I know, no one else at ESPN has been saying anything similar.
ReplyDeleteB. You can support hate crimes legislation if you want but you're walking a narrow road that leads to punishing someone for their thoughts.