OT: Jourdan Lewis commenting on fighting in hockey

Obviously he has never played hockey. Or he would know why fighting is allowed.

Hockey is just objectively a better sport than football.

Regarding Todd Bertuzzi: Bertuzzi was suspended for the rest of the season and the playoffs for his sucker punch of Moore, and it is unclear how long the suspension would have gone because the next season wasn't played by anyone. He was the subject of intense negative publicity and (appropriately) brutal heckling from opposing fans. It's not like he was given a free pass. Regarding fighting in hockey: it does happen, but unless I've missed a reversal in trends it has become less and less a factor in the modern game, and many people think it should be eliminated. But its presence is a cultural one that has roots in the ancient history of the sport. Fights have always been significantly less appropriate in other sports, dating to the days when said sports were predominantly white themselves. Nevertheless it is in decline and has been banned from some levels of the game, such as in college. Sports have cultures. The rules and the action and the people create atmospheres in which certain actions, styles, and expressions are encouraged or discouraged. It's just how it is. Soccer had a reputation for players faking injuries. This occurs because a red card or a penalty has such an outsized effect on the game that the benefit for trying outweighs whatever punishments occur. Baseball has unwritten rules about throwing at players and flipping bats and so on. Fans are encouraged to scream at basketball and football players, but one word before a golf shot and you get rightly chewed out. It's just how it is. Lewis is wrong here. But whatever.

I do see the arguments made as to how and why fighting in hockey is part of the game, and in a way that did not inform sports like baseball and hoops even when they were majority-white.  At the same time, I also see Jourdan Lewis' larger point about a possible double standard between fisticuffs in a majority-white league vs. a majority-black league.

As to the actual question he poses - I think there are many factors that most of you have aptly pointed out and that race-bias is probably low down on the list, but I think that it does have a non-zero role here.  And there's also something to be said for explicit vs unintentional racial bias.  Maybe I'm right, maybe not.  Maybe Lewis is wrong.  But again, he's not a stupid or unaware person.  And given his perspective as a black man who's likely seen firsthand different standards of treatment for fighting or violent behavior, I see where he's coming from and would suggest others do the same before dismissing him as being an ignorant kid.

Like Jourdan but to ascertain that this is a white thing is ignorant. Fighting has been part of the game always. Baseball is the only sport with a comparable behavior brought on by a pitcher plunking a batter. Although rare, still exists and no commentary exists regarding black versus white. These types of things saturate the media and minimize truly legitimate issues like racial profiling and organized hate.

This is really stupid. Just another pathetic attempt to find something to be offended by. Did you have any issues with this before JD's tweet? No? Then you shouldn't now.

For sparring in hockey? No one is saying it's allowed, Jourdan. You gotta stop pretending like your race is always a victim otherwise you can't rise above it and prosper