By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
September 12, 2014

My wife isn’t a big sports fan. She knows next to nothing about athletics. For example, a few years ago I told her the Tigers were playing that night against the Indians. She asked me, “The Kinston Indians?”

I had to gently explain to her that no, the Tigers were not playing Cleveland’s High-A affiliate. Well, actually, it was probably done in a mocking fashion, berating her about only knowing about the minor league Tribe squad because she once lived in North Carolina years ago.

Her low sports IQ makes for some fun conversations, especially when various Detroit athletes visit her store. Just today she was able to relay a message to two Tigers — whose names I won’t mention — that her husband thinks they should both be playing instead of Don Kelly. I’ll give you a hint. One is taller than Ben Wallace.

Why do I bring this up today? Well, a few years ago, she came home from work all excited to tell me that she was assisting a well-known Lions player and his sister. When I asked who it was, I got the following response:

Enn-Dahm-Kong Sue.

Being the unsupportive asshole husband that I am, I instantly started mocking her butchering of Ndamukong Suh’s first name. At some point I started asking her if “Donkey Kong” Suh and his sister were nice people. I repeatedly referred to Suh as “Donkey Kong.” Not because I am a RACIST, but because Suh’s name kind of sounds like DONKEY KONG; especially when mispronounced.

Which brings us to this absolutely manufactured “controversy” regarding Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton (Spoiler Alert: He is black!!) jokingly calling the Lions defensive end “Donkey Kong” Suh in a conference call earlier this week.

When I first heard via Twitter that Newton made the comment, I harkened back to my wife’s encounter with the Suh family and THOUGHT NOTHING MORE OF IT. I certainly didn’t think noted Detroit News imbecile Terry Foster would be calling for Newton to APOLOGIZE to Suh as a result.

It never even crossed my mind that anyone could construe this to be racist. Because when I think of the “actual” Donkey Kong, I don’t think of him as a gorilla so much as I think of “him” as a FICTIONAL VIDEO GAME CHARACTER hurling barrels at a Louie DePalma-looking dude.

(I can’t wait for tomorrow’s News column penned by Foster where African-American Matt Prentice demands I apologize to Danny DeVito!!!!!! I hate Italians and short people, I guess!!!)

Yep. Foster went THERE. In a mind-numbingly dumb column, Foster explained that if a white player called Suh “Donkey Kong,” an immediate apology would have been demanded. That it’s some sort of double-standard if the easily offended don’t immediately demand a mea culpa from African-American Cam Newton.

First of all, I am not sure anyone but the most politically-correct dumbfucks who are always on the lookout for a reason to be disgruntled would have said a word if Eli Manning had said the same thing. I am guessing a reasonable WHITE QB would have said, “I didn’t even realize Donkey Kong WAS a gorilla. I made a joke because his NAME sounded like DONKEY KONG!!!!! Now leave me the fuck alone while I figure out a way to avoid this monster on Sunday.”

This is actually a little personal for me. A few years ago, Foster told his large Twitter audience that I was a racist because I mockingly had labeled Michael Rosenberg, “RosenHeeb” in a tirade I posted on here about the ex-Freep columnist’s personal vendetta against Rich Rodriguez.

Yep, I am a RACIST because I said “Heeb.” Even though I had a Bar Mitzvah; graduated from Temple Israel’s high school program; can still recite parts of my Haftorah; and am missing a somewhat significant portion of foreskin.

If anything, my shot at RosenNebbish was anti-Semitic, but trying to explain subtleties to this imbecile is a full-time gig.

And years after Foster’s character assassination of Jiff Myst took place, the jackass still doesn’t understand that there IS a reasonable double-standard when it comes to this sort of shit.

It’s why I could say “Heeb” and Foster can’t. It’s why Chris Rock can become famous off of a routine where he says he hates “niggers” and Louis CK cannot. And it’s why Cam Newton is given the benefit of the doubt when he jokingly refers to a fellow African-American as “Donkey Kong” when Riley Cooper probably wouldn’t.

THAT’S JUST THE WORLD WE LIVE IN and it shouldn’t even change.

And I am not even sure whom I should be more disgusted with in this case, Foster or the Detroit News editor who decided to splash this article on the front page of the paper’s websight™ (Race-Card-Playing Putz) just because it was obvious clickbait.

Which leads to another point. You really don’t have to go out of your way to report about racism. That’s the “great” thing about racism. It’s pretty much everywhere and you don’t even have to go far to look for it.

But the only thing people like Terry Foster accomplish when posting garbage like this is to get a segment of the Caucasian population to sit back and say, “Racism doesn’t exist anymore; we have a black President; this isn’t the 1960s…blah blah blah.”

Or as DSR forum poster Mike Gibbons argues, “He is actually pandering to Caucasians. Impotently.” Because writing about racism where it doesn’t exist doesn’t help anyone, no matter to whom you are pandering.

You want to write about racism, ya bald dolt? Talk about Ferguson. Try to signal for a cab in Manhattan. Or discuss the fact that in the city where YOU fucking live and send YOUR daughter to high school, driving a beat-up car while BLACK at Orchard Lake and Maple is almost an invitation to get pulled over. Or the fact that the judicial system in this country is completely titled against people who share your pigmentation.

Ya know. REAL PROBLEMS.

But please stop with your race-baiting bullshit about suburban high school taunts that occur no matter the demographics of the recipient school; your contrived Louis Delmas/Tony Scheffler column; and especially this current shit where you think Cam Newton should apologize to Suh for doing absolutely NOTHING WRONG.

Is your relevance as a sports journalist that important to you that you feel the need to water-down real racism with this trash? Well, pal, I got news for you. That ship sailed a long time ago. It’s wrecked right next to “Candy Express” and “Foster’s Smokehouse.”

Now, you will have to excuse me, I have to watch Michael Rosenberg narrate a Ndamukong Suh Kill Screen …….