WWE.com
Like many sports around the world, professional wrestling is an industry where performers from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds compete as (perceived) equals, vying against each other in a series of contests to capture championships, win matches and gain in-ring glory. While wrestling is escapism from the real world and should never be confused for anything else, often a bit of the real world creeps in. Race and racism often find their way into storylines, sometimes in an innocuous way, sometimes drawing fans’ focus away from what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the content of their character.”
Go back 20-plus years and it’s easy to find examples of racism littered throughout WWE, whether it’s Jesse Ventura calling Tito Santana “Chico” and his forearm the “flying burrito,” or Mr. Fuji and Don Muraco using terms like “yard ape,” “Puerto Rican hubcap thief” or honky.
Like many sports around the world, professional wrestling is an industry where performers from a multitude of ethnic backgrounds compete as (perceived) equals, vying against each other in a series of contests to capture championships, win matches and gain in-ring glory. While wrestling is escapism from the real world and should never be confused for anything else, often a bit of the real world creeps in. Race and racism often find their way into storylines, sometimes in an innocuous way, sometimes drawing fans’ focus away from what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called “the content of their character.”
Go back 20-plus years and it’s easy to find examples of racism littered throughout WWE, whether it’s Jesse Ventura calling Tito Santana “Chico” and his forearm the “flying burrito,” or Mr. Fuji and Don Muraco using terms like “yard ape,” “Puerto Rican hubcap thief” or honky.
- 6/8/2014
- by Scott Carlson
- Obsessed with Film
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