CSR: D.K. Wilson: Pedro Martinez, Cockfighting and America

“Well, I thought they wore gloves and helmets, you know, like “American Gladiators.”

Only in America can a man like ESPN’s Howard Bryant, on national television, tell viewers that because Pedro Martinez is employed in the United States, he should honor the feelings of the people of America—and his employer, the New York Mets—instead of the people in the land of his birth, the Dominican Republic. Martinez, according to Bryant the paternalist, should feel some sort of contrived angst at those who participate in cockfighting in the Dominican. Bryant can certainly express his feelings and his opinions about cockfighting—in America. But to subtly ascribe the tag of barbarism to Martinez, Marichal, and the people of the Dominican, is the stuff of jingoistic lore. That sort of speech is, along with a co-sign from a Christian god, the verbal gate that flings open the doors of ideological perception and continue to be the root of the yen to conquer under the guise of Manifest Destiny.

Ironically, it is speech that is hung around the neck of Howard Bryant, a black man, like a slip knot noose.