PC has officially run amok: Johnny Miller apologizes to Rocco

Well, think real hard here: If it were the other way around, it clearly WOULD have been offensive. The implication would have been that black people clean pools. What most of us seem to be saying on this thread is that it is a stretch to turn a reference to menial labor into an anti-Italian slur.
If you want, I'll answer your next question, as well,, which probably is going to be "they call each other 'N-word' all the time, so why can't we?"

 

Just another in a long line of raging double-standards when it comes to this issue.
And for the record, in my part of the world many, many more Italians clean pools than do blacks. I just opened up the phone book and a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the pool cleaners have surnames that end in a vowel.

 

Miller clearly didn't mean anything derogatory, but there might have been something in his subconscious that made him say "cleaning Tiger's pool" rather than "doing Tiger's taxes." Whatever. The lesson, I guess, is that if you're going to make that type of comparison with an athlete, use a white collar job. I could just as easily see Rocco Mediate as Tiger's orthopedic surgeon as I could his pool man.

 

I was surprised Miller had to apologize, maybe NBC just practicing being overly sensitive to prepare for the Olympics, I don't know.
I do agree that when you think of the names that have gone on that trophy, the name Rocco is one of the few that brings to mind someone having to break a sweat when they work.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Every single statement can be found offensive by somebody, somewhere in this world. If they can't take a joke, fuck 'em.

 

Just wonderin', is this as offensive as Jemele's comments? Or is it because people find Hitler worse than someone calling a golfer a pool boy?

It's somewhat hypocritical that Kelly Tilgmann can get ripped and Tiger and her are friends, just like Johnny and Rocco are, but if Johnny gets a pass, so do Jemele and Kelly in my opinion.

I didn't find anything offensive what either all three said. If you can't, turn the channel.

People who demand an apology are people who wants to be offended, even though they were not offended directly or was not targeted. It's ironic that Carlin died last night and we are continuing to let PC dictate what you can't say or do.

 

Ya know, unless you live in Genoa or North Jersey, I kind of doubt that. Maybe the guys who own the pool cleaning companies are Italian ...
But to try one more time to wrest this sucker back onto the road: Miller thought Rocco looked like a guy who cleans pools because Rocco is kind of a schlumpy-looking guy. If he said he thought Tiger -- a slim, graceful-looking man -- looked like a guy who cleaned pools, the only obvious inference would be that black guys clean pools. Saying that a schlumpy-looking guy looks like he would clean pools might or might not be an anti-Italian slur. My vote, and almost all the votes on this thread so far, would be that it is not.
So please go back to Rush land with your "double standard, let's try to make this a thread about how blacks make everything about race" bullshit.

 

Around here we use Mexicans to clean our pools...

 

If Johnny Miller said that Rocco looked like a guy who comes around collecting for the local bookie, I could see the need to apologize.

As it is, it's just PC overload.