With Nate Diaz “suspended” by the UFC over a tweet yesterday calling Bryan Caraway a “fag” for “taking” Pat Healy’s bonus after Healy tested positive for marijuana it was inevitable that the excuses would start quickly. Diaz’s manager, Mike Kogan, has taken to a line of defense that shows that he also “doesn’t get it.”
Here are Kogan’s quotes from MMA Junkie:
“Nate voiced a personal opinion about an incident that took place involving Bryan Caraway in which he chased Dana all over Twitter to try to get a bonus, which was taken away from Pat Healy, got the bonus, and then had the nerve to go back out there and bash the guy and talk s–t about weed-smoking and how much he hates it and how it’s wrong, which was, at best, a s–t move on his side,” Kogan said.
“Guess what? The word f—-t, at least in Northern California, and where Nate is from, means bitch. It means you’re a little punk. It has nothing to do with homosexuals at all. So when Nate made the comment that he made, he didn’t make it in reference to homosexuals or calling Caraway a homosexual. He just said it was a bitch move.”
…
“I’m sure some people got offended, and hopefully this article will explain what his intent was. But how people view it is how people view it. I can’t control that. His intent was not to make a derogatory term toward homosexuals. He used the word to refer to a punk or a bitch.”
It’s sad how often this has to be repeated…but that argument is not a good argument.
Fag is a derogatory name for homosexuals. The reason that it is used by some to denote someone being a “bitch” — a slur in it’s own right — or “punk” is the implication that they’re not “being a man.” Associating homosexuals — via a derogatory slur, no less — with with undesirable or insufficiently masculine behavior is what gives those words any power.
It’s really that simple. It has nothing to do with the world being “too PC” or “putting it in context.” Words have meanings and their usage stems back to those meanings. There are some words, and “fag” is among them, that have too ugly of a history and have simply caused too much pain to allow them to be dismissed as “that’s just what the boys do where I’m from.”
Acting as though adults have no ability to realize this or handle it with any sort of common sense is insulting to everyone involved.
The timing by Diaz is also pretty amazing given that today is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.
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