So, it’s Friday morning and I pick up the Globe (which is free on campus, pretty sweet). I see on the front page of the whole paper, not just the sports section, an article about numerous racist tweets and messages that were sent to Capitals winger Joel Ward after he eliminated the Bruins in Game Seven two days earlier.  If you are one of the people that were sending these tweets, get a life. Ward is one of the few black players in pro hockey, and we don’t need to deter kids from entering the sport by your ignorant and jealous remarks.

As a history major, I’ve learned about Boston’s racist history, which spills over into its sports history as well. The Sox were the last team in the majors to integrate, and when the B’s became the

first NHL team to play a black player (Willie O’Ree), he needed a police escort to get in and out of the Garden. These tweets just show that racism in Boston isn’t dead, and neither is racism in sports.

Now sports have come a long way since the ‘60s when visiting players to segregated cities couldn’t stay in the team hotel if they were black.  But there is still a long way to go. Would fans have been as upset if, say, Alex Ovechkin scored the winning goal? I don’t think so. Hockey has always been a sport dominated by Caucasians, but that is starting to change. The fact that some fans are fighting diversity in the game just shows that some people are still as ignorant as ever.

When I saw that story on the front page of the paper, and that it continued in the news section rather than sports, my heart sank. The vast majority of Boston sports fans are good, reasonable, educated people and don’t need the non-sports fans in Boston thinking that we are ignorant and irrational. So, knock it off, because these comments do not represent the majority of us fans, and we don’t want to be presented in a negative light due to the stupid remarks of a few twisted individuals.