Joannie’s a little too white for some people’s tastes. Photo: Hannibal Hanschke

Joannie Rochette won bronze in women’s figure skating not by talent, determination, and as a tribute to her recently deceased mother, but because of “racism, nationalism, pity, and politics”. So writes Orville Lloyd Douglas in the leftcoast freebie street paper.

Later realizing the paper stepped in a great big dino-sized pile of excreta, editor Charlie Smith tried to clarify why he published it. To no avail.

You can read all of it, or you can just look at his main thesis, presented in the first few paragraphs:

However, some critics on the Internet are suggesting that the judges are racists and they did not want an Asian female sweep of the Olympic medals in figure skating. I agree with this cogent assessment.

Since Joannie Rochette is a white Canadian woman, the judges made sure a white female slipped into third place to prevent an Asian sweep.

Some people are watching the Olympics in order to see the red and white. Others, like Orville and Charlie, just see the white.

Previously

The opening ceremonies were filled with too many white people. Georgia Straight, February 13.