This got me fired up today. Mike Bianchi at the Orlando Sentinel has penned a piece about Hooman Hamzehloui. You most likely don’t recognize his name, but you most certainly recognize his words: “Hey, Dikembe, you look like a monkey!” How can we ever forget this guy? Hooman is the racist fan who was banned by the NBA and the Orlando Magic for a full season after a heckling incident two years ago.

Bianchi makes excuse after excuse for Hooman, exalting the transformation of an ‘unknowing racist’ to ‘motivational speaker’…in the article Bianchi writes ‘Maybe it’s a cultural divide (Hooman was born in Iran and came to this country when he was a kid), but to this day Hooman claims he didn’t know “monkey” was a racially offensive term.’ “I had no idea why everybody was so upset,” Hooman says. “I was just trying to have some fun with Mutombo.” (excuse my language kids) but that’s straight up bullshit. The article promotes Hoomans new out-look on life, and includes this (excuse me again) bullshit apology: “I take full responsibility for what I said,” Hooman says now, “even though I really didn’t know what I was saying.”

You can NOT take full responsibility for something and then turn around and say “yeah but…” But nothing…Hoomans words got him banned from the arena…he was so depressed he sat around hosting a pity party for himself because his words were misunderstood…he didn’t know calling Dikembe a monkey was racist…insert finger down throat…and now, Bianchi is actually helping this guy promote his new career as a “motivational speaker” and hawk his new book ‘Mutombo and Me’…are you kidding me? Yet another racist has capitalized on his own behavior and got a welcoming hug from the media…no doubt some cash was exchanged somewhere along the way…seriously, Dikembe is one of the brightest men in the NBA, his humanitarian work makes me cry, and his heart is so full of love that you can actually feel it a mile away.

“If they didn’t kick him out of this arena, he would have seen me off the court,” Mutombo said after the incident in 2006. “I will not accept that. We are not in the ’60s. People have paid the price for us to be where we are today. For him to call a black man a monkey in the middle of the game, he was in the second row, for him to stand up and call, ‘Mutombo the monkey,’ is an insult. It insulted my integrity, my body, my family, my race.”

Why not chose to write a piece on the effect of Hoomans words? How his words cut through the soul of a man who speaks five languages? How his words incited anger in those with an ounce of intelligence? Tell me again Bianchi, what was the point of your article? To help sell Hoomans book? Drive traffic to his website? Or anger those of us who will NEVER forget those seven-little-words?

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As always, thanks for reading.
Delinda Lombardo
delinda@athlebrities.com