The Melvin Costa Controversy: Questions of racial pride, individual rights Vs. corporate responsibility and the double standards in society
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I wanted to let this all settle in my mind before I weighed in on it.
It all started with
this post at fight linker
wherein this photo of Melvin Costa who has fought for King of the Cage, a company now owned by ProElite Inc., and you're not imagining things that's a swastika on his chest.
Sam Caplan mentioned the potential PR nightmare for ProElite which is a publicly traded company.
Caplan also got comments from both Gary Shaw - EliteXC's President of Live Events
and ProElite CEO Doug DeLuca
and also did a Q&A with the fighter at the center of all of this, Melvin Costa himself
First, I credit Sam for doing such a thorough job covering a story that definitely had some interesting angles and would urge you to read all of them. I would especially call for you to read the Q&A with Melvin Costa. The image you have of Costa just from reading this post or looking at the picture probably won't fit with the image that he projects of himself in the Q&A.
After looking all of this over, I guess these are my thoughts. When I was in high school, I was on the debate team and the first thing we learned about debate on the first day is that for it to be a true debate both sides of an argument must contain elements of truth.
We also learned how to examine evidence and use logical thought to make the most convincing argument possible in order to impress a judge.
I want to say that I don't agree with Costa's choice of symbol. I also don't agree with his assertion in the Q&A that it is the only symbol he could've used to make his point and have people immediately recognize the point he was trying to make. Because the truth of it is that people don't immediately recognize his point. He spent a fair portion of the Q&A trying to illustrate the difference between a Neo-Nazi and a White Nationalist. However, I would argue that the Swastika is such a symbol of the former that just showing it to someone on the street will result in a response toward the former and not the latter.
I don't have a problem with Costa trying to be proud of his white herritage. I think it is a hipocritical stance to tell minority groups to be proud but look down on the whites for doing the same. I've never really understood why it wasn't ok for the white man to feel pride in his herritage because he's in the majority. If we went to a country where white men were the minority would we tell the majority group in that country to feel shame for that fact the way that is if not implicitly stated then certainly strongly implied by certain factions in America?
I think there is a double standard, it is considered far more acceptable for someone to push black pride than it is for someone to push white pride. Me personally, I don't spend any significant time being proud of the fact that I'm white, but I also wouldn't object to anyone of any race or what have you demonstrating pride in their background. I think the double standard goes beyond race as it is considered far more acceptable to push the vertues of feminism than it is masculinity.
Another point worth examining is freedom of speech. At what point does Costa's right to freedom of expression come in to conflict with the right of ProElite to project the type of public image it as a company sees fit. Freedom of speech is a powerful tool but it is not an unlimited tool For example, I can't charge in to a movie theater and yell out "fire!" to watch the resulting chaos just because I think it might be funny. I think that ProElite could probably make the case in the courts that Costa's freedom of speech could cause undue backlash on itself as a company and use that as grounds for a fair dismissal. As much as Costa has the right to express his beliefs in a non-violent way, so also ProElite has the right to construct its own image that it projects to its stockholders and the public at large.
Costa comes off pretty well spoken in his Q&A and so it is hard for me to completely dismiss him and really I didn't leave the column thinking that the guy was a racist or anything. However, my suggestion to him would be that you could find better ways of expressing your beliefs than something that carries such a strong negative stereotype. How about instead of a swastika, you start with a "White Pride t-shirt"? Certainly if he had done that in the first place, there wouldn't have been such a fuss. At least, I'd like to believe there wouldn't have been.
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