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Friday, September 30, 2011

Jennifer Gish writes and I of all people, come to the defense of the city of Buffalo?

          It is not often I come to the defense of my city. Buffalo is a city that has its issues; we here in Buffalo know that, but there are movements trying to upgrade the problems we face. Buffalo truly is not a bad place to live no matter what some of you pretentious people across the country think of us. When it comes to my city, I feel that you can treat Buffalo like your siblings… You can beat them up and tease them, but if an outsider does this to them you unleash hell towards that person. This brings me to Jennifer Gish, a features reporter and sports columnist for the Times Union in Albany, NY, whom has seemed to draw the ire of Buffalo Bills fans here in Western New York. Gish in her column titled “Bills Fans Need Help Keeping it Real”, makes remarks such as “Buffalo is practically in Canada” and “This isn't about mocking you. It's just about bringing you back to reality”… She is too ignorant or imprudent to realize that by asserting these types of remarks, she can be considered to be publishing some kind of mockery towards this community. (Links to her articles are posted below)

          I personally am not a Buffalo Bills fan; I watch the games casually, but am not emotionally vested in the team like I am with our city’s NHL franchise, the Buffalo Sabres. I am in the minority here in the city not being a Bills fan. No matter how big of a Hockey town this is, and we are a hockey town, the Bills are the heart and soul of the city. There is an uplifted feeling around the city on Monday mornings after a Bills win on Sunday and a deflated feeling when they lose. Buffalo has a love affair with the Bills; there are nearly 70,000 fans at every game whether this team is winning or not, which has been the case over the past decade. Bills fans are passionate; passionate to a fault at times… they wear their pride on their sleeve and take it as a personal attack when people bash the team. This is something that Jennifer Gish should have had in the back of her mind when writing an article that was believed to help those of us in Buffalo come “back to reality” after a 2-0 start to the season.

           If members of the media across the country were as quick to give the City of Buffalo or its sports franchises a compliment as they were to throw a jab at our weather, four Super Bowl losses or decline in population, Buffalonians might not be as defensive or overreact when derogatory comments about our community are made. The Bills Fans have a league wide reputation for being obnoxious, raucous and disorderly. There was a segment on an edition of ESPN’s ‘Outside the Lines’ on unscrupulous fan behavior that depicted images of Eagles, Jets and surprise, surprise, Bills fans debaucherous behavior. With Gish being a “Sports Columnist” you think she would have some knowledge or background on the ruthlessness within sects of Bills fans.


           Many football fans are essentially modern day Neanderthals who drink excessive amounts of alcohol and act like savages on game day. Unfortunately for you Jennifer Gish, I am not one of these people, even though I am capable of such crudeness… I am a much more dangerous opponent in this rift. I will attack you without  profanities and using your gender as a crutch. The Neanderthal reaction is much of what you displayed in your follow up piece titled ‘Another group deserves respect’, but let me clue you in on a little secret… You have to give respect to receive respect.

          How did you expect the fans here in Buffalo to react to your column? Did you think that it would not reach us here in Buffalo? You realize that we live in the age of the internet right? You knew that there was potential for backlash like this to happen, after your contact info listed on the column you have "But keep it clean, Bills fans". You attacked a fan base that was feeling good about itself after a decade of futility. The fans reacted like  a wounded animal would to a degree. It is said that a wounded animal is the most dangerous. Like a wild animal, they Bills fans were ferocious with their counter assault towards you. They hit you where  they knew it would hurt you the most… your career and appearance. Sadly, I agree with some of the messages that they delivered, but I personally would have worded them completely different. A majority of the responses you selected to show to the world were utterly classless and unsophisticated. In my opinion, you come across as a clueless, uneducated sports reporter who is lacking a pulse of this team or any that you may cover.

          Let’s be serious here, you did talk with some Bills fans as you stated in your article, yet found some reason to tear down any positive thought that these fans may have been clinging to. What gives you the right to deem Buffalo fans as delusional? Is it your downstate superiority complex? Or could this have been a desperate ploy to make a name for yourself nationally to gain some recognition? Please give me some insight here. When you are a fan of a team that has incompetent ownership and management that has allowed your once storied team to evolve into an inept franchise… you grasp for any positive you can to find a glimmer of hope. Hope is something that all sports fans have in common no matter which team you support, your ignorance to this fact is another example of your ineptitude of sports journalism.

          Maybe there is still a degree of sexism out there against sports reporters… there is still also racism after all of this time as well. Some people will always be ignorant to others; this is just a fact of life. In all honesty, had you not scoffed at the pride of a wounded city, none of these derogatory comments would have been hurled your way… You reap what you sow. I am curious to know if you even realized that you were being crass in your article, I am betting that you were clueless to the fact that you were. Maybe next time you will realize that you were ignorant in your opinion of Bills fans, which in turn set off the ignorance towards you. Let me reminded you that you launched an attack on the Bills fan base, but when the ones that were attacked retaliated, you immediately went into victim mode... You are not completely innocent here either. It is your job as a columnist to share your opinion, but sometimes it is best to keep your opinion to yourself.


Links to the Jennifer Gish articles:
‘Bills fans need help keeping it real’ article
http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Bills-fans-need-help-keeping-it-real-2182849.php
‘Another group deserves respect’
http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Another-group-deserves-respect-2194217.php

2 comments:

Phil said...

See, you're simply not understanding the point Gish was trying to make, which is that it's unreasonable for rabid fans to call up a newspaper frothing at the mouth about the lack of coverage for a team that is located more five hours away, especially when it's only the second game of the season. Were it Jets fans or Giants fans or Patriots fans calling, she probably wouldn't have even written an column about it.

Personally, I agree with her thesis. Only I see it from a different angle, which is the one you brought up: Hockey. I'm a Ranger fan just like the majority of people in Albany. Sure, we've got our pockets of Devils fans and Islanders fans; even some Red Wings fans. But there are only a handful of Sabres fans here, and for exactly the reason Gish states: Buffalo is more than five hours away. And that's from the heart of Albany. Yet every season, I'm graced with the goddamn low-definition feed of the Sabres for nearly half the season or about every other game. The reason is immensely complex(as explained by the NHL), and it basically boils down to corporate mergers from decades ago. Yet today, we people from the Capital Region need to deal with your Sabres, even though none of us here really like them.

Sure, it's different with the Bills. I know they've got some fans up here. But I wouldn't blame Gish for getting a bit testy when they all start complaining about the Bills not getting coverage here. I mean, just imagine a Cleveland Browns fan bitching to your local paper about the lack of coverage. Or the Detroit Lions. Both are closer to Buffalo than Albany. Kind of puts it in perspective when you think about it...

M. said...

Phil,
My response did not fit in comments section. I made it a whole new post.

M.