So I’m the one who brought this tweet to Jashvina and Hemal’s attention because they were talking about so many others. Jashvina, being her badass self, went to the source and the conversation that developed was...a lot.
Props to her. This shit is exhausting to read let alone engage in. BIPOC folks are tired of this emotional labour but if it’s not us then it continues as is. If I or someone else didn’t see it, it would’ve just existed there.
Also Brendan Batchelor is a known Canucks hockey media member so a lot of privileged local South Asian men came to his defence and were extremely hostile to Jashvina, exhibiting their own internalized xenophobia (and denying it). A lot of members of the South Asian community in Vancouver/neighbouring cities, especially men, go by shortened names or entirely unrelated nicknames since childhood because of these very issues that they seem to think don’t apply to their white hockey media favs. It got real ugly and the sexism came out too because hockey culture ya know.
Blake Bolden, the first black player in the NWHL and scout for the LA Kings, watching Quinton Byfield become the highest drafted black player in NHL history when the Kings took him 2nd overall