News - Why are you cheering?

John Rocker returned from his official Major League Baseball two-week suspension and unofficial four-month public relations drubbing this week, to the boisterous and sustained cheers of Braves fans at Turner Field. One word for all of you so happily applauding:

Why?

Why are you cheering for John Rocker?

With which part of his rant do you yearn to be identified?

Do you hate non-English speaking American citizens? Resident aliens? International visitors? Any person of color? Any color?

Are you frightened because you don’t speak a second language?

Do you resent bilingual signs?

Are you apprehensive because you’ve never traveled outside your home state?

Do you hate New York?

Are you standing up for the right to freely express bigotry in the workplace without consequence?

Do you resent paying taxes to support welfare that supports the children of unwed mothers and the men who desert their families?

Are you afraid of gays and lesbians?

Do you think a 25-year-old man is too young to know any better, and deserves a mulligan on this one?

Is difference so frightening to you?

Or is it simply that you hate the press?

If you, like many of the Braves’ players who were offended and incensed by Rocker’s remarks, have concluded that you forgive him, fine.

If you think this whole issue has been dragged out far too long - thanks to baseball’s wishy-washy commissioner, Bud Selig - fine.

If you are amused that so much attention is being paid to the bad judgment of a baseball player, fine.

If you look at the National Football League’s Rae Carruth and Ray Lewis - both currently charged with murder - and decide that a racist reliever doesn’t warrant a second thought, fine.

If you note that Rocker has not fathered and abandoned six children by three different women - as in several highly publicized cases in the National Basketball Association - and consequently prefer him to those moral derelicts, fine.

If you wince at the memory of mistakes you made when you were 25 and are grateful that you were forgiven - or never the subject of a national magazine feature - fine.

Those are all reasons not to boo John Rocker. But there is no good reason to cheer for him. Unless, of course, you want to stand up and be counted as being as much a bigot as he is.