WBC suspends Adrien Broner for 'racially insensitive' comments

Adrien Broner has a habit of kicking up a lot of dust whenever he speaks, and now he's going to face a fake punishment. The WBC has decided to "suspend" Broner, for whatever that's worth (nothing, really), because of his post-fight comments after his May 3 win over Carlos Molina.

Broner (28-1, 22 KO) broke into his familiar "Can Man" routine when speaking with Showtime's Jim Gray, saying, "Anybody can get it. Afri-Cans, I just beat the fuck out of a Mexi-Can."

For some reason or another, after two years or so of Broner repeating this same speech, the WBC stood up and took notice and issued this statement:

Adrien Broner, former WBC lightweight champion, has offended many persons of the world with his words during the interview after the fight v Molina. The World Boxing Council holds human equality as its banner and will not accept a former WBC champion to make racially offensive statements. Since words have different meanings and can be interpreted in different ways, the WBC is issuing this open letter to Adrien Broner to either clarify what he meant with his words or to issue a public apology if those words were intended to be disrespectful and offensive... Boxing is a great sport, it is a world sport, and boxers are honourable and exemplary members of the community. Fair play and human equality must always be upheld.

One wonders exactly how Broner might "clarify" his remarks. He beat a Mexican fighter. He said so. He said so with some vulgarity, but that's all he said. Again, he has done this exact same routine many times, before and after many fights. It wasn't new material. And the WBC never said anything before.

Personally, I'm not getting the outrage. I mean, Broner says some dumb and weird stuff, but the idea that this is racially motivated has really surprised me, because I did not hear it that way at all, and given that he has done this exact same routine many times, and has never been called racist for it in the past, what changed now? Everyone has heard him do this spiel.

And for clarification's sake, the WBC can't, like, make anyone not let him fight. They can choose to not sanction his fights for their titles, and they can opt to not rank him or whatever, but they can't stop him from fighting, because they simply do not have that power. That would be up to a state commission, in this case, Nevada's.

I'm just not getting this. And I'm not even saying that Broner shouldn't probably go ahead and kill this routine, since it sucks, isn't funny, and is played out, and now it's getting him into (fake) trouble, but I just cannot understand why suddenly the WBC or anyone else is up in arms about what he said, unless it's basically entirely about our post-Donald Sterling sports world being ready to unleash Twitter justice any time someone mentions race (or in this case, nationality) at all.

It's worth noting that the WBC, which has had countless moments in its history where boxing fans and media raised some eyebrows (at the very least) due to their bogus, ridiculous decisions, also once suspended Chris Arreola for cursing. Floyd Mayweather, a WBC champion for many years, has never been suspended by the organization for any reason whatsoever.