No, Matt Petgrave Did Not Commit "Manslaughter" And Other Racist Nonsense
Apparently, all it takes is for a tragic accident to happen for Twitter (and Instagram, let’s be real here), especially hockey Twitter and Instagram, to turn into a KKK rally. The only reason this is an exaggeration is because they’re not literally gathering together for one. But holy hell, my Instagram and Twitter feed the last few days has looked EXACTLY how I imagine a KKK rally looking like. Your racism is showing, and I’m not going to tolerate it.
Let’s be real here: literally, the only reason anyone thinks this was “manslaughter” or that this story has moved beyond hockey is because a black man was the one who accidentally slit Adam Johnson’s throat. Period. End of story. If it had been a white man, not Petgrave, it would have remained in hockey circles, started a conversation about protective gear, and people would have moved on, outside demanding neck guards. But no, Petgrave is black, and because he’s black, there must have been a motive. This couldn’t be an accident. “Look at his PIM numbers! Clearly he intended to kill Johnson!” I can’t even begin to understand how the hell anyone could equate sitting in a penalty box more than most other players to equaling being someone who wants to kill others. Sitting in a penalty box does not make you a bad person. I have never in my life heard anyone insinuate that being a constant visitor to the penalty box means you’re a bad person. A criminal, even. Oh, until it was a black man. Now, every single thing he has ever done is under a microscope. I have seen people dig into his life, analyzing both that video of the slicing that led to Johnson’s death, and other plays, into oblivion. Every action he’s made is now under scrutiny. All because of one crime: having been born black. Our society, which at its very core is white supremacist, views blackness as the worst sin of all. Every action, every word, every thought by a black person is scrutinized, and even the most innocuous will be used against them by white people. It is something white people don’t have to deal with, and because we are privileged enough not to, we have the audacity to be upset when black people say that they shouldn’t have to live this way.
Now, I need you to understand something extremely simple, but most people do not get: whiteness is made up. It’s bullshit. It is a concept that is constantly changing to ensure the subjugation of black folk. 100 years ago, I, Anna Hudak, would not have been considered “white” here in America. Hell, 60 years ago I probably wouldn’t have been. In my grandparents lifetimes, some weren’t considered to be white. Now, they all are. How could that be? It’s not like their skin colors changed. My Greek grandpa’s skin is as olive as ever. Most of my other grandparents are still Slavic (yes, Slavic folk used to not be considered white, within my grandparents lifetimes). So, how did this happen? Because, who was considered white, had to expand, to keep black folk under the thumb of white supremacy. Whiteness does not actually exist, it is something made up to ensure that a large group of people with lighter skin remain at the top of society. That’s it.
The reason I went into all that is to help people understand what “white privilege” is. It means: white people get to be shielded from the consequences of white supremacy. That’s why when white people get confronted with the consequences of white supremacy, such as when Black Lives Matter protests rose up around the country, white people throw fits, call black people “thugs”, believe they should get to kill protesters, etc. It’s why white people voted in Trump. In recent years, it’s been getting harder to ignore the destruction that white supremacy has wrought, and the privilege of ignoring has been slipping away. Because white people are terrified of having to do any amount of self-reflection on race, they voted in Trump, hoping he would put the non-whites back “in their place”. Now, remember all this. Remember what these all mean as I come to the only reasonable conclusion of all this: if a white person had cut open Johnson’s neck, it would be ASSUMED to be an accident. People would take the statement by the Nottingham Panthers calling it an accident at face value. White people’s actions, motives, and thoughts are not to be questioned under our white supremacist society. But, because Petgrave is black, people have broken down the video of the slicing frame by frame, questioning literally every little movement to decide whether it’s “manslaughter” or not. Something that would never have happened if he had lighter skin.
Here’s the thing: how Petgrave fell is literally just how people fall in hockey. If you’re a hockey fan, you’ve seen that fall many times. It’s nothing out of the ordinary. But, this time, it was a black man who fell. This time, a freak accident happened. Therefore: malicious intent must be at play. Black people are thugs, after all, aren’t they? That’s what the narrative born from white supremacy claims, anyway. Probably the greatest lie invented by white supremacists that has lasted hundreds of years is that black people are inherently violent. It’s a lie that was used to justify slavery and colonization. Later, it was used to justify segregation, and now it’s used to justify things such as mass incarceration. This disgusting lie is deeply embedded in our society now. Because this lie is so embedded, we see a black man accidentally cut another man’s throat and the first thought that comes to many white people’s heads is “he did that on purpose.” I mean, black people are just wild and violent, animals, right? They’re just inherently violent, so clearly there must have been malicious intent. I want to quickly make a disclaimer: no one has that thought process. They don’t think the things I wrote. They don’t have to. It’s built in. It’s the knee-jerk reaction. It’s so deeply embedded, something that has been passed down for so long, no one has to actively think “black people are violent thugs” (though, many do). It’s just assumed. It doesn’t even need to be said. Meanwhile, white people, who have colonized Africa and the Americas, committed genocide of indigenous people’s all over the world, forced Africans into slavery, continue to incarcerate black people for the crime of having been black, and many more things, are considered to be “safe” and “non-violent.” You see, light skin equals “pure little angel”. That’s why when a black teenager does something violent, the headlines call him a “man” while when a white teenager does something violent, he’s a “boy”.
Anyway, I think you get my point by now. There’s nothing wrong that Petgrave did. He fell, and unfortunately, Johnson was right there and had his throat slit. A horrible accident, and nothing more. If Petgrave was white and had the exact same amount of penalty minutes, we’d assume it was a normal fall in hockey gone wrong. No one would even consider that it could be manslaughter, because white people aren’t supposed to be “violent.” White people do not consider other white people to be violent. No, violence is what black people are, as the lie goes. Therefore, anything violent done by a black man, even if it’s a total accident, it was because that’s what the black man wanted. It’s disgusting, this lie must end. I need to make clear: if you think this was manslaughter: you are a racist, period, end of story. I have no tolerance for you or your ideas. There will be no debate, as my long-standing policy is to not debate folk that John Brown wouldn’t tolerate. You can take your racist thoughts and screw off somewhere else. I have no interest in hearing or seeing them, and frankly, I’m tired of them. This article was written out of the tiredness of the constant anti-blackness that exists in hockey circles, but not only hockey circles, but society at large. There will never be any tolerance for anti-blackness from me.
P.S. Seriously, stop with the “manslaughter” nonsense. Nothing of what he did would fall under the UK definition of that crime. No serious person would argue that what did would.
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