The Denver Post took swift action against their columnist Terry Frei in the wake of him tweeting racist comments about Indy 500 winner Takuma Sato of Japan. The Post fired Frei after he said that he felt "very uncomfortable with a Japanese driver winning" the Indy 500 specifically on Memorial Day. Real bad look, dude.Here is a screenshot of the now-deleted tweet:
(Do note that ratio.)Frei, a seven-time state sportswriter of the year—formerly with ESPN—tried to walk back his comments in a half-assed apology that basically tried to rebrand his racism as that 'acceptable' brand of patriotic racism—a confounding false differentiation that is currently plaguing our country. He basically uses his father's military service in WWII as a rationale for his racism.Frei also tried to plug his book in a first version of the apology, then walked that back and submitted a second apology that was just as shitty—but without a book promo in it this time. How do we know his apology was full of shit? Well, because he thanked someone who defended his racist tweet.Dude was just trying to cover his ass at the Denver Post. But guess what? That didn't work out so well:
The Indy 500 was initially billed as the "500-Mile International Sweepstakes" when it started in 1911 and has always been an international event. In-ter-na-tion-al. Many countries. It's fucking baffling to me what Frei expected to happen in a competition with drivers from multiple countries. Was Sato just supposed to, like, give up because your dad was in a war against his people? GTFOH.