Dear BeachGrit: Stop With the “Chinese Girlfriend,” “Mammy,” and “Queer” Clickbait

"It is time for you to clean up your act. You don't have to label the people in your articles as Jew, Chinese, Christian or any other of these terms. They are surfers and people."

Can you believe it’s been six years since Kelly Slater hit back at an historically inaccurate troll on Instagram?

Slater had posted a provocative response on his Instagram account to news that 260 Chinese boats were fishing near the Galapagos Islands writing simply,

“Send the navy and sink em?!”

One follower of Slater, a kid who’d only ever made one post, aware perhaps of Slater’s penchant for responding to even minor player in the IG game, issued a bill of challenge.

“You would be the type of fool to advocate for military violence and US involvement overseas. The US needs to stop fucking policing the world. Getting the military involved has never helped anything it’s always the same people who end up hurting and having to pay for it.”

There was a little bickering back and forth until Slater delivered his coup de grâce.

“Writing me out of the blue talking shit is such a crock of shit. Accusing me of being a racist? My girlfriend is Chinese. You’re on glue. You’re a miserable coward. And now you’re blocked.”

Well, ever since that steamy day six years ago, BeachGrit has been very careful to emphasise this fact lest we too fall even further from the champ’s graces.

And, per current fashion where communities are identities and nationalities flexible and optional, we’ve been careful to include religion, skin colour, gender fluidity and sexuality.

A sometime reader just dropped us this no-holds-barred critique, howevs. It’s a call-out on how we frame stories, and whether that framing serves the sport or just the pageviews.

The letter:

It is time for you to clean up your act. Referring to Kelly’s partner as his ‘Chinese girlfriend’ is unnecessary. You don’t have to label the people in your articles as Jew, Chinese, Christian or any other of these terms. They are surfers and people. That’s enough. She’s a member of the surfing community, not an anomaly because of her race.

Calling John Florence’s mother a mammy is so wrong. In our country, mammy is a denigrating term for a Black female servant. Same with Tyler Wright. She’s gay, queer, whatever, but she is a surfer. You do not have to refer to her sexual orientation every time you mention her. If she was beat up for her personal habits, that would be news. But, her life was never in danger by surfing in a contest in an Arabic country. She surfed there and was not arrested or killed. This is certainly a social issue that needs to be addressed, but using Tyler as queer bait in your column is just plain mean.

You don’t have to refer to Mason Ho as Bipoc. Most Hawaiians are mixed-race. He can just be Mason, the surfer. If there is a time that his racial origins are needed to be mentioned, that is if someone hurt or insulted him because he has a multiracial background, that would be news.

You are making your fellow surfers’ racial and religious origins into clickbait.You seem to be a decent writer with a good portfolio. There is no reason to present other surfers as nonwhite to make your articles more clickable.

Would you be sad to lose the tags? Or time to clean up house etc?