Radio host Danny Williams thinks domestic violence is hilarious
In my effort to hold Danny Williams accountable for his horrid comments about domestic violence, I dragged Mile High Sport into the matter and since the comments were not made on air, it was unfair to fully include them in this mess. I mention that I don’t want to be lumped in with this kind of thinking, and I essentially did that to people there who do not share those beliefs.
Mile High Sports of course doesn’t condone his comments and I should have created more separation from what Williams said and the opinion of the station. I’ve changed a few things in here to reflect that.
When the news broke of the Colorado Avalanche’s Semyon Varlamov’s domestic violence arrest yesterday, the urge to make light of in any way was tempered by the fact that a woman was accusing the goaltender of severely beating her. This wasn’t a he said/she said that was quickly resolved, but an immediately murky situation that cast a pall over the reputation of the popular netminder. Domestic violence is no laughing matter and no matter how strong the urge is to be cheeky about it on Twitter, it’s just a subject to be avoided.
Many times, the domestic violence cases involving athletes don’t amount to much. The Denver Nuggets Ty Lawson was involved in a brief spat with his girlfriend back in August that resulted in charges being dropped. There’s no way of knowing right away whether there’s any merit to these claims, but regardless of your perception of athletes and their spouses, you have to at least take a sober tone with it until all the facts come out. This isn’t Von Miller smoking pot and getting caught. This is a serious problem in our society that once it surfaces, has to be addressed in the most formal way possible.
But somebody couldn’t resist playing the clown and yukking it up about men beating women. Danny Williams, the host of an afternoon radio show on Mile High Sports let loose with his best material last night, highlighting his utter disregard for women in a series of tweets that he obviously thought were hilarious. It would have been a relief to point out that they were simply cliche, but the fact that they were downright deplorable made him seem misogynistic on a level only the Taliban could appreciate.
Here’s one:
@TweetsDanny: What do you call a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, Semyon Varlamov already told her twice…
Awesome. I mean, it’s the classic wife beating joke set up, but applied to the situation involving the Avs goaltender. Nothing funnier than a woman getting two black eyes from taking a beating.
@TweetsDanny: Stomping her in the chest and dragging her by the hair” = Russian foreplay… #Varlamov#Avs
Again, hilarious. Let’s use the goalie’s cultural differences to justify violence against women.
@TweetsDanny: I heard this all started because she wouldn’t let him put it in her 5 hole… #Varlamov#Avs
Good one. A guy can’t have sex with his woman, so he should beat her.
@TweetsDanny: I think the penalty for him will be five minutes for fighting and a ten minute misconduct… #Varlamov#Avs
Great joke. Let’s diminish the fact that someone kicked the shit out of a woman and equate the punishment to a sports penalty.
Williams has since deleted a few of these, but shockingly enough, not all of them. So he apparently has a line drawn with how far he’ll go down the evergreen “humorous violence toward women” path. He can delete all he wants – enough prominent media people saw it to where his reputation took on some water last night. Assuming they knew who he was to begin with.
I understand people are loose with what they say on Twitter. But joking about a woman getting punched in the face goes so far beyond the bounds of good taste for a local media member, it’s a shame this guy has an audience for this crap. I tuned in the other day to hear his show and I immediately heard a reference to “fat chicks.” From my experience, that’s about what you’ll get with his show and that’s fine if Williams chooses to delve into that content. We know sports is a very bro-centric endeavor, but after hearing that, and after reading his woefully misguided attempt at using domestic violence as the backdrop for his jokes, there seems to be a pattern of anti-female sentiment. I wonder if any of the women who represent Mile High Sports feel these jokes are in good taste?
I know Williams doesn’t represent all of Mile High Sports, but I have to go in there this Saturday and do a radio show knowing full well that this person is now representing me.That disgusts me knowing I may be lumped in with someone who thinks beating a woman is fodder for his twitter feed. I hope they’ve installed a shower in the studios, because I may have to scrub myself down to feel clean again. I would imagine most people at the station feel the same way.
Actively joking about domestic violence is the wearing of blackface of gender relations. You just don’t do it. No matter the urge to entertain the morons who prop you up, you can’t justify joking about violence against women. And if this was one comment, it could easily be chalked up as the immediacy of Twitter getting the best of someone’s judgement. But since there were a seemingly continuous string of these gross, fumbling jabs at humor, we have to assume Danny Williams is the real joke here.
