Specificities

Dear Wrestling in general, Sami in particular,

A lot of my friends are trying to convince me that anything like a good reason to do that segment exists. And I can think of some, sure--you secretly have a child that they're holding hostage for instance. Unlikely, but I could accept that as a compelling reason.

Ignorance comes up a lot--yours, the writers, whoever.

So. Let's get specific, shall we? I wouldn't want you to make the same mistake simply because no one did your homework for you, after all.

WAYS THAT SEGMENT NOT ONLY SUCKED BUT WAS ACTUALLY HARMFUL

1. Trans women get killed and harassed all the time.

2. Black women are often portrayed as more muscular, more animalistic, than white women, which also contributes to attacks on them.

3. Black women are also often incorrectly medicated and treated, on the assumption that they're 'tougher'.

4. There is a common lie that trans women are not women, they are men dressing as women in order to assault cis women and girls. This has literally never, ever happened.

5. The normal moral physics of wrestling would dictate that an asshole who contributed to these things (you) would get his ass kicked by a righteous face, because he acted like a hateful jerk. This did not happen, leaving it unsaid that the 'joke' itself was just fine.

6. There are trans women in this world, women like your friend (?) Laura Jane Grace, who have to contend with the idea that they aren't women, because of  'jokes' like this segment.

7. There are probably other issues here--my husband detects hints of the dehumanization of black families found in minstrelsy--but I don't feel at all qualified to discuss those. I refer you to your many fans of color for that.

You are a Muslim man working in a traditionally racist,  recently conservative, industry. I do not want to be unkind or unfair. That in mind, I would come at a dear friend who'd done this in much the same way. Not publically, of course, but the circumstances leave no other options.