Post by Heightism Report on Nov 6, 2017 3:24:57 GMT
People who follow baseball know that Jose Altuve is undoubtedly one of the best players in the game today. He's an awesome testament to how short men can succeed in sports if given the opportunity. Due to biases about what athletes are supposed to look like, many short men aren't ever given a chance to showcase their talent, so it makes everything Altuve has accomplished even more sweet. I was a baseball addict as a child and when I got to high school, the coach never even gave me a proper try-out. It was my dream to play baseball, but that coach stood in my way and put a sour taste in my mouth about the game for a number of years, so I deeply applaud Altuve's accomplishments. There was an article a few years back where Altuve spoke of when he was one of the top prospects in the Astros organization, and he mentioned encounters where he was treated like a child by the team's executives. He said that even the new prospects who hadn't achieved anything were treated better than he was as one of the more-established prospects.
Anyway, this interview was mostly good, but at the 3:00 mark, Fallon absolutely had to make Altuve's height part of the conversation. He shows a picture of Altuve standing next to Aaron Judge who happens to be 6'7. The thing about it is it sounds as though Fallon knows doing so was a dick move because he offered an apologetic "You know people like to see you standing next to Aaron Judge." This gets to the absolute obsession people have with degrading short men. Instead of just avoiding the joke, Fallon offers a half-assed apology. He can't resist making the joke because he knows that jokes about short men always garner laughter and there is never any backlash.
Also, here's one of the Youtube comments
"Why did he call him buddy? I dont think he would have called any other baseball player buddy if he was white or black. Just because he is latino and has an accent. Maybe he did not mean it but I notice that about american people treat latinos that way."
He didn't call him buddy because he's Latino, he did so because he's short. As we all know, people always refer to short men in playful terms because they see us as childlike. Fallon wouldn't refer to Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, or Sammy Sosa as buddy even though they are Latino. Those players are all tall and their body conveys respect. Once again though, people don't understand heightism so they mute the issue by writing it off as racism.