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An awkward reminder that the reason HHH and Shawn Michaels were eating bananas here was because they were commentating on a match involving 'The Nation' (a group of black wrestlers inspired by the Nation of Islam).
Full segment is here. You'll note the only time they mention The Nation is when they start eating the bananas, although HBK was clearly going to say something before he was cut off.
In storyline terms, the following week, DX spray-painted racist graffiti all over The Nation's locker room to frame the Hart Foundation and cause dissent between them. Here's the follow-up.
This was all within a couple of weeks. There's been attempts to make out that the bananas weren't intended to be a racist statement, but considering this was what they supposedly did the following week... that seems unlikely.
So if I was Shawn Michaels, I probably wouldn't be bringing that up again in 2019.
Mentioning this because, y'know. Look at Vince McMahon repeatedly saying 'there's no racism in the WWF'. Look at their history of racism and problematic material. I'm saying this as a huge fan in 1997 and a huge HBK fan. Learn to be more careful.
Oh, and if you're wondering, yes. 20 years ago, the WWE had a group of black wrestlers whose gimmick was that they were protesting racism in WWE. They were booked as bad guys.
