Actually apologizing to the victims, doing something to make up for it (maybe donating money to help set up an org that helps struggling female comedians, or victims of sexual abuse, if not directly helping those he victimized), and not stealthing into venues to try out his new “OMG shock value” material. That would be a good start I think.
At the very very least he needs to own up to it and not try to portray himself as the victim.
Meteorologist in Rochester NY says “Martin Luther Coon Park” during a broadcast. He quickly corrected himself, but the damage was done. Did he say “coon” purposefully on air? Probably not. The charitable explanation is that “king” and the “oon” sound in “junior” screwed him up. The less charitable explanation is that he says “coon” all the time and it slipped out. Either way, the station fired him.
His Facebook video did him no favors. He tries to explain what happened, then blames his station for not sticking up for him.
This one I’m not so sure on. If he has a “history” on social media or anything like that that’s one thing, but I can see it also just being a mispronunciation as he’s racing through a delivery. I wouldn’t want to grab the pitchfork unless I knew more.
Eh, it’s a phrase that other racist shitheads have said this year so it’s weird how that would just slip out like that. I haven’t heard the audio yet but it’s a really weird thing to say by complete accident, unless it’s something you’ve used before.
“king, junior” turning into “kiun” is understandable to me, but I have mispronounced/mispoke plenty of times before in the past. Thankfully nothing that was horribly offensive to anyone or on broadcast television. :)
Yeah, Jesus, losing your job over something that might be an unintentional spoonerism or something – I’m really dubious about that absent corroborating evidence of racist history/beliefs/etc.
It’s total bullshit for a guy to get fired over that. Deserves to be in the Liberal Stupidity thread.
I think it was a slip on the sounds of “king” and “junior” getting flubbed. That’s based on my experience of only ever knowing one person in real life to use “coon” out loud as a racial insult. Ironically, he was using it at me. “Chinky coon” was what he said, which I actually found pretty hilarious for being so dumb.
Maybe people say “coon” all the time in certain parts of the country. I don’t know. It just sounds outdated.
This a very common slur used by racists when talking about MLK. I’m not so ready to call bullshit on it. Maybe he is collateral damage in the war on hate, [insert shrug emoticon].
It is for the most part, but “Martin Luther Coon” is a very common phrase among the most virulent of racists.
So to slip and say it is kind of… yeah.
I agree with you except for this section. I don’t see the point in working so hard to vilify the guy… seems off the proper topic at hand so to speak. We can agree he’s back at work prematurely and without making amends in a healthy way but ‘stealthing and OMG shock value’ makes you sound like you don’t understand comedy or Louis.
At least you didn’t include the ol’ “whipped his dick out” quote. I swear, folks out for his blood seem to love saying that juuuust a little too much if you ask me.
Do you consider yourself to be more of a “smooth Asian”? Asking for a friend.
Man, you just made me Google that.
You must realize that people who earn a living performing on television make these types of mistakes constantly. You must also realize that when you say King and then Junior quickly, there’s a pretty good opportunity for those two sounds to get mixed up and come out as “coon”. Unless this guy has a past history of saying racist stuff, it’s very unlikely that he’s putting his career at risk just to get in a sneaky racist jab. We’re so afraid of racism that we’re willing to ruin people’s lives over honest mistakes.
Well said.
That’s a fair point and more a factor of my annoyance over his refusal to actually own up to it combined with my hatred of gun violence and its effect on the country.
It’s possible he says it all the time in private, but the video of the incident makes it seem more like a straight up flub by speaking too fast. He doesn’t say “coon” clearly at all. It’s more like a “kuhn” as if his mouth is trying to say two things at once.
I guess it doesn’t matter since he got canned anyway.
Even if he’s a horrible racist, I don’t think he said it on purpose. I truly don’t understand the idiots that make their hate hand gestures or whatever in public. But IF he’s a horrible racist, it’s probably something that would easily slip out. After all, if he’s sitting around with his other racist buddies talking shit about the damn blacks, it’s a phrase he’s likely used to throwing out there.
At any rate, I would have investigated a bit more to see if he actually has a history of it on social media, etc, before just firing the guy.
This is fair, but he did apologize, right?
In terms of charity, even before any of this, he had donated mountains of money to charities benefiting women. Hell, he donated a quarter of the money he made on his Netflix special to women’s charities.
He may have continued to do this without telling folks, as even if he did i suspect people would say that he was only don’t it to try and but his way back into things.