Well I meant that’s whom he follows. I doubt he tweets about it but they’re all over his Following list.
“Unlikely event” lol…
Here’s a guy who made the same mistake and it was never a controversy and he still has a top ESPN show. The difference? Perhaps because it was 8 years ago and Twitter hadn’t yet turned us all into a bunch of hyper sensitive babies.
Whether they meant to say it or not, I’m pretty comfortable saying fuck all those guys.
This is better.
It’s more the public shaming and painting the guy as a racist that I have a problem with. It’s also not great that his company threw him under the bus like they did. Honestly I’m a little shaken by the amount of people I’m seeing on the internet who think it’s great that a guy has had his life ruined because he said something incorrectly. With no evidence whatsoever that he has ever said racist things in the past. Is this not just a different flavor of the same blind fear and intolerance that we accuse the other side of having?
It is, yes. People are okay with a man’s career being likely ruined even if it’s a slip of the tongue, just in case maybe he’s been a secret racist all his but with absolutely zero indication that’s the case. It’s fucked up.
Yeah, I don’t think non-racists follow Coulter and Ingraham on Twitter.
I hope you never have a student who thinks they hear you say the wrong thing. What kind of world do you want to live in where people who make a simple mistake made pariahs. Apply that to everything and this world becomes literally unlivable.
“Whether they meant it or not”…… damn, man, you make yourself judge and jury. Oh wait, you don’t actually care about guilt do you?
I don’t think it’s in question at all that he said it, is it? He hasn’t denied saying it, just that it was an accident.
Can you imagine using this as evidence in a courtroom? No, because it’s a flimsy connection. It’s very possible that he’s a secret racist and boy did we got the right guy, but you really have to make a few logical leaps to get there. Are we satisfied that slipping on words and following the wrong kind of people on Twitter are grounds for shaming and ostracizing?
But does it matter? It’s what people think he said, or what he might have said, or maybe what he might have been thinking? But that doesn’t matter to @rrmorton because he would fire the guy regardless.
I’m certainly not advocating pariah status, shaming, or ostracizing. Just saying people get laid off and lose their jobs for all kinds of shitty reasons in Trump’s America. He’s collateral damage in a just war, he knew the risks, and I think he’ll be okay.
He follows 2,443 people on Twitter. It looks like he follows anyone newsworthy, involved in news media, outspokenly Christian, plus any randos that followed him. I’m sure some are racist pieces of shit, (Trump, Pence, etc) but he’s also got folks like blackgirlmagic, Shaun King, and a ton of Rochester accounts. What does this come down to? Count his follows and weigh the scales?
He knew there was a chance that if he said the wrong thing he would be fired, even if it was an accident, so he deserved it.
And this “collateral in a just war” bullshit is just that, bullshit. I imagine the guys who got fired during the 50’s because they knew some commies deserved everything they got as well. It is one hell of a slippery slope you want to take a slide on.
Do we know if his station may have been a Fox affiliate? I know we have one here and I don’t automatically assume that all it’s employees are racists.
Just wanted to say I agree with this. This is the continuing prosecuting via social pressure which I’m not fond of at all.
Your employed at will. If he really wanted to be protected, he should have formed a union. As it is, if you can’t say the lines properly, if you don’t take the time to practice them before hand, maybe you just aren’t taking your job all that seriously. Maybe the company is right to look for someone with a bit more commitment.
On the bright side, a job opening at a TV station. I mean, how many young people are out there just waiting for their chance to break into the business and finally get their career started?
The twitter public shame train is something else entirely. People losing their entire livelihoods over stupid mistakes or poorly worded bad jokes, to me, is just crazy. It is an over-reaction, and without social media this wouldn’t be happening, full stop. It is an outrage amplification machine without a care for fact checking or rational thought. (again, I don’t know anything about this guy, maybe this was a last straw type thing from his bosses)
This firing was specifically amplified via social media (of which a lot of the previous cases did not have the same virality due to social media being in a more infant stage.)
I forgot to link this above
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/01/08/meteorologist-fired-using-racist-slur-martin-luther-king-jr-says-it-was-an-accident/?utm_term=.583763db7485
In Kappell’s case, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, a black woman, said the meteorologist’s word use was a symptom of a deeper issue and called for his firing. In a statement posted to Facebook on Sunday night, a full day before the TV station announced Kappell had lost his job, Warren said it was “wrong, hurtful and infuriating” that WHEC Channel 10 had aired the “racial slur.”
I mean, one guy a union does not make. This is a hindsight 20/20 kind of answer, but is not very helpful. (The real answer is that we should all be in unions) But alas, we don’t live in that world currently.
I truly hope that this guy, if he is indeed not a racist POS, lands on his feet.
Did he really follow all those people? Damn. No wonder that tongue of his slipped. When you spend you time listening to racists, you are likely to say a few racists things yourself.
And yes, the answer is always form a Union. Don’t like how much power your employer has over you, join a union. Don’t like being fired for no reason. Join a Union.