Apology Judgement Thread of Humiliation

No, he blurred two words together in a way that sounded like a racial slur. As many people have done before based on the evidence just in this thread.

I don’t know. The sample we have is very small, and some did get fired.

The question is, is this an honest slip of the tongue, or purposeful, or perhaps it was a Freudian slip. Something he has said or heard in the past, and so it comes easy to him to say it again.

The last one is tricky if that were true because it means that it could happen again, and it might mean that he associates himself with people and ideas that the Television Station does not want to be associated with. Remember, he is a public facing employee. He represents the station.

Anyway, for all we know, everyone in the news room hated his guts, and just wanted him fired.

Absolutely. I have no insight into this guy’s situation other than what I’ve seen in the clip. I just wanted to be clear that he didn’t admit using a slur, he admitted stumbling over the words in a way that sounded offensive.

I think this is one of those situations where nothing good will come of it and it happens. At least no one is dead or hurt badly. I hope he finds a new job.

It’s amazing to me that people are coming up with justifications like Freudian slips to convince themselves that this guy deserved what he got. The mere possibility that his subconscious inner thoughts made him accidentally reveal his true self. We are truly on a dystopian track in more ways than just what’s going on in the White House.

I tend to judge people a bit by the company they keep. He doesn’t have to be a Trumpster, super religious, anti-climate change (assuming this based on some twitter likes of his related to climate change denial) meteorologist but he chooses to be one. I don’t think he should have been fired without further evidence but it wouldn’t surprise me to hear someone like that accidentally say this. Also, since it seems cops can be hired by another town after murdering minorities then I’m pretty sure this guy’s going to land on his feet. He’ll be fine. A conservative-leaning station will pick him up and benefit from the publicity of giving him a second chance.

Look at all of these assumptions you’re making about a guy you know literally nothing about other than a self selected bias confirming sample of his Twitter follows. Of course it wouldn’t surprise you if the guy is what you think he is, because you’ve already decided with a high certainty what he is all about.

It doesn’t really matter what either of us thinks about him. This will all go away, he’ll get hired by someone else, and we’ll likely never hear about him again.

You’re right, and I don’t think anything about him because I don’t know anything about him. I’m more frustrated by the thought processes where we have no problem assuming the worst in people based on the flimsiest of evidence because we’re so afraid of what they could potentially represent. It’s a slippery slope.

Also, there are plenty of people that follow Trump and co. on twitter not because they like them, but because they like to make fun of them.

For instance, I (used to) follow Charlie Kirk, so that I could make fun of his dumb ass attempts at memes, I don’t like the guy, but I follow him to comment on his garbage.

Incidentally I was autoblocked by a bunch of accounts because of that follow. seems like a weird way to handle your account, auto-blocking followers of a person, but you use twitter however you want man.

I mean I do know something about him. He supports Trump, seems to think climate change isn’t real, and is super religious. I will admit that I tend to think negatively of someone that exhibits that combination of traits. So I’m a bit biased of course but still say he shouldn’t have been fired without further evidence.

And to JonRowe’s point, yeah, people follow Trump to keep up with him. But usually that’s offset by a host of respectable folks as well, not accompanied by a long list of random “patriot” accounts or hardcore right-wing propaganda artists. My bro-in-law is a crazy Trumpster and has a very similar list of “following” for his account.

Also, I do hope he isn’t a typical Trump person, and if so, that they settle this thing in his favor. Either way, I’m sure he’ll be fine. Seems incredibly popular in the area so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they work this out. Maybe he does some community service to appease the mayor and her constituents and then starts back up at the same station.

Was there a trial somewhere?

Way to pull out the least substantial sentence of my post to argue pedantically with.

Maybe it was the most substantial part? Employers fire embarrassing employees all the time, and they never need trial evidence to do it.

I’m willing to believe this guy didn’t say Martin Luther Coon on the air on purpose. But they way you get that phrase to come out of your mouth accidentally in public is to be in the habit of saying it privately, or hearing it privately, or both. It’s a very common phrase among racists.

The argument has been whether or not he actually said that phrase, as opposed to verbally stumbling when saying “king junior”.

It wasn’t. My post had nothing to do with whether his employer had the right to fire him.

I read this:

…as an argument about which standards of evidence we should apply in this case. You lead the argument with a reference courtrooms. I think a reasonable person would conclude that you’re discussing standards of evidence we should apply and comparing the situation to a courtroom. If I have misread that, I apologize, but I think you have to admit it’s a reasonable mistake to make.

As for my own view:

As a private citizen, the standard of evidence I’d need to form the weak conclusion that this guy is a racist is fairly low. Why? Because it’s a conclusion with almost no consequence. I have never met him and am never likely to. Nothing about my weak conclusion can practically harm him or me if it turns out to be wrong. He uttered a common racist formulation on TV, and claims he misspoke. Since racists always claim that 1) they misspoke, and 2) they are not racists, that explanation doesn’t carry much weight.

As his employer, I would probably fire him. Yes, the evidence is weak, but it is not worth the negative publicity of trying to defend retaining the guy.

Fair enough. I don’t find that explanation particularly plausible and it don’t really credit it as an excuse. Racists always say they misspoke.

Dr. King’s daughter, Al Roker and Don Lemon all came out in support of this guy. All said he shouldn’t have been fired, especially once he apologized for the mistake. It’s live TV, you are going to stumble over words sometimes, this one just sounded really unfortunate.

I think it is particularly poignant coming from an african american weatherman like Al Roker. The guy messed up words on TV and it sounded like he said a racist thing, he apologized, that should have been the end of it. But, it being 2018(9) people have 0 tolerance for racists, so the response was swift, probably too swift.

I get the station parting ways from the guy to just get the controversy away, I do hope that the national endorsements help him get another job somewhere.

Don Lemon also says he believes the weatherman’s excuse and that the station shouldn’t have fired him.