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Racist slip gets weatherman fired
- Thread starter Phoenix
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Crag Dweller
aka kindbudmaster
I would say that the use of coon as a racist slang is more from my generation, in fact it was probally the most common racial slur for blacks when I was growing up in the 70's from what I remember. Pity it didn't stay in the 70's.
crisdecuba
Member
Actually, I heard about this on the radio - from what the callers said, the guy said "Martin Luther Kong Jr." instead of Martin Luther King. No one that called in thought he said Coon. He also said "75 days" instead of 75 degrees in the same broadcast - he was really really tired, from what people said.
Also, he spent the rest of the day apologizing for it, each time he talked about it, he said the mistake was in saying kong, not coon.
So, unless we see a clip, I'm not sure what the real story is.
~Cris
Also, he spent the rest of the day apologizing for it, each time he talked about it, he said the mistake was in saying kong, not coon.
So, unless we see a clip, I'm not sure what the real story is.
~Cris
crisdecuba said:
That's not what the news says.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Jan-19-Wed-2005/news/25692505.html
Liu Kang Baking A Pie
Member
IT'S GON RAIN!
Cyan said:
I'm not for zero tolerance in this instance, but it's a matter of "how are we supposed to weed out those who would say such a thing out of malice as opposed to merely making an honest mistake?"
Can you answer that for me? Couldn't everyone who made such a slip-up just say that it was benign even if it was a Freudian slip? Obviously, a person's history and character can be brought to bear on the examination of "motive", but I don't think that would necessarily appease people; in addition, people can be closet racists without anyone else knowing about it, so that further confuses matters.
It's just a tricky situation-- I wasn't advocating "zero tolerance" in the typically-understood sense. If a person legitimately made a slip-up, I certinly wouldn't want them to be punished for it. But how do you separate the slip-ups from the malicious instances? That's the difficulty I was trying to highlight.
EDIT: The "niggardly" incident is entirely different and, quite frankly, is an example of everything that's wrong with our society. What I've said here has nothing to do with things like that, nor with being PC-- it's just a matter of our inability to judge who's saying what for what reasons in this instance.
Everdredbanned
Banned
Hitokage said:
I'd cast much doubt on it. Racists tend to think of him as a rather unsavory fellow. A more likely candidate for "King of Coons" might be someone such as Bill Cosby, who racists tend to like to a certain extent.
Cyan said:
I can agree with a two strike policy regarding something like this (one strike if a person has a known racist history, which management or his coworkers might be aware of). I just don't think that such a policy would appease a certain segment of our society, however reasonable it may be. And since those people (the same sort of people who made a big to-do over the "niggardly" incident) are NOT going to be marginalized in our society, but rather acquiesced to (as has been proven time and time again), what can you do? I'm just being realistic.
You might say that with that attitude, nothing's ever going to change (re: our overly PC climate), but I've long ago resigned myself to that fact, so I have no problem with it now.
Note to all: I am not equating the desire to eradicate or marginalize racist sentiment with "political correctness". Those who genuinely want to see racist ideas and ideals REMOVED of our society (and that includes me) are not necessarily being PC when they attempt to deal with situations such as this. All I'm saying (and what Cyan is saying, I assume) is that there needs to be some good sense exercised with these things, and people going apeshit over ever incident-- however benign it MIGHT be (like perhaps this incident was)-- isn't going to help matters.
Now the question becomes... WTF were the OTHER people in the control room thinking? Screw you people defending this... I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground! I want to go there in the middle of the night and piss on his ashes!
DarienA said:
For the record (and in case that was directed at me), I was not defending this person, but rather making a general point about how possible slip-ups (which, like I said, this may or may not be an instance of) should be dealt with, since they can either be legitimate mistakes or a freudian slip that evinces latent racism (as may be the case here).
As for wanting his family and him dead over this, well, go read my post in the other thread about "commensurate responses to situations".
A racist comment, in and of itself, does not necessitate physical violence. It's loathsome and troglogytic, sure, but not enough to become physically violent over. In my opinion. Though I'm sure there might have been some hyperbole on your part for effect. Loki said:As for wanting his family and him dead over this, well, go read my post in the other thread about "commensurate responses to situations".
Yeah I was quoting De Niro from The Untouchables.
:lol
Who cares. I don't consider myself racist, but racism isn't any better than hating a person for any other reason. But boy, when the word "racist" or "bigot" comes up, people get stirred.
A bunch of disgruntled weathermen who don't care about their jobs ought to do this next Martin Luther King's day just to piss off all these overly sensitive people. :lol
Who cares. I don't consider myself racist, but racism isn't any better than hating a person for any other reason. But boy, when the word "racist" or "bigot" comes up, people get stirred.
A bunch of disgruntled weathermen who don't care about their jobs ought to do this next Martin Luther King's day just to piss off all these overly sensitive people. :lol
Phoenix
Member
snapty00 said::lol
Who cares. I don't consider myself racist, but racism isn't any better than hating a person for any other reason. But boy, when the word "racist" or "bigot" comes up, people get stirred.
A bunch of disgruntled weathermen who don't care about their jobs ought to do this next Martin Luther King's day just to piss off all these overly sensitive people. :lol
Did you get your tag before or after this post?
Zelda-Bitch
Member
Please tell me one of you has a video of this. :lol
CaptainABAB
Member
I heard the audio on Stern and it sounded more like "Martin Luther Koonnnerr Jr"
IMO - it sounded like he started to mix King and the JUN part of junior together before he corrected himself and ended with JR.
I wished I could re-hear it but I think people are over-reacting. I could be wrong but I'd need to listen again - I caught Stern at the tail-end of this discussion.
IMO - it sounded like he started to mix King and the JUN part of junior together before he corrected himself and ended with JR.
I wished I could re-hear it but I think people are over-reacting. I could be wrong but I'd need to listen again - I caught Stern at the tail-end of this discussion.
CaptainABAB said:
The thing is... it was pre-taped... why not just re-record? It's obvious a mistake regardless of what he said and re-recording it eliminates any problems. I really feel like a few details on this story are still missing.
snapty00 said:
Please find the post where I had a fucking stroke... take your time.... I'll wait. I have one post asking how you can rationalize Coon.. most of my other posts have smilies or are discussing if it's possible to get Coon out of saying the two words very fast... and hell even those have smilies....
You should probably step back.. and get off your pretend high horse.
DarienA said:
DarienA said:They aren't reporting that he said Martin Luther Cunior King... (pronouced with the K), if they were I'd agree with you, barely. Many folks don't even say the Jr. part... sorry slip my ass... fry the bastard.
DarienA said:
Sounds stroke-worthy to me. But you don't think so...AM I RITE? LOL
Another weatherman makes a slip, make sure you have sound on.
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/tourettesweather.wmv
http://media.ebaumsworld.com/tourettesweather.wmv
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
AstroLad said:
only its not up to the weatherman to leave that shit in.. if it was prerecorded.. and it truly was 'koooner' or 'kong' .. the control room people should be the ones getting shit.
snapty00 said:
Ok I don't want to draw this out.
The first post talks about what they said he said... and ends with fry the bastard
Do you REALLY think I want the guy fried? Of course not.The second post asks a question... which was subsequently answered and joked about.
Your definition of a stroke is different than mine apparently...end of story.
quadriplegicjon said:
But the weatherman can say... you know that didn't sound right, let me do that again.
I still think in an ironic way it's incredibly funny(per my first post), and if I heard it... I probably would have been like.. oh shit!... and then turned the channel.
DarienA said:
:lol
snapty00 said:
If you're gonna go through the trouble of pre-recording, then you should have enough fucking sense to go check the recording for grammatical mistakes and make the neccessary corrections. Frankly the entire fucking editing staff should be fired simply for failing to do their job...this is just another example of one guy taking the fall just so the corp can save face.
This thing comes off really bad because of the name that was allegedly slurred. If it was Joe Schmo or some other guy, it doesn't even get noticed. But to hear a possible slur spoken during the middle of saying Martin Luther King Jr, possibly the most revered name in black culture...well, to not correct that error is simply asking for trouble.
damn...this guy is a fucking idiot.....
http://www.wiredvideo.com/clips/av9/weatherman-mlc.mp3
-Theres The Clip
http://www.wiredvideo.com/clips/av9/weatherman-mlc.mp3
-Theres The Clip
Kobun Heat
Member
*listens to MP3*
Jesus fucking Christ. The guy got fired over that? Outrageous.
Jesus fucking Christ. The guy got fired over that? Outrageous.
Well the mp3 I think clearly shows that he didn't actually mean to say it. It was a mistake and even if he IS racist (which from other reports I doubt) he didn't intend on saying it. I have to agree with the firing though, in this unique case, I see the firing as being about him failing at his post-production job in the studio for not editing it knowing it was there, rather than him making the mistake in production in the first place. If this was recorded life, I really doubt he would have been fired.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
Karg said:
OMG :lol!!
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