Month: October 2021

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If nothing else, David Chappelle is a marketing genius. He artfully generated some free publicity for his television show. Controversy is the best way to get the media involved. Chappelle provided them with a controversial topic. The media, whose distribution of controversies is its only reliable function, hungrily bit the hook and frontpaged the outrage. Particularly perplexing is how the transgender community fell all over itself to give Chappelle more free publicity. Controversy rarely stops people from doing anything, it does, however, entice people who might never have even heard about if you hadn’t bothered to complain about it.

I tried to understand it but, for the life of me, I can’t figure out exactly what Chappelle did wrong. He is making fun of transgender people. OK. Probably not a good idea for people who are sensitive about this issue.  Still, it is in his job description to make fun of people.  What he said that makes him transphobic is unclear to me. All I can get is that he doesn’t adhere to some standard people are expected to follow in order to avoid being called transphobic.

Since I can’t make heads or tails, I now have to see his show. Standup isn’t really my thing, I have absolutely nothing against it. But if I have a choice, I prefer other types of entertainment. Standup was always something that I could pass on for other shows.  Now, however, I want to see Chappelle’s show. Everyone is talking about it, I need to know what I am talking about in order to put my two cents in.

So, other than people yelling at him, which, ironically enough, only creates more controversy, so more free publicity for him, Chappelle has come out of this unscathed. The press, on the other hand, has no excuse.  This was, maybe, a one-day story.  Then came the yelling match.  The media, who is patently unable to pass up screaming individuals, kept the story going.

When will people learn that if you want to stop people from seeing something, absolutely, positively keep your mouth shut. Otherwise the very thing you wanted people not to know, will now be spread even further than the performer ever dreamed possible without the controversy.  Kudos for Chappelle for showing us how to sell a television show using free publicity.

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The resignation of Jon Gruden has raised a lot of hackles with conservative columnists. It was a little shitty how his emails came to light, but when you make enemies, as Gruden has, you should expect these enemies to use any weapon they can find against you. The bottom line is that Gruden sent prejudice-laden emails. If he had paid any attention to the HR videos that every other employee in the civilized world is subjected to, he would have refrained from sending them in the first place. After years of incessant lectures regarding appropriate e-mail procedures, everyone should know that once you press send your email is both stored forever and can be sent absolutely anywhere. So, this incredibly responsible and privileged man ignored the rules of corporate e-mail etiquette and got caught. He now paid a high price for doing so.  

This is why HR departments worldwide conduct classes to instruct employees what is appropriate behavior to avoid such embarrassing situations.  HR, also, reminds us that if that e-mail is sent on a company server and/or with a company email address, your company has the right to read your emails.  If your emails are deemed inappropriate, you could be disciplined up to and including termination. I find it difficult to believe that someone at Gruden’s level didn’t know that words like “faggot” and “pussy” are offensive words. Everyone knows that e-mails are not private that is why HR instructs employees to be careful when sending them.

More importantly, Gruden is using blatantly homophobic, sexist and racist words while communicating with other top executives associated with football. He says he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. Maybe Gruden reasons that he was only talking about the size of DeMaurice Smith’s lips. He could be talking about any person of any race who happened to have big lips. Right. Context is everything here. He was describing a black man using one of the most frequently used stereotypical descriptions of Black people.   

Even if we could give him some wiggle room for his big lips comment, what was his intention for “faggot.” Any person living in 21st century America knows that the word “faggot” is an offensive term. There is absolutely no debate about “faggot” which undermines his argument about not having a racist bone in his body. He seems pretty comfortable using homophobic language when describing gays, then it also seems likely that he is just as familiar with the racial epithets.

Some argue that OK he may have used colorful language but this was a private email. He never intended for anyone other than Bruce Allen to read it.  This is a troubling argument because Gruden manages blacks, women and gays.  How can a person be a private racist and a public non-racist? Is that even possible? It is not something you can turn on and turn off whenever you move from public to private. If, as a work colleague, you have Gruden’s homophobic statements, how confident could you be that Gruden treats his gay employees fairly. At the bare minimum, it should make you suspicious.

You would think that someone would have reminded Gruden about his phrasing. From what I can determine, absolutely nobody said a word to him about his choice of words. None of these men owed their jobs to Gruden, they could speak freely without fear of losing their jobs.  Yet, they said nothing. Indeed, they carried on with their conversation as if this is the way they talk every day.  Conversations filled with racist, sexist and homophobic innuendo.

And, to their argument that Gruden doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.  These men probably believe it. They don’t see any harm in talking like this with other white men. They have a very narrow definition of racist. To them, a person has to be a member of the KKK or the Nazi party before a person can be considered a racist.  Every other White is basically OK.  Their casual racists remarks are forgiven.  He was just being funny. He doesn’t really mean it. He would never do anything to physically harm someone. The KKK is a racist but a white man noticing that a black man has big lips – that isn’t racist, it is observation.

So much for all these HR trainings having any effect on the workforce. Clearly Gruden and Allen need to attend another course.

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Why are we still debating about vaccinating people who have already had COVID? It is a small point but someone like Rand Paul harps on it anytime he gets a chance to spar with Dr. Fauci.

Sen Paul’s point is that someone who has had COVID has antibodies to COVID thus erasing most of the danger of getting COVID.  Antibodies are antibodies. Public Health officials go through horrible gyrations in their explanation of why people who have recovered from COVID still needs the COVID vaccine.  They give it the old college try and it is painful to see. After watching these people squirm I realized that Sen. Paul must be right.

So why argue about it? It is a  losing battle? More importantly, it isn’t going to have any impact on bringing down deaths from COVID.  If a person has had the disease, can prove it with an COVID antibody test that person is considered vaccinated. This would eliminate opposition from some of the people who are presently fighting vaccination.  Public Health officials then can focus on a much different group – people who have no antibodies to COVID. They are, after all, the people who need to get vaccinations.  And, as an added benefit, the government is giving them a choice about how they get their antibodies – they can either get COVID or get the vaccine.

To continue to argue about is insanity. Let’s save our time, energy and money for something that really matters.  This would save Public Health officials from looking like sputtering fools defending the indefensible and we shift the focus back to the problem – how to keep people who don’t have antibodies from getting the disease. It is a very small bone to throw to anti-vaccers. But a bone is a bone.  It would have little impact, if any, on the spread of COVID. So why argue about it. What worries me is that the pro-vaccinators have lost their patience with anti-vaccers to such an extent that they continue to fight a losing battle because they now want submission . They want everyone vaccinated and that is that. I understand the frustration but it seems to me a stupid battle. A hill not worthy of dying on.

Let’s choose our battles wisely.