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 21^st 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.