Pernetti is out

[RichmondCuse]

Let me know when gay people are made slaves in this country for a couple hundred years, and then you might have a case. In the meantime, gay "slurs" don't come anywhere near the hate level that black people have endured in this country for generations. I'm not saying there isn't violence against gays, there obviously is. I saw Torch Song Trilogy, and Brokeback Mountain. Those kinds of stories are too real.

Like I said earlier in this post, I have probably half a dozen gay friends who I met through my wife who, like me, are around 50 years old. And I'm sure that none of them are as worked up about Mike Rice as some of you guys are. They are more concerned with things like equal rights, and ACTUAL gay bashing and gay-directed hate speech. Mike Rice's actions had NOTHING AT ALL to do with actual gay people, and whether he actually thought any of his players were gay.

And to finish the comparison, NO ONE AT ALL calls people "niggers" in the way that people use faggot, puszy and wimp, etc., or with similar meaning.

This will be my last response in this thread, because I doubt you or anyone of a similar viewpoint will ever change your mind. But, to try and explain this as simply as possible. When you call a non-gay person "gay" or a "faggot" you are implying that they are "like" a gay person (ie not manly, etc.). So by using the word, you're offending gay people.

It would be like, if you had xyz qualities that others found undesirable - and so any time they met someone like you, they said "Wow, you're a real IthacaMatt". I know this is extreme, but just imagine that example. If everyone around the world used that to describe someone else they thought shared your "flaws", you'd be offended and you'd have every right to be.

So, my point is - calling a non-gay person a "faggot" is still offensive to gay people.

 

[Mistakebythelake90]

Let me know when gay people are made slaves in this country for a couple hundred years, and then you might have a case. In the meantime, gay "slurs" don't come anywhere near the hate level that black people have endured in this country for generations. I'm not saying there isn't violence against gays, there obviously is. I saw Torch Song Trilogy, and Brokeback Mountain. Those kinds of stories are too real.

Like I said earlier in this post, I have probably half a dozen gay friends who I met through my wife who, like me, are around 50 years old. And I'm sure that none of them are as worked up about Mike Rice as some of you guys are. They are more concerned with things like equal rights, and ACTUAL gay bashing and gay-directed hate speech. Mike Rice's actions had NOTHING AT ALL to do with actual gay people, and whether he actually thought any of his players were gay.

And to finish the comparison, NO ONE AT ALL calls people "niggers" in the way that people use faggot, puszy and wimp, etc., or with similar meaning.

And yet you want to talk about false equivalence. No one is saying that Slavery=Homosexuality. No one is saying that Nword=wimp. Frankly, it is this sort of ambivalence to the word that is the most damning argument against it at all. "Oh, Mike Rice didn't mean to call his players gay, he was just looking for an insult to use at them." Of course he wasn't literally saying that his players were looking to have sexual relations with another male. But none the less, he picked a word that is insulting to people. It is hurtful exactly because people use it as a casual insult, and then people like you get upset when others take offense to it.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Just because a word has other meanings doesn't mean it is ok to use it as a slur. You are missing the forest for the trees. Whether or not the N word ever had another meaning is not relevant to the comparison. At one point, it was considered socially acceptable to use the N word. Now it is not. At one point it was socially accepted to call someone a fag/use it to describe other things. Now it is not.

Even granting that fag has/had other connotations, please tell me the last time that it was used in anything other than a derogatory manner. And please tell me that Mike Rice meant to use it as anything other than an insult. If you truly feel like fag isn't an insult, and that you use it in every day language, then I'm sorry that society has deemed it unfit for your use. I wish that I could cuss up a storm in public, but I can't. Is this one word really worth the moral crusade though? Are you really that invested that you think it should be ok to use a term that some people find derogatory? The fact is, the one negative connotation has far overriden any other uses of the word. Use it how you want in private, but public employees cannot say this word in any context.

No, the N word hasn't been socially acceptable in 160 years. So your first paragraph is off target.

I don't call people "fags" if they are being wimpy, annoying, etc. - all the behaviors for which people of a certain age, at a certain time, used those phrases (and some still use those phrases). I admit that I did so when I was about 8 years old, but it didn't mean the same thing as it does now.

The issue here is about intent. Was Mike Rice intending to insult those players? Yes, he was. No question about it. Did he use "fag" and "puszy" in demeaning ways? Yes, he did. Do you think women should be offended that he used the term "puszy", too? As Betty White said, "I don't know why people think puszy means weak - those things can really take a beating."

 

[IthacaMatt]

This will be my last response in this thread, because I doubt you or anyone of a similar viewpoint will ever change your mind. But, to try and explain this as simply as possible. When you call a non-gay person "gay" or a "faggot" you are implying that they are "like" a gay person (ie not manly, etc.). So by using the word, you're offending gay people.

It would be like, if you had xyz qualities that others found undesirable - and so any time they met someone like you, they said "Wow, you're a real IthacaMatt". I know this is extreme, but just imagine that example. If everyone around the world used that to describe someone else they thought shared your "flaws", you'd be offended and you'd have every right to be.

So, my point is - calling a non-gay person a "faggot" is still offensive to gay people.

Fine. I understand and accept that. But you should acknowledge that his comment had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the player was actually gay. And that none of this is really equivalent to calling people the N word. Not even in the same ballpark.

 

[jec1521]

Fine. I understand and accept that. But you should acknowledge that his comment had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the player was actually gay. And that none of this is really equivalent to calling people the N word. Not even in the same ballpark.

Here's the bottom line. I get your point that Mike Rice isn't actually a homophobe and his intent wasn't to insult the players because of their sexuality, but rather to question their "manhood" and toughness. i get all of that. But at the end of the day the word "faggot" was screamed at college students in multiple practices by a basketball coach at a public school. That's completely over the top and offensive. His intent means nothing.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

In my experience, the "toughen up" crowd are the first ones to revolt if someone in power treats their child harshly or differently. If Bobby Knight throws a chair at some recruit, he had it coming. If Bobby Knight throws a chair at their kid, he's an abusive a-hole that doesn't know his a** from a hole in the ground.

Hiroki Kuroda spells out what going through the Japanese baseball academies was like.

That is a very apropos. The old school coaches thought letting someone drink water during training was a sign of weakness and should not be tolerated...that is like saying driving a car without gas will make the car run more efficiently . Remember that vikings lineman not too long ago that died because drinking water was not considered "tough" during hot august camp practices?

Likewise, some of the old schoolers believe that abusing and belittling kids, including physical slapping and verbal denigration will somehow bring the best out of them...i guess like swinging two bats in the on deck circle..."shoot, if i abuse him to the point of breaking him down in practice, then in a game, adversity will seem like child's play"

they are both flawed concepts that should have gone the way of the dinosaur. ..and for the most part have. yet and still, in some circles these concepts continue to rule the day, just like in some circles evolution is not real

 

[cuse522]

To everyone defending the use of gay slurs because he was not using them to describe the players' sexuality, I would make the case that is even worse.

To use those words in that way means that you think that if somebody is gay they cannot be tough, that they are a weak individual. It furthers a misconception that is not only unfair to gay and bisexual individuals, but also causes many of them to stay in the closet if they play sports.

 

[IthacaMatt]

Here's the bottom line. I get your point that Mike Rice isn't actually a homophobe and his intent wasn't to insult the players because of their sexuality, but rather to question their "manhood" and toughness. i get all of that. But at the end of the day the word "faggot" was screamed at college students in multiple practices by a basketball coach at a public school. That's completely over the top and offensive. His intent means nothing.

Yes, I completely agree. But there's no reason to be excessive in the comparisons that accompany his condemnation. We get it. But people need to be a little thicker skinned, too. We've got a generation of whiny complainers who take offense at every little thing.

Rice deserved to be fired because he was an to the kids on his team and treated them terribly, apart from the actual words he used to belittle them.

 

[TexanMark]

Pernetti was fired because he made a very poor decision in December not to fire Coach Rice, no matter what the in house counsel advised him to do. Counsel was there to advise, not to make the decision for him.

And he chose poorly.

Exactly...his job was to watch over for the kids in the program. He failed to protect them. Something very rotten in Piscataway.

And if you think I'm a bleeding heart liberal...I'm not but I've been involved in training some pretty tough dudes while in the military and we don't do anything close to that with our forces. The only exception is some of most elite snakeaters get much rougher treatment but they are all volunteers and know what they are getting in. Rice was so far off the edge he would've been fired 30 years ago too.

 

[Townie72]

I honestly don't know how to explain this to you if you don't understand it. Just because the Redskins team has been around for however long doesn't change the meaning of the word. The team name is a derogatory term used to describe Native Americans - as evidenced by the picture on their helmet. I don't know how I can spell it out any better than that.

It may come as a surprise to you, but there are people whose opinions are different from yours. You do not have a monopoly on the truth. The fact that it is your opinion does not make it correct.

Let me be clear.

To the overwhelming majority of people, The Redskins mascot has nothing to do with American Indians regardless of the symbol on the helmet. The word, for these people, has lost its original meaning. No matter how absolutely obvious it is to you, others disagree. You are not right and they are not wrong.

The people that are exercised by this are trying to pick a meaningless fight to get press coverage. Or they are part of the Liberal movement to expunge every word from the language that they imagine might offend anyone anywhere. Most of America laughs at these people. They realize just how silly and non-consequential this stuff is.

 

[HarrisonJBounel]

Wonder who else will get the can

What does it say about our society when people are out for blood on this (and rightfully so), but the former Governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine, who stole $1.6 billion from his investors in MF Global, is walking around a free man, and no one seems to care?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MF_Global

 

[AluminNV]

I honestly don't know how to explain this to you if you don't understand it. Just because the Redskins team has been around for however long doesn't change the meaning of the word. The team name is a derogatory term used to describe Native Americans - as evidenced by the picture on their helmet. I don't know how I can spell it out any better than that.

Totally. If its going to be criminal to say f*g there shouldn't be a team called the "redskins." And I am not saying homophobia should be socially acceptable or anything but there will always be some casual references to sexuality in the diction of most males, especially when they are in a situation where the behavior and language is natually going to have a "macho" or "locker room - esque" tone to it. Homophobia has no place in the work place or a class room. But on an athletic field in a contact sport the setting is different and its a run of the mill and very normal and mundane insult/trash talk/put down/joke etc etc etc.


If we can't be the Orangemen (and we have absolutely no affiliation to Republicans in Northern Ireland the name was inspired by a freakin fruit) a pro team shouldn't be allowed to call themselves the redskins...and have a logo that is defamatory towards Indians/Native Americans (some do prefer the term Indian.) I see no argument for why Orangemen is not OK but Redskins is. And feel free to tell me why I am wrong and Orangemen is bad but Redskins isn't.

If the redskins is an appropriate name tell your kids to go into school and start referring to Native Americans as redskin indians and see if the teachers approve...


That said most Indian/Native American people aren't that sensitive. I know in North Dakota most Native Americans/Indians got livid when UND caught heat for being the Fighting Sioux since most saw it as a positive and a tribute. However the UND logo didn't mock Indian people like the Cleveland Indians or Washington Redskins logo does.

(LOL I had an ex-GF who was a teacher and from DC and a very grown up and mature person unlike myself and I used to LOVE trolling her about how racist she was against native americans for being a fan and wearing the garb etc etc etc mostly just to amuse myself.)