Thursday, November 01, 2007

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

So I was intrigued this morning by this story. And really, I feel like this language business has gone too far. I'm not a fan of the N-word. I don't use and I don't like others using it in my presence and I let them know that. Rolo will be taught that such language is not acceptable in our household. And guess what? That's a choice I made. Others may make different choices.

This man, Dog I guess they call him, seems to be a celebrity of some sort. Perhaps that means he should expect to have his phone conversations recorded, especially these days. But it was a private conversation. He didn't say this while working, as far as I can tell, unlike that Don Imus guy. As vial as the word might be to you and I, it's not illegal to say in the privacy of your own home. What I don't like is the media jumping all over this man and condemning him (as ironically he predicted in his conversation) to be blackballed and jobless. His show is suspended, pending an investigation. An investigation of what? How he chooses to conduct his life off-camera?

I think we lose sight sometimes that this is a free country and people can choose to say and do things we don't like. Where it becomes unacceptable, at least in my mind, is when what they say or do infringes on other people's rights and comforts. It's not like the guy was running some sort of slave trade out of his house. I think it's inappropriate to try to censor what people say privately, which is essentially what the media is trying to do. If this guy was out in public, let's say like Mel Gibson's little drunken anti-Semetic rant, well, that might be fair game. Mel was a famous person out in public saying stuff to a cop with whom he had no personal relationship. Yeah, you might expect someone to record that. But a conversation between a father and son?

This Dog person didn't do anything illegal as far as I know, and while his language may be deplorable, what I find more deplorable is that someone recorded it without his knowledge or consent and that the media is hell-bent on vilifying him. I watched CNN for a little over an hour this morning and do you know how many times this story aired? Four. Four times. They want people to be upset with what this guy said. And frankly, I don't want the media insuating that I should be offended by what some semi-famous guy said in private. Because do you have any idea how offended everyone would be we all knew what everyone else says and does in private?

Now this Dog guy has to do this dog-and-pony show (no pun intended) meeting with Black leaders to show how truly remorseful he is. When you know he's not. I mean he essentially laid out in the recorded conversation that he uses the N word all the time and was only afraid, not of it offending anyone, but of it costing him his fortune.

Rant over. Feel free to send me your hatemail.

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1 Comments:

At 8:23 AM, Blogger Christy said...

I am not in favor of celebs who have said something discriminatory then meeting with leaders from the community and trying to make amends by doing so.

Isiah Washington meeting with GLAAD and doing PSAs was stupid. Last week on Oprah, she read a statement from Tim Hardaway's people saying that he does volunteer work with gay teens (this was in response to his comments about hating gay people back when Amici came out).

It's stupid. I don't believe for a second that these people are sorry they used these words or said these things. They're just sorry they got caught.

As for Dog the Bounty Hunter, I so don't care what he says. I don't care what he says in his home, I don't care if it was recorded. There are so many more important things the news should be covering. This surely isn't it.

 

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