In case anyone doesn't know, Jon Gruden, who was head coach of the NFL team, the Las Vegas Raiders, has stepped down due to emails that he sent in 2011 that had racial slurs, homophobic slurs, and hate speech toward women.
What does everyone think about in terms of time lines, meaning, how far back can you go on someone to get them fired? Makes me think of what some people say and do in finance, or other jobs. As Bill Burr says, if everyone's text were published, none of us would be able to go to work on Monday.
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Super soft. You can’t say anything slightly offensive to anyone now a days or you’ll get blasted.
facts
they were looking for a reason to shitcan him
there's no way this was the worst stuff to come out of the WFT investigation
Example A of what I'm talking about - Too many people now want carte blanche permission to be the biggest assholes possible with no repercussions.
While I'll concede we haven't seen the actual emails, he degraded women in football, gays in football, and black lives. If that is "slightly offensive", what type of written emails would warrant his firing?
Let me preface by saying I am black and I do understand the extent that centuries of systemic racism has had on my community. With that being said, I feel like cancel culture and DEI is being forced on us these days. I make a lot of jokes to friends in private that may come off as offensive to someone who does not know me. However, I would never call a homosexual the f word or a white person the c word, etc. It’s just not in my vocabulary. There’s no joking about that. It’s very possible that 2021 Gruden is not the same as 2011 Gruden but in today’s time, you can’t slip up once. What really killed him is the showed a pattern of making derogatory comments towards women, homosexuals, black people, etc. Maybe He got away with it before because he was the great Jon Gruden. But once again, people have to stop acting like “it was 10 years ago give him a break”…it still happened. If someone broke your nose 10 years ago then told you to “give me a break” how would you feel?
What’s the c word for white person?
Cracker I guess
Yeah, it's one thing to make a dark joke every once in a while, but to show a pattern (as recent as 2018) shows that its an implicit part of him, and because of that, Gruden should have no role leading a team predominantly made up of black men and the NFL's only openly gay player.
Yeah, it isn't a slip up at all and it wasn't that long ago, especially considering his age. Someone 30 years old saying something racist 10 years ago is very different than a grown men saying something ten years ago.
Still feel uncomfortable that he was pushed out when no one (to my knowledge) directly complained about his conduct.
5-6 emails over the past 10 years is a consistent pattern?
well said
I'd also argue it shows a lack of judgment. I make plenty of off color jokes to my friends, but why in the fuck would you ever email that kinda thing around?
This is a generational thing. Young guns here dont remember - but when email first went mainstream in workplaces in the 90s to early 2000s it was the wild west of forwarding what would today be considered very offensive material
The analogy is poor because if you broke someone's nose they would have reported you right away and you also caused physical harm to that person. In the case of Gruden, no one reported him or took offense in the things he was saying - this emails came up in an unrelated investigation. So basically the NFL decides to publish outdated unrelated emails to can the guy. This misses also the context of the 2011 email which was a very stressful time in Gruden's career. I'm not saying that gives a person a green light to do anything they want, but context is important in determining whether he is discriminatory and if he is, how much. And if we are able to determine that he was a closet racist at the time, it still doesn't provide much insight into how he is 10 years later. People's attitudes, perceptions, etc. change all the time so it's flawed to act like his personality is static.
Probably because the email chain was full of other old white dudes like him? Pretty sure he didn't email his black and gay players a list of his jokes and grievances against their communities.
Agree to an extent. If you're 29 years old, you're probably not the same person that you were at 19 years old. If you're 57 years old, you're probably the same asshole that you were at 47 years old.
>What really killed him is the showed a pattern of making derogatory comments towards women, homosexuals, black people, etc.
What was this "pattern of behavior"? Wasn't it a few emails over 15 years?
This...
what you going to do if someone broke your nose ten years ago? you'll do absolutely nothing.
If someone broke your nose 10 years ago then told you to "give me a break" how would you feel?
In the end, this is a question of individual/society morality. The penalty should have some sort of proportionality. There was a time that, not long ago, that even rape was widely accepted in war/marriage(not even 500 years ago even in day-to-day life). Nowadays. I am pretty sure that everyone on this forum will think that if he raped someone 10 years he should be fired and be basically unemployable from most jobs and this is great. If someone broke another people's nose 10 years ago, I would say that most people think that he should not have his position on the team but he should have some sort of okay-ish job. Now let's say that someone is walking very fast looking at his phone bump into you and brokes your nose, should the downside be the same? At the end that is a very interesting question what should be the penalty for someone that said something bad on social media at some moment of the time? I do not really think that nowadays we have an equilibrium solution today yet, as a society this is probably going to change in the future, we are still aggregating society's power over preferences of morality to punish someone.
Sure, some people think that they are god present to earth and comment on the internet should be punished with homelessness and other people think that even nazi apologists should not have any punishment whatsoever because words do not hurt, free speech, etc, what is kind of an absurd. I would guess that probably both are wrong we are going to see a reasonable equilibrium in the next decades.
Wasnt even a good coach anyways, good riddance
50 year old dude from a different generation with a boomer mentality that you could just bomb off whatever on emails and it have zero risk. Remember, 2011 was before cancel culture for this stuff really went mainstream - and majority of a guy like Grudens life were when comments like this between private parties would have absolutely zero consequence.
For a public figure like Gruden (or any CEO, politician, etc.) being 'clean' is part of your job description, so tbh dont have an issue with him being forced to resign here. Tough to command a locker room and respect from players with this stuff out there. That said save me the holier than thou attitude. This communication was private between Gruden and what I imagine was a friend. Imagine if you had the worst of the worst of your texts, emails, group chat messages, social media posts, etc. dug through from the past 10-15 years with absolutely zero context - would you fare much better than Gruden here? Doubt so. Eventually we as a society need to agree that we all have skeletons in our closet and to be a little more open and forgiving with some of these past transgressions. Proliferation of social media has made the world and what's 'acceptable' move really really fast. If you are older then yea, you will likely be passed by.
I agree with you but just pointing out it was written on work email.
I would just like to think how this affects everyone at large going forward. At what point will people have to be squeaky clean to hold different positions?
For example, same something came out about Jamie Dimon that he did 50 years ago in school, has he built up enough good will by now?
The lip-thing is a non-issue (anyone who disagrees has lips the size of Michelin tires).
He was right about the Michael Sam thing. I though queer was an acceptable term now?
I’m pretty sure Goodell is straight but he sure does love fucking the league in the ass.
I hate D&I initiatives as much as the next guy but you're making it sound like this was a one time thing. Dude spouted sexist, homophobic, and racist stuff for years, up to very recently, and some of it was pretty harsh. I'm sure you wouldn't make racist remarks about, the black guy you're having a tough business relationship with, in an email with a coworker. You'd get fired. Not sure why this is any different.
What did he say that was sexist?
How is the lips thing racist?
Because the inference is that he means that all black people have large lips. It is not much different from commenting on a Jew's nose or an Asian's eyes. These comments are never meant to be flattering. They are meant as an insult.
it's impossible to know his intent, but regardless of skin color, making an ad hominem (or ad corpus haha) attack about a high ranking official in a professional setting (work emails) is idiotic
If you are dumb enough to put racist, sexist and homophobic things in an email, you are probably not smart enough to be a head coach anyway.
Same league where players who have been proven to hit women, hit children, and also take another players helmet and beat him with it cashed game checks on Sunday.
Same league that also had to be told it might not look great to give a longer suspension to someone who "may" have deflated a football then to someone on tape punching their girlfriend on an elevator.
He literally did nothing wrong...
Please elaborate
None of his leaked statements are controversial or wrong....
If they want to hold Gruden accountable for what he said 10 years ago then it’s time they hold accountable the almost 80 NFL players arrested for domestic violence that are currently still in the league
Holding black men accountable for committing violent crime is a racist attack on queer jabbed bodies of black lives of indigenous color. Instead, we must purge ourselves of unclean thoughts and conclusions that can be drawn from such.
Dont forget - it's only straight white men in positions of power who have ever shared jokes that aren't offensive to some 'other' group, which now I guess includes women too. It is the world of the oppressed vs straight white men, who are out to get them all
Most salient point that's being missed here that has nothing to do with "cancelling" or anything else - there is absolutely no way the players on his team would continue to play for him after this. Everyone forgets that beyond being a public figure he is the coach of ~100 NFL players, the majority of whom are black and one of whom is openly gay. There is just no way he could continue in that role after this.
No way they’d play for him with such low pay they receive. They can storm off the field and become doctors or bankers if they are treated like that in private emails!
Right, football players never hold out. Also, ownership's ideal situation is to maintain a situation in which the players hate the coach so that they can score some sort of weird political points. That's excellent sports team management - no coach has ever before been fired because he lost the faith of the players.
Anyone defending Gruden here clearly hasn't read the emails or are also bad people like him. One of the emails was a picture of naked Washington cheerleaders that were taking during a forced photoshoot in Costa Rica. As in, Dan Snyder literally took their passports and didn't let them leave until they did the shoot. Literally some Dubai / Saudi Arabia shit.
Also the fact that Dan Snyder still owns a team is concerning. Dude is a menace and documented sexual predator.
Have you read the emails? Sounds like you have privileged information here, since the emails haven't been released.
Not defending Gruden btw...
Relevant parts are available on any news article covering the story - honestly doesn't seem like a lot of people have even read those. You simply cannot say that you don't think teams should draft "queers." Not only is it fucking terrible, it also means he's not going to be objective in terms of drafting / talent scouting, and that he's not going to be a proper leader for gay players on his team like Nassib.
Washington cheerleaders thing is also extremely bad, especially since it's been an open secret (and now a verified fact) in the NFL that Washington cheerleaders used to be regularly pimped out as escorts on foreign trips when they didn't have their passports.
Dan "Pillow Biter" Snyder
Dan "Hold 'em Tighter" Snyder
Dan "Rough Rider" Snyder
Dan "Hymen Collider" Snyder
Dan "The Cheek Divider" Snyder
Dan "Cheerleader Sodomizer" Snyder
Dan "We've got a fighter" Snyder
Dan "Deep Inside Her" Snyder
Dan "No Lube Required" Snyder
Dan "The Overnighter" Snyder
Dan "If you have a daughter, you'd better hide her" Snyder
My apologies. I got confused. I thought Dan Snyder was Dan Schneider.
We all make errors in judgment. Those should be forgiven.
Unfortunately, Gruden's case shows not only errors in judgment, but also errors in principles. Those are much harder to forgive.
what about the players that support BLM, the organisation that resulted in at least 18 black people dying, rioting, looting, etc. should we can them too?
On the one hand, you have some guy being a dick and making inappropriate comments. On the other hand, you have the disciples of cancel culture pulling their hair out and crying foul. In the end, nothing was gained. Society was not improved. Workplace conditions haven't gotten better. Relations between people of different viewpoints and backgrounds haven't improved as a result of this incident either. America as usual treating the symptom that's so far downstream from the actual cause while it continues to decay from the inside. It's funny but absurd.
A lots been said already but here’s another point:
If your boss is looking into workplace misconduct
And found out you called him an “weak anti-football pussy” and a “f@&&%t”, passing around topless pics of female employees
and you never said any of that to his face
I wouldn’t be surprised if that person was fired
Shows how much you know about the situation. Gruden wasn't even employed by the NFL during this, and the investigation into workplace conduct was years after the emails - as much as a decade after.
So wrong on basically every account
he was on MNF, a high profile position
Kareem Hunt, Ray Rice, Justin Blackmon, Josh Gordon. Few random examples
A collective group who will never make the money Gruden did in his career. They have clauses that their contract get cancelled vs a guy who prolly got paid 70mm to leave this week and “resign on his terms”.
All of them had one or at most a few lapses in judgment. All this super powerful rich dude had to do was filter his thoughts and not put on a public forum.
2011 was really a different time, you could probably get away with some of that stuff until maybe late 2012, some 2013. I think it wouldn't have been a big deal if they were text messages, but they were professional emails unless I am mistaken, so it sucks for him, but he should've known.
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