The Scarlet "R": Accusations Of Racism (And Never Mind Whether There's Anything To Them)
This one isn't even plausible -- the notion that an ESPN announcer who isn't drunk off his ass or full-on nuts would use an ugly term to refer to a black woman.
At Acculturated, Kyle Smith writes about how a leap to a conclusion that an announcer made a racist remark seems to have rather rapidly ruined the announcer's career:
Doug Adler [is] a (former) ESPN sports announcer whose career was demolished because of a frenzied overreaction to his (correct) use of a single word: Guerilla. Adler was calling an Australian Open tennis match between Venus Williams (who is black) and Stefanie Voegele when he said,"You see Venus move in and put the guerilla effect on. Charging." Adler noted that "guerilla tennis" is a commonly used phrase and has been ever since a famous 1995 Nike TV spot of that title in which Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi hastily strung a tennis net across a busy city street and started playing right there.When Adler made his "guerilla" remark, a few Twitter users accused him of using the word "gorilla," their complaints amplified considerably by New York Times tennis writer Ben Rothenberg. "This is some appalling stuff. Horrifying that the Williams sisters remain subjected to it still in 2017." Wait, the Williams sisters, plural? Who said anything about Serena Williams? Rothenberg took one misunderstood word, turned it into an imaginary insult, then doubled the fantasy slur. When what Roth termed "the ecstasy of sanctimony" takes over, logic bows its head and retreats. Rothenberg's Tweet was re-Tweeted 142 times, reaching many thousands and apparently Adler's bosses.
Part of the problem is that Twitter isn't just an info-dispensing medium; it's a way for people to signal that they are aligned with a certain tribe and way of thinking. It's also a way for people to feel they are doing something while not doing anything much at all. (It's basically like going "High five!" or "Yick!" through a megaphone and then feeling like they've done their protest marching for the day and they can go get a beer.)
Smith asks the right question:
Whatever happened to the benefit of the doubt? How likely is it that a professional sports announcer, in 2017, would publicly refer to a black athlete as a "gorilla"? Why would anyone draw an inference that a gorilla was playing tennis? Even assuming Adler was the worst racist in the world, would he have been so stupid as to think he could get away with referring to a black person as an ape without consequence? Yet leaping to conclusions is rewarded by the pace of online communications: Be among the first to get angry, earn yourself lots of attention instantly, and if you happen to be completely wrong about what was said, no big deal, because everyone's attention has moved on to the next thing.Except that Adler was demolished. Adler said ESPN understood that he had used the word "guerilla," not "gorilla," finished his work for the day without incident and was eating lunch in the lounge the next day "when the boss showed up out of the blue," Adler told FoxNews.com. "He was bowing to pressure because it was all over Twitter." Ordered to apologize on ESPN, Adler did so, but was fired anyway. In so doing, ESPN effectively branded Adler a racist. Which pretty much means the end of one's career.
Here's that "guerilla tennis" spot.
Oh, and a NYT tennis writer hasn't heard of this term? Maybe the wrong guy lost his job?
> Part of the problem is that
> Twitter isn't just an info-
> dispensing medium; it's a way
> for people to signal that they
> are aligned with a certain
> tribe and way of thinking.
People have been shits to each other eternally, and they've done it through whatever media were at hand. Twitter is new, but so is this ferocious eagerness to demonstrate social distance from whatever tribe you happen to find distasteful.
The timbre of Twitter has really changed bitterly over the last five years, but so has the tone of the public conversation in all contexts. I can imagine turning away... There are only a handful of Twitter voices I'd miss. The loss of Andreessen last fall really stung, as has the absence of Iowahawk. And all the quipsters I loved best seem to have either burned out or gone politically sanctimonious.
But we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Twitter's not much younger than the internet itself, and it's easy to imagine something new and better coming along to work beside it, just as Twitter did with blogs and blogs did with email. Inexpensive point-to-global-multipoint communication is worth the occasional collapsed romance.
Crid (No More Dronekills) at March 16, 2017 1:59 AM
@Crid: Malicious gossip has been a part of society probably since humans developed language. At Pompey, ancient graffiti has been uncovered that is on par with what is heard in boys and girls H.S. locker rooms when teachers aren't around. What Twitter has done is added the spreed of electrons, global reach and anonymity of the Internet to replace gossip over the back fence and at the local coffee shop between neighbors. The twits of Twitter are free from social restraints to create a virtual Lord of the Flies culture. This is the dark side of the benefits brought by the Internet.
Wfjag at March 16, 2017 2:41 AM
Crid, given your eloquence and, um, vigor, have you seen anything of "shadowbanning" on Twitter?
Radwaste at March 16, 2017 4:21 AM
Gutless manager. ESPN should defend their employees out of principle. On top of that, a huge part of ESPNs audience would have responded positively to any sign of backbone, of resistance to the eternal SJW drumbeat.
However, ESPN itself, as a media organisation, is totally converged - pure SJWs - and cannot conceive of doing anything against the narrative.
a_random_guy at March 16, 2017 5:25 AM
And ESPN wonders why I don't pay them any money, and in fact, using my brother's credentials, pirate their streams as much as possible. I'd say I have no respect for them as a company, but I don't think it's possible to describe the lack of respect I have for them.
spqr2008 at March 16, 2017 5:49 AM
> seen anything of
> "shadowbanning"
Well, IIUC, we wouldn't know if we had.
Sailer and a few others have complained about quoted tweets described as "not available," but those are often presented to me just by clicking the quoted link. It's not impossible that some of what's being described as banning is just a tech problem.
But yeah, I'm ready to believe the worst about Dorsey & company as regards free expression. Humanity is almost certainly bringing every imaginable kind of filth to their platform, but that doesn't mean they'll have any particular skills or principles for cleaning it up.
Crid (No More Dronekills) at March 16, 2017 6:07 AM
tweets described as "not available," but those are often presented to me just by clicking the quoted link.
Same here.
Interestingly, they're now giving out those blue verifieds like they're Halloween candy. I am now "verified" and a lot of journalists and others are.
Amy Alkon at March 16, 2017 6:51 AM
Social Media Literally Yesterday:
Social Media Today:Crid (No More Dronekills) at March 16, 2017 7:07 AM
Twitter has been one of the leading proponents of trying to impose the broadcast model of media onto the Internet. In their vision, there will be a handful of content providers, and everyone else will be pretty much a passive listener, unable to have their tweets propagate beyond a walled garden that Twitter will build around them. Somewhere, Walter Cronkite is smiling.
As for ESPN, they discarded their broad-base appeal and went for the "urban, edgy" audience in the mid-1990s. And they've been losing audience share ever since. The sports audience no longer views ESPN as the go-to channel. Fox grabbed away football and NASCAR, and NBC Sports took hockey. Baseball went online and their audience is growing. And Sportscenter, deprived of the great talent it once had, no longer holds anyone's interest. A lot of cable customers have long resented that they pay for ESPN whether they watch it or not, and the result is that ESPN's audience share among cord-cutters is near zero.
Cousin Dave at March 16, 2017 7:47 AM
That's the first time I've ever heard a comparison of Twitter and broadcasting. Going to have to think about it.
From what I've read, ESPN is in desperate trouble financially. They're throwing Talent overboard because they have a number of unserviceable large debts with the leagues. 2017 was not going to be good to them anyway.
Crid at March 16, 2017 8:00 AM
Given ESPN admitted they were firing him over public pressure regardless of his failing to do anything wrong he would seem to have a wonderful lawsuit against them and the Times, thier writer personally, and a few twitter users, and theoretically Twitter itself
lujlp at March 16, 2017 8:32 AM
I only watch ESPN for the sports, and occasionally the (not) Top 10 plays lists.
They went full SJW quite a while back. First, they rid themselves of the behind the scenes people. Now they're looking to get rid of the expensive talent as their contracts come up.
They're contractually obligated as follow (to the best of my memory):
SEC, ACC, B10 (partial), Pac12 and Longhorn networks
NFL contract
NBA contract
MLB contract
X Games
Yes, they paid UT-Austin to broadcast all their sports. Both parties thought they'd be able to broadcast Texas high school football games, until other Big 12(-4+2) members pointed out that could be construed to be a recruiting inducement, and it had to be dropped.
Yeah, that turned out to be a fantastic deal. UTA made out like a bandit, their conference not so much, ESPN even worse.
I R A Darth Aggie at March 16, 2017 9:17 AM
There was a prof somewhere who got in big trouble (fired?) for using the word "niggardly". People have joked that pretty soon astronomers can't refer to a "black hole" and "in the black" as an accounting term is pretty dangerous too.
There is a long history of referring to unconventional warfare, like in Vietnam, as Guerilla Warfare, but of course to people who are ignorant of all history and never prone to reading, words are just things that make them feel a certain way. And if feelings are all that count, it doesn't matter if you used a word correctly if some idiots think it means something else.
cc at March 16, 2017 10:45 AM
*for using the word "niggardly".*
Late 90s - Washington, D.C. mayor Williams (black) accepted the resignation of an aide (white) for using the word in a meeting when an underling whined about it.
The resulting media slap-down for Hizzoner's ignorance caused him to rehire the aide. Not sure what happened to the race-baiting cohort who set the mayor up!
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at March 16, 2017 2:33 PM
Sadly, this kind of thing happens ALL the time.
Someone says something that an overly-sensitive person is "offended" by, and the ignorant person comes out on top and the innocent person is thrown out to the wolves.
charles at March 16, 2017 5:29 PM
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