Monday, December 23, 2013

Bigotry is clear, Bigotry is bad, Bigotry must be opposed -- and Bigotry is bad for business

Some seem to be ambivalent about what hate is and is not; they flip flop rather than having actual core values.  The twist and blow with the wind.

Some seem to be ambivalent about what offensive is, which includes conservatives like Jindal, Palin, and of course the heartless and mindless right wing bubble.  They pander to the haters.

A lot of conservatives seem badly confused and misinformed about what the first amendment is and is not.

There seems to be no doubt that when a PR exec makes a racist statement, on her own time on her own twitter account, that it reflects badly on the brand that she represents, and that it could carry over to adversely affect the company's clients. 

That is pure capitalism.  Conservatives apparently approve of employees getting treated harshly when it is pure capitalism, when money is involved.  No screams of protest there about the 1st Amendment, hell no.

ABC's coverage of the exec firing, below, is significant, as ABC is one of the owners of A&E, the cable network that is making a lot of money from the Quack Dynasty programming.

While the offending tweet referenced AIDS and race, it could just as easily have referenced AIDS and homosexuality, as has happened so often in the past in hateful conservative comments - like this one:
AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.   - Jerry Falwell

Jerry Falwell's ignorance in relating AIDS to homosexuality is on a par with correlating the Black Plague where Christians blamed the epidemic on Jews, Gypsies, and 'foreigners'.  There was of course, no such actual correlation, much less a causational one.

Bigotry is not just hateful, it is consistently factually inaccurately wrong.

From ABC news:

Woman Fired After Tweet on AIDS in Africa Sparks Internet Outrage

Dec. 21, 2013
By KAMI DIMITROVA via World News

The communications director for the Internet giant that owns popular websites like Match.com, Dictionary.com, and Vimeo has been fired over "hateful statements" in a tweet that came from her account.
The tweet Friday from the account of Justine Sacco read:
"Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"
InterActive Corp, Sacco's employer, issued a statement to ABC News this afternoon distancing itself from the tweet and saying the employee was fired.
"There is no excuse for the hateful statements that have been made and we condemn them unequivocally," the InterActive Corp statement said. "We hope, however, that time and action, and the forgiving human spirit, will not result in the wholesale condemnation of an individual who we have otherwise known to be a decent person at core."
The controversy erupted while Sacco was reportedly mid-flight with no Internet access.
The star of Duck Dynasty, in contrast, has not only claimed that black people were happier and 'more godly' in the days of Jim Crow, where they couldn't vote, and were frequently beaten or lynched, a common right wing racist revisionist history that goes hand in hand with claiming that slavery wasn't bad; he has made gender insulting comments, like men shouldn't cook because that is 'women's work', and that men who do cook are 'girly men'.  He has compared homosexuality to terrorism, drug addiction, and bestiality.

And he refuses to apologize for his racist, sexist, and homophobic intolerant views.

At least the woman who made the offensive tweet has, in contrast apologized for what SHE did wrong.

Employers not only HAVE A RIGHT to fire employees who do things that reflect badly on their brand, other than those actions which are protected - like those which relate to fair labor conditions and compensation, they have an obligation to do so when the actions and words are damaging and harmful to a large spectrum of people.

That there is also a large body of people, on the right, who are ALSO hateful, doesn't change that.  A&E should require an apology before it airs another episode of Duck Dynasty.  And if no such apology and change in future behavior is promised, it should dump the show.

Otherwise, like Chick-fil-A, Paula Dean, and the other businesses which have demonstrated homophobia, and institutionalized it, A&E will find themselves on the wrong side of not only history, but their only real god on the right, capitalism.  Flip-flopping will only make that opposition to them worse.

No one is being forced at gun point, or under threat of imprisonment to recant their racist views, or their sexist views, or their homophobic views.  It is not hatred to dissent and oppose hatred and bigotry; it is a virtue to call it out for what it is, and to resist it.  Only conservatives have to try to confuse resisting bigotry with hatred, because they lack the integrity and value system to recognize their own failing and fault.  Instead they try to dress it up and give it legitimacy with religion.

But religion also repudiates their views.  We ALL should do so, and repudiate as well those who merchandize it.


Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)