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Racism or accidental spoonerism?

 
 
 
If it was a Spoonerism it would have been "Martin Luther Coonyer Jing"

What he said might have been something he's heard others say often enough that it stuck in his mind. It makes you wonder who his friends are.
 
"Martin Luther Coon" is a pretty old slur that folks have used since the 60s.

On the other hand, that's a pretty big fuckup for a professional in broadcast, so I guess I don't really know in the end. I'd need to know more about the dude before making a judgement.
 
Racism is not so easily discovered.

The racist proclaims his anti-racism loudly.

Production of language is imperfect.

To read evil intent into mere misspeaking is insanity.
 
Mumbles said:
"Martin Luther Coon" is a pretty old slur that folks have used since the 60s.

On the other hand, that's a pretty big fuckup for a professional in broadcast, so I guess I don't really know in the end. I'd need to know more about the dude before making a judgement.
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I struggle to come up with a motive for why the guy would deliberately do this. Was he supposed to be thinking like "Hey, let me see if I can destroy my career and reputation by uttering a single word that will accomplish nothing except giving the grievance mongers on the internet something to talk about for a few days." Perhaps if he now tries to use his celebrity as a racist to run for Klan Kleagle or something you can argue it was planned.

But barring that it seems far more likely it was an accident.

You can argue the fact he was carrying this around in his subconscious close enough to the surface it slipped out means he is a racist if you like.
 
The more fundamental question here is why are we even celebrating MLK at all? He was in favor judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. We are in a new paradigm these days, where skin color is the most important attribute of a person apparently.
 
I occasionally watch black youtubers who rant about politics, both from the right and left (Boyce Watkins, Tariq Nasheed, Anthony Brian Logan). It is just about the only time I ever hear the word coon is from them often as "cooning".

For sure white racists still use it, but I think that for most whites it is off their radar. But the weatherman is not young so maybe some residual usage from his childhood, depending on the crowd he ran with or his family.

At any rate, was this incident really well investigated by his employer? I have no idea. If he was a nice guy then the speed of his firing is really bad. If he was a scumbag creepy harasser or rude and arrogant, then this was a good pretext.
 
can't watch the vid so my comment might be stupid... but if the sentence was something like "Martin Luther King will soon be....", and it came out "Martin Luther Koon be...".. then that is totally understandable... it's like the most common form of mispronunciation... reversing the last syllable of one word with the fist syllable of the next word... there is probably a word for that...
 


Notice he worked for local Rochester NBC and was interviewed by local CBS.
 
dismal said:
I struggle to come up with a motive for why the guy would deliberately do this. Was he supposed to be thinking like "Hey, let me see if I can destroy my career and reputation by uttering a single word that will accomplish nothing except giving the grievance mongers on the internet something to talk about for a few days." Perhaps if he now tries to use his celebrity as a racist to run for Klan Kleagle or something you can argue it was planned.

But barring that it seems far more likely it was an accident.

You can argue the fact he was carrying this around in his subconscious close enough to the surface it slipped out means he is a racist if you like.
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Probably an accident. And unless something else comes out, an overreaction to fire him, imo (and possibly counter-productive in the fight against racism). If we are going to punish subconscious racism (assuming it even was that) almost everybody is at risk, perhaps especially liberal, do-gooder, non-jungle bunny types like me who may mistakenly assume we're not racist.
 
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In this article he says he inadvertently combined the "King and Junior" into a sound people misinterpreted as "coon".

Kappell told “Today” that he inadvertently combined the words “king” and “junior.”

“Two words mashed together incorrectly. What I said wasn’t even a word, it was a sound — people, I believe, read into that,” Kappell said.
Click to expand...

But, regardless, I guess its too late to tape his head back on.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/al-roker-defends-meteorologist-accused-214200217.html
 
dismal said:
In this article he says he inadvertently combined the "King and Junior" into a sound people misinterpreted as "coon".

Kappell told “Today” that he inadvertently combined the words “king” and “junior.”

“Two words mashed together incorrectly. What I said wasn’t even a word, it was a sound — people, I believe, read into that,” Kappell said.
Click to expand...

But, regardless, I guess its too late to tape his head back on.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/al-roker-defends-meteorologist-accused-214200217.html
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking...

If I'm the one making the decision in the US, I don't care about what's fair to him. I'm looking at profit.

Being more generous...

He used a common slur that'll piss off a significant portion of the potential viewers? Then it's very easy to toss him out. Is this fair to him? No, but my concern is to maximize the money made, and if he pissed off a significant number of viewers, that's a major problem. That's just a danger of the US as it currently works -I've seen it before, I'm sure I'll see it again.
 
Mumbles said:
dismal said:
In this article he says he inadvertently combined the "King and Junior" into a sound people misinterpreted as "coon".

Kappell told “Today” that he inadvertently combined the words “king” and “junior.”

“Two words mashed together incorrectly. What I said wasn’t even a word, it was a sound — people, I believe, read into that,” Kappell said.
Click to expand...

But, regardless, I guess its too late to tape his head back on.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/al-roker-defends-meteorologist-accused-214200217.html
Click to expand...

Strictly speaking...

If I'm the one making the decision in the US, I don't care about what's fair to him. I'm looking at profit.

Being more generous...

He used a common slur that'll piss off a significant portion of the potential viewers? Then it's very easy to toss him out. Is this fair to him? No, but my concern is to maximize the money made, and if he pissed off a significant number of viewers, that's a major problem. That's just a danger of the US as it currently works -I've seen it before, I'm sure I'll see it again.
Click to expand...

I sorta agree, I'm just not sure there would have been much of a revenue impact from keeping the guy. I can't necessarily relate to the viewer of local news these days, but I don't picture it as someone who is really up to speed on the latest internet outrage mob.
 
dismal said:
Mumbles said:
Strictly speaking...

If I'm the one making the decision in the US, I don't care about what's fair to him. I'm looking at profit.

Being more generous...

He used a common slur that'll piss off a significant portion of the potential viewers? Then it's very easy to toss him out. Is this fair to him? No, but my concern is to maximize the money made, and if he pissed off a significant number of viewers, that's a major problem. That's just a danger of the US as it currently works -I've seen it before, I'm sure I'll see it again.
Click to expand...

I sorta agree, I'm just not sure there would have been much of a revenue impact from keeping the guy. I can't necessarily relate to the viewer of local news these days, but I don't picture it as someone who is really up to speed on the latest internet outrage mob.
Click to expand...

You might not, but advertisers probably do.
 
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