In 9 months, Stern is gone. Silver appears gay, but who knows. I think a small fine, like $10K, would have been appropriate.
Wow, 75K is pretty excessive... How come he didn't get fined for his comments here, at 0:55? [video=youtube;hi60QeNjIDk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi60QeNjIDk[/video]
Here is a take from the gay blog AmericaBlog - which makes good points. To whom was he "apologizing"?
This is not a good enough apology? (He apologizes to those who he has offended) I am apologizing for insensitive remarks made during the postgame press conference after our victory over Miami Saturday night… They were disrespectful and offensive and not a reflection of my personal views. I used a slang term that is not appropriate in any setting, private or public, and the language I used definitely has no place in a public forum, especially over live television. I apologize to those who I have offended, to our fans and to the Pacers’ organization. Starting to fall on the "both teams played hard" camp.
We are a pretty sensitive society in general, but a gay man I know asked me this question this morning when I asked how big of a deal this really was. he said "Imagine your son went to a school with mostly brown haired kids, and was picked on and ridiculed every day simply because he was born with blonde hair, or something he had no choice in.....How would that make me and my son feel?"
And then people would describe something like a meal and say...It's a little light on top. No towhead.
If he said "yo hetero" would he still have been fined? I was surprised by this as I understood "no homo" to be short hand for "not in a homosexual way" and usually used after close contact with someone of the same sex. Is homosexual a forbidden word now? Or just the homo part? If Griner said "no hetero" would she be fined? The rules keep changing and someone needs to put out a PC manual so we can keep up with the changes. I totally get the fines for "F*ggot" and similar words. They have no place at all. I just get concerned with the list starts expending into definitional words.
The problem with PC manuals is that they go obsolete so quickly. It's like Moore's law--the number of words we can't say doubles every two years.
Or the phrase "pause" which is essentially the same thing from a young street hustler standpoint. Like if he said "the defender really stretched me out. pause". perhaps putting words using "air quotes" will soon be the next homophobic/racist/sexist "gesture".
I would never in a million years ascribe sexual content to Hibbert talking about defending LeBron James. Not only did Hibbert somehow do so but then felt the need to tell the world he's not gay, which never came up and is irrelevant and only makes sense if you consider being thought gay (when talking about something completely non-sexual) is really really awful. At BEST it was a very stupid comment.
So is it the word he used, or the content that is offensive? It sounds like what you are saying is that declaring yourself heterosexual in relation to playing defense could be worth a big fine? I don't disagree that it was probably a stupid thing to say in an interview, but I don't think it compares to Kobe's statement.
well, many youths would. [video=youtube;4g2gaCkuKLo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4g2gaCkuKLo[/video]
That's what I was going to say. It is a very very common slang term used by young people < 30, often said after describing your love and/or affinity for somebody of the same sex. While I agree there is a time and place for everything (stupid comment considering), at some point we need take the power away from derogatory and slang terms by not making such a big deal about them.
The only issue with that is that it's usually the people they do not refer to that say we need to make them not a big deal.
yeah, the most popular usage of it is when Kanye West, like 3 years ago had a song with Jay-Z and Rhianna.... [video=youtube;yVA-xTBeHyM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVA-xTBeHyM[/video]
this thing is 6 years old already. [video=youtube;RUCbPvP5H9k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUCbPvP5H9k[/video]
Zero additional kids were beaten up because of the "no homo" remark. The NBA and others get to feel good about themselves without dealing with the actual problems which I agree are real.
