The world is changing and a strong stand on the issue of bigotry must be taken. There is no wiggle room. If a situation is brought to light then it must be dealt with swiftly and unapologetically. If it goes unnoticed by a broadcast and a player files a complaint after the game an investigation should be launched to find the evidence to support such claims. In the 2 instances that were brought to light this season the evidence was out there for all to see in real time so the investigation was rather short. It doesn't matter what the situation is any employer in this country would be sued and take a huge PR mud in the eye if they do not act. I am as blue collar as it gets and it is common sense that you don't use slurs. I have kicked countless people out of my bars for using them. You are free to say what ever you want, but you must answer for what you say.
turning the other cheek and saying "boys will be boys" is not the solution, it is a large part of the problem. this is passive consent.
I have neither profanity nor bigotry to add to this thread. However... As a pedant note, your use of [sic] in this case is nearly the complete opposite of its actual meaning/usage.
[sic] is used when you quote a mistake. You place [sic] after to indicate that the mistake is not yours. BTW, 'pedant' is a grammarphobic slur, and I won't tolerate it.
Given the amount of emphasis the league has been putting on this (everyone's seen the commercial), it would have been entirely inconsistent for them NOT to have handed out a suspension. There's a fine but very important line between saying you "prefer the whore that is my sister" and dropping a gay or racial slur.
italian clubs used to do this when they suspected a conspiracy by league officials, or the refs gamed the first of two legs, etc. run out the u-16s or the u-11s or whatever. sounders just aren't that committed to their paranoia. if you only have one reason for hating that jermaine jones plays for the us, then you probably are in a minority. the suspension gets headlines. but when it's on a live mic or a close up, your whole tv audience sees it. and with youtube, if you miss it the first time, you can go back and watch it again and again. the headlines give a single event more exposure, but not issuing suspensions means you'll keep having "redacted" caught on live mics and condoned by the league on national broadcasts. "redacted" or "redacted" or whatever might be part of the game, but they do not have to remain part of the game. the game doesn't change if they just say "redacted you, you stupid redacted" without any of the identity group slurs thrown in. not for the players, not for the fans. so the sounders lack mental discipline. no wonder they lost 3-0. no, wait, you said earlier that allowing players to swear to blow off steam prevents them from blowing off steam via physical retaliation. so you can control what people do in the heat of the moment in an intense situation, even without doing any kind of policing. no, but they're more macho. so they have more testosterone in their bloodstream. so their judgement is impaired. so we should hold them to a lower standard. or they have less money to hire lawyers to sue their employers. of course there are white collar sectors where all sorts of nonsense transpires. agreed. the test is if a group of guys who are all friends use antigay expressions within their circle, and one guy in that group comes out, how do the others modify their behavior toward him. some will stop using antigay expressions in his company, some will continue to do so through force of habit but apologize immediately, and others will stop being his friend altogether. that last probably does equal hate. the practical issue is with gay people feeling comfortable coming out to a group of friends who use antigay expressions. or to coworkers, family, etc. or to groups who don't use antigay expressions, simply because so many other people, in so many different settings, do.
[quote="] no, but they're more macho. so they have more testosterone in their bloodstream. so their judgement is impaired. so we should hold them to a lower standard. or they have less money to hire lawyers to sue their employers. of course there are white collar sectors where all sorts of nonsense transpires. [/quote] All in all a good post. Not going to tackle the whole thing at once, I will jump in where I was mentioned. Agreed, thought the same thing while typing. There is more machismo running around in more manual labor no doubt, I would think a fight would break out more often in such cases. Nice call on the chemical side of it. Those things do take control on a group side of things.
Also like to commend this convo. 61 posts and nobody is in a tizzie. Nicely done there may be hope for us yet.
i was being a wise redacted. being athletic is probably less an issue than stress/pressure, so that high stakes finance guys probably have more in common with soccer players in a playoff match than either has with construction site workers. but now i'm wondering if... well, not if a macho tendency to make everything a contest or whatever is the issue so much as not having women around is the issue. guys were more inclined to cross the line in, say, 8th grade boys health than they were in 9th grade co-ed health (or any of the co-ed 8th grade classes) even if we were doing the drugs unit (vs the sex unit). there might be a biochemical explanation for that (pheromone antagonism) but a socio/anthro/psychological explanation strikes me as more likely (we'd be less likely to bully one another if there were girls to drool over... or is that a biochemical explanation?). if there is a higher incidence of anti-identity group slurs at blue collar workplaces than at white collar ones, i'd be more inclined to interpret that in terms of class mores than to attribute it the effects of hormones or other biochemicals. not because the working class is more likely than the middle to be bigoted, but because the middle class is more inclined to what douglas coupland called (in the context of white collar workplaces, iirc) "the ketchup bottle effect."