“He used words, expressions, and allusions that for the past five centuries were an integral component of governmental and social systems to demean individuals and groups according to their skin color or ethnicity and maintain a white supremacist legal and social order. But he did it just because he was justifiably angry at this one individual, so that means he is not racist.”
If he isn’t racist, why did he need, in a tweet accompanied by a photo of one person, to refer to her as “a black girl”? There’s only one girl in the picture, indeed, one person, in the picture. He called out her race, other people’s race, his own race…
I hope the lady in the picture sues him for defamation.
Why don’t you tell that to Anthony Cumia, who is the one who used the term “the black community”?
For what it’s worth I would bet the word he didn’t repeat was the C word not the N word. not that that makes it any better.
What’s a six letter C word with repeating letters in the middle? I hate this Wheel of Fortune shit.
Cumia’s been a racist for years. This isn’t the first time he’s made racist comments and it won’t be his last. It’s just that this time, he did it loud and long enough that it couldn’t be laughed off as a one time joke.
As far as firing him goes, Cumia has a radio show. His ability to put on a radio show is predicated on his attracting sponsors and advertisers. If he pisses everyone off and his sponsors decide that he’s a jerk and they don’t want to associate with him - then he’s not going to get time on major radio channels (no, not even on Sirius, which is trying to sell subscriptions in addition to advertising). That’s showbiz.
All the talk of thread splitting has me confused as to where to post. But I think you can call anyone a “savage” or an “animal” as an insult (or even just an accurate descriptor based on their negative behavior) and it does not intrinsically have to be racist just because of your skin color versus the other person’s skin color.
That being said, I also think you can be calling a black person a savage or an animal because you’re being racist and are suggesting blacks aren’t human but some sub human type. I think that’s what Anthony Cumia did, so he was being a racist.
Probably the most racist thing I’ve heard from a public figure was Mel Gibson’s insane phone rant with his girlfriend (and baby momma.) In which he said (because she dressed immodestly in public), “I hope you get raped by a pack of niggers.”
It wasn’t the use of the N-word that I found to be the most racist thing, because while a very racist word it’s basically “mainstream” racist. It’s the fact that Gibson was basically saying black people are like wild animals that rove around in packs just randomly raping women. While not nearly as jarring as the N-word, the “pack of animals” part of that sentence was, to me, by far the most racist aspect of the call. Similarly I find Cumia’s repeatedly referring to blacks as savages/animals to be very offensive, probably more offensive than if he had just called her a nigger. I mean there’s a history with nigger, nigger is a big negative word you use to demean black people, but there’s some level of racism where you’re saying “I hate black people” but you still view them as people. The animal stuff is to me worse because it’s saying you don’t even view blacks as human.
It’s legal to take pictures of anyone in public.
It’s also extremely rude (and if you’re a woman, potentially threatening) to take pictures of you without your knowledge, unless one is a professional National Geographic cameraman or something of the like.
I think there are often examples of the term ‘racist’ being diluted or twisted or applied in inconsistent ways to the point of being meaningless. But even if you leave that word aside, it seems pretty clear this guy Cumia has a generalized animus toward black people, whatever term one might want to use to described such a situation. And it’s not surprising therefore that Sirius would find that it tipped him from being some kind of asset to a net liability. Although, as with other incidents where public figures renowned for provocative statements get fired for one, there’s always the dual question, why this one?/why not before this?
And the other aspect of this is that AFAIK there’s no independent confirmation of what happened, in terms of anyone hitting anybody, or why. That would make it seem even more risky to defend the guy (say if your were Sirius), quite aside from any debate over the term ‘racist’.
Unless you work for National Geographic or the like? The law doesn’t make any such distinction. If somebody of either sex hits somebody else of either sex for taking a picture of them in a public place, not only is picture taker, National Geographic or not doesn’t matter, not guilty of any crime, but the person doing the hitting is guilty of a crime. However as I said and AFAIK it’s just Cumia’s side of the story that some woman hit him for taking a picture of her or ‘with her in the frame’.
We’ve been down this road before. It is perfectly legal.
He/she never said it was illegal. It was said it was rude and potentially threatening, which is true.
No, it’s not either. We’ve been down that road too.
That’s not an opinion though. Some people get pissed and will give you shit or even fight you if you take their picture in public. So they consider it offensive/threatening.
The jerk said he was taking pictures of Times Square all innocently when this scary black animal stepped into the shot. But unless he’s unusually fascinated by scaffolding, there’s no way that can be true. It doesn’t matter to me that it’s legal to take someone’s picture against their will. He didn’t portray his actions honestly. That makes everything he has to say about this incident suspect.
Especially in this day and age when a picture can be loaded onto the internet almost instantaneously.
A few keystrokes on google pulls this lady’s picture up. Not only the actual photo, but a couple of crazy lampoons of the photo. Given the nature of social media nowadays, I don’t blame anyone for getting het up about a stranger taking their picture against their will. Who wants to be the next internet meme?
As I said above, there’s no problem with calling people who beat you up animals or savages. Doesn’t matter if they’re black or white. But when you go from there to saying things like “They’re not people. They’re all just savage animals.” it’s racist. There’s forty million black people in America. They didn’t all beat Anthony Cumia up.
As I wrote in the other thread, I’d find it hard to believe this was the story that Cumia made up to make himself look good. If it is, how bad was the real story?
He was taking picture of a hawt chick. Didn’t matter at that moment that she was black. He just wanted an image to fap to later.
But he’s not going to admit to public perving. Pervs deserve to be punched. Guys innocently taking pictures of Times Square don’t.
Oh, bullshit. Middle Eastern men have been detained for taking pictures of New York landmarks. Papparazi have been successfully sued for harassment. It can most certainly be rude and threatening. Your opinion doesn’t mean squat.