I started another thread in CS about this, but it turned into mostly a discussion about what is racist. If you want to debate whether or not his tweets were racist, or what “racist” means, you can discuss that here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/...php?p=17521289
If you want to discuss free speech vs. an employers right to fire their employees, feel free to start your own thread. I didn’t even mention that in the original thread because I felt that discussion has been done to death.
Here, I would like to discuss the specifics of Anthony Cumia’s story.
What the hell is there to discuss? Apparently he got in some sort of altercation on the street, but there were no other witnesses, the police weren’t called, and the other people involved haven’t come forward. So all we have is his own version of events. Who knows what actually happened?
It doesn’t really matter anyway. Regardless of what happened between him and the woman he photographed, he followed it up with a series of racist tweets that got his ass fired.
“Specifics”? What specifics? There’s no way to discuss the facts of the case separate from people’s interpretation of those “facts.” Take it to the GD thread.
Little Nemo points out that there’s a legitimate discussion topic, “did these events actually occur,” independent of the racism of Cumia’s subsequent statements. I am therefore reopening this thread for that discussion.
I’m also moving it to MPSIMS – Cumia’s job as a media figure isn’t enough to make this a Cafe Society topic.
It’s fairly well known on the show that Cumia is a not so cryptic racist toward various segments of the black American population. On the other hand the show has had a number of black guests (mostly comedians, actors and musicians) who really don’t seem to care about this side of him, and whom he treats quite respectfully, and for the most part they get on quite well.
In this case, even if he was attacked without reasonable cause by this woman, you can’t go spouting off about shooting her and calling her a “savage” etc. It may be fine line re how far an outspoken radio host can go, but wherever it is he stepped way over it and has cost both himself and his radio partner their multi-million dollar a year jobs.
As I said in the other thread, my first instinct is to believe Cumia’s report of what occurred is generally accurate. The reason for this is I have a hard time seeing why Cumia would make up a story like this about himself.
For one, would it have been legal for him to be carrying a weapon if he was taking pictures of Times Square? If not, might that have been the reason that he didn’t want to involve the police?
Here’s what I think:
I think it is quite plausible that he was taking some pictures, not giving a single care whether or not she was in the picture. She got upset and, instead of saying “sorry”, he was kind of like “f you” and took more pictures as she approached him. I think he later posted the clearest picture of her to try to shame her on the internet because he was pissed. (IOW, I don’t think that the picture that he posted was the initial one of her “in the frame” that ticked her off. I think that the accusation that he was taking pictures of her to jerk off to later are ridiculous.) I think that he later went home, got drunk, festered about the events, and drunkenly made tweets that probably exaggerated what happened.
I think that because he has a job where he can say just about anything, he doesn’t have the type of filter that people with regular jobs have. And so he just kept drinking and thinking and tweeting and thinking about all of the things that he hates about this particular subset of the “black community”, and the drunker he got, the more he let loose, until he talked himself out of a job.
OK, that was hypothesis #1. Here is hypothesis #2:
He and Opie have been unhappy at Sirius ever since XM got absorbed. He is pulling a trick similar to what they did in Boston years ago, trying to get himself out of a contract to move to something better. This is hypothesis #2 because it has some problems, but I think it’s worth discussing.
If their contract is up in October of this year as someone else indicated there are a lot better and more effective ways to end your employment than a racist rant, especially with an eye toward getting future advertisers on your show, podcast whatever. A lot of their audience picks them in the car so I’m not sure how the podcast thing will work out re getting decent ad dollars.
I didn’t get the impression Sirius was stifling them, they said pretty much whatever the hell they wanted. I never quite understood their problem with Sirius they were getting extremely well paid for Radio personalities.
I have a hard time seeing this as a realistic possibility. This wasn’t just getting out of a contract. This is a career ender. Or at the very best, Cumia will be looking for a job that’s going to be a sharp decline from his Sirius job. He won’t even be able to get his old job back in Boston after this.
[Emphasis mine] Probably. I think he could talk his way out of it… but where? If it’s on their next (first full-time) podcast, it could be the most downloaded podcast ever. But sponsorship could be a problem.
Let’s talk about the possible future, shall we? I said in the other thread
If they stay on Sirius, what’s the show lineup? Opie and Jimmy and Sam Roberts? Or do they just call it “The Opie Show”?
Or does Opie refuse to do the show without Ant? I don’t really see that happening. They’ve been partners for 20 years, but Opie has a wife and 2 kids now. I think he has to say “Sorry buddy, but I have to go on…” Will Anthony be allowed in the studio if the rest of the crew continues on at Sirius?
I’m not really up on the current technology. My cellphone only does calls and texts. But I believe that now (or the near future) people can play anything from the internet from their smartphone through their car speakers. But, yeah, ad dollars…
I think that their job situation was a lot less favorable than it was when they were at XM. It doesn’t matter how great your current job is, if it’s less fun than your last job, then it sucks.
If this was his ‘exit strategy’ to get out of his current employment contract, it was probably a bad idea. Who wants to hire and overt racist with pervy tendencies? Not me!
The future is now. I hook my iPhone to the car with a USB. That’s how I listen to Sirius. When O&A is not on I listen to Jay Mohr, the Nerdist, Marc Maron or a few others.