Dog the Bounty Hunter racist comments..

Cafe Society
21

[QUOTE=Malthus]
I haven’t listened to the extract (and I admit I’ve never seen his show and I have scant sypathy for bounty hunting as an occupation), but from this transcript, I gotta say I have more sympathy for the guy then I had reading the headline.

My transliteration of what he’s trying to say: 'I’m a guy who says stuff like “nigger” a lot when in private. I can’t help it [presumably because that’s the way I was brought up or whatever - judging by the rest of the conversation, he usually talks in ‘low-class scum’]. If you bring your Black girlfriend around, chances are she will hear me say it, be offended by it, and make a big deal about it, costing me my very public job by making me out to be a racist. I do not believe I am a racist, and I do not dislike her because of her race, but because of this potential threat to my occupation, which threatens the livelihood of the whole family. She has already threatened to wear a recording device.

Therefore, while you go out with her, you must work elsewhere. I will help you find another job.’

The fact is that his use of the word “nigger” did become public, and his livelihood is threatened by it, through the recording of this very conversation. So he’s not totally crazy.

Naturally, the whole dilemma could be solved by him just not saying “nigger”. Most people manage that feat. But then, maybe that is part of his lower-class-scum persona.
[/QUOTE]

I agree with this, although the implication that he is phyiscally incapable of not saying it in ceratin situations is odd- does he say it in a grocery store of blacks, for example? Odd.

22

[QUOTE=Malthus]
I haven’t listened to the extract (and I admit I’ve never seen his show and I have scant sypathy for bounty hunting as an occupation), but from this transcript, I gotta say I have more sympathy for the guy then I had reading the headline.

My transliteration of what he’s trying to say: 'I’m a guy who says stuff like “nigger” a lot when in private. I can’t help it [presumably because that’s the way I was brought up or whatever - judging by the rest of the conversation, he usually talks in ‘low-class scum’]. If you bring your Black girlfriend around, chances are she will hear me say it, be offended by it, and make a big deal about it, costing me my very public job by making me out to be a racist. I do not believe I am a racist, and I do not dislike her because of her race, but because of this potential threat to my occupation, which threatens the livelihood of the whole family. She has already threatened to wear a recording device.

Therefore, while you go out with her, you must work elsewhere. I will help you find another job.’

The fact is that his use of the word “nigger” did become public, and his livelihood is threatened by it, through the recording of this very conversation. So he’s not totally crazy.

Naturally, the whole dilemma could be solved by him just not saying “nigger”. Most people manage that feat. But then, maybe that is part of his lower-class-scum persona.
[/QUOTE]

You’re right, I do have a lot more sympathy for the guy now than when I read the headline. Although most people do manage to get through the day without saying nigger. I love his show, though, it’s sad. (Tim is my favorite.)

23

[QUOTE=jtgain]
Sorry. Here is the link:

http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/ap/20071031/119389134000.html
[/QUOTE]

This is a very misleading OP. Your link says:

It’s Don Vito, not Dog the Bounty Hunter. Sex abuse, not racism. And MTV, not A&E. If convicted, yes, he should be banned.

OK! I was just kidding. But seriously, this is why it’s good to post a synopsis, instead of just posting a link. A little effort makes the thread so much more worthwhile.

24

[QUOTE=Malthus]
I haven’t listened to the extract (and I admit I’ve never seen his show and I have scant sypathy for bounty hunting as an occupation), but from this transcript, I gotta say I have more sympathy for the guy then I had reading the headline.

My transliteration of what he’s trying to say: 'I’m a guy who says stuff like “nigger” a lot when in private. I can’t help it [presumably because that’s the way I was brought up or whatever - judging by the rest of the conversation, he usually talks in ‘low-class scum’]. If you bring your Black girlfriend around, chances are she will hear me say it, be offended by it, and make a big deal about it, costing me my very public job by making me out to be a racist. I do not believe I am a racist, and I do not dislike her because of her race, but because of this potential threat to my occupation, which threatens the livelihood of the whole family. She has already threatened to wear a recording device.

Therefore, while you go out with her, you must work elsewhere. I will help you find another job.’

The fact is that his use of the word “nigger” did become public, and his livelihood is threatened by it, through the recording of this very conversation. So he’s not totally crazy.

Naturally, the whole dilemma could be solved by him just not saying “nigger”. Most people manage that feat. But then, maybe that is part of his lower-class-scum persona.
[/QUOTE]

I could go along with this if he’d actually phrased it more like that but there is a lot more going on than that. Why is Tucker’s girlfriend – a woman who Tucker has told his father he’s in love with – so easily categorized and dismissed as “some fucking nigger?”
He says if his daughter, Lyssa, “…was dating a nigger, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that.”

Does that sound like someone who doesn’t have any real bigotry in his heart? This is more than a guy who’s just expressing concerns about how someone might respond to his and his friends’ lowlife language. thsis is someone who has a problem with the idea of his kids dating black people at all. The fact that he can’t see his son’s serious girlfriend of 7 months as a real human being pretty much tells where his heart is. All he sees is “some fucking nigger.”

And lets not forget that he WAS part a racist motorcycle gang before he went to prison. I see no reason for sympathy here.

25

[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
I agree with this, although the implication that he is phyiscally incapable of not saying it in ceratin situations is odd- does he say it in a grocery store of blacks, for example? Odd.
[/QUOTE]

I presume he is capable of restraining himself, since he doesn’t say it on his show.

My take (for what it’s worth, which isn’t much) is that he can restrain his general ingrained bad language (including frequent use of “nigger”) by an effort of will, but it doesn’t come naturally to him. Left to his own devices (that is, off-camera) he lets loose.

As to whether he is, or is not, really a racist, I obviously don’t know. Maybe he just has the low-class language patterns of his upbringing, which includes a lot of racial slurs.

26

In this article;

*When TMZ.com asked Chapman for comment, the Web site was referred to Chapman’s pastor Tim Storey, an African-American.

“(Storey) told (TMZ) that he spoke with Dog, who cried for 30 minutes, saying ‘I’m shocked, I’m wrong, I repent. Can you believe, Tim, that I’m going to be put in the same category as (Don) Imus.’”

Storey also told TMZ, “I was shocked, because I don’t know that to be Duane. I felt that he had to be accountable to what he said. When I asked him what took place, why he said it, he said that he was angry with his son about many things.”*
So Dog refers the press to his n…er, African American pastor, who listens to it all, but thank god has the integrity to say that he needs to be accountable for his words. Thank you, Pastor Storey, for not letting him off on this one. I hope you roasted his ass in private.

27

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
I could go along with this if he’d actually phrased it more like that but there is a lot more going on than that. Why is Tucker’s girlfriend – a woman who Tucker has told his father he’s in love with – so easily categorized and dismissed as “some fucking nigger?”
He says if his daughter, Lyssa, “…was dating a nigger, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that.”

Does that sound like someone who doesn’t have any real bigotry in his heart? This is more than a guy who’s just expressing concerns about how someone might respond to his and his friends’ lowlife language. thsis is someone who has a problem with the idea of his kids dating black people at all. The fact that he can’t see his son’s serious girlfriend of 7 months as a real human being pretty much tells where his heart is. All he sees is “some fucking nigger.”

And lets not forget that he WAS part a racist motorcycle gang before he went to prison. I see no reason for sympathy here.
[/QUOTE]

You could well be right. Maybe he is a total racist. I don’t think this transcript proves it, though.

He’s claiming that it is his bad language that is the problem, not racism. He may of course be lying. It is hard to tell, because he uses, well, so much bad language.

I took the bit about the daughter to mean that the same dilemma would apply (“If Lyssa [Dog’s daughter] was dating a nigger, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that. If Lyssa brought a black guy home ya da da… it’s not that they’re black, it’s none of that. It’s that we use the word nigger. We don’t mean you fucking scum nigger without a soul.”) My transliteration: ‘my real problem is the use of the word ‘nigger’, not that I have anything against Black people, or think that a Black person is inferior. Thus, if my daugher was to date one, I’d have the very same problem as I have in your case’.

Seems to me that he is at least claiming to be okay with the notion of his kid dating a Black woman, and is claiming not to be racist. Note that he doesn’t in fact demand that his son break up with his GF, he merely states that while he’s dating her, he can’t work the show, and in fact offers to accomodate his son if he does stay with her: “So, I’ll help you get another job …”.

He isn’t saying “date her and you are out of the family”. He’s saying (paraphrase) ‘date her and you can’t work the show, because of my lowlife language’.

28

Never saw the show, and don’t really care whether or not it gets the axe. I suppose that DTBH’s comments could be construed in such a way as to draw some sympathy for someone who wants to stay on the A&E gravy train, although I sure wouldn’t bend over backwards doing so.

But how do people interpret the comment, "if his daughter, Lyssa, “…was dating a n----r, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that.”

WTF? Does he mean:

  1. You go, girl!
  2. You can date who you want, Lyssa, I don’t really care.
  3. Are you INSANE, Lyssa? Don’t you realize that young fellow is a n----r?
  4. Or… um, I don’t know. Something else?
29

[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Never saw the show, and don’t really care whether or not it gets the axe. I suppose that DTBH’s comments could be construed in such a way as to draw some sympathy for someone who wants to stay on the A&E gravy train, although I sure wouldn’t bend over backwards doing so.

But how do people interpret the comment, "if his daughter, Lyssa, “…was dating a n----r, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that.”

WTF? Does he mean:

  1. You go, girl!
  2. You can date who you want, Lyssa, I don’t really care.
  3. Are you INSANE, Lyssa? Don’t you realize that young fellow is a n----r?
  4. Or… um, I don’t know. Something else?
    [/QUOTE]
    Well, you really don’t want to date a nagger. They can be pretty annoying.
30

[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
Never saw the show, and don’t really care whether or not it gets the axe. I suppose that DTBH’s comments could be construed in such a way as to draw some sympathy for someone who wants to stay on the A&E gravy train, although I sure wouldn’t bend over backwards doing so.

But how do people interpret the comment, "if his daughter, Lyssa, “…was dating a n----r, we would all say ‘fuck you!’ And you know that.”

WTF? Does he mean:

  1. You go, girl!
  2. You can date who you want, Lyssa, I don’t really care.
  3. Are you INSANE, Lyssa? Don’t you realize that young fellow is a n----r?
  4. Or… um, I don’t know. Something else?
    [/QUOTE]

Well, I assumed that it meant he was against it for the very reason he states - because (he thinks) any such person would become aware of his use of racial slurs, and get him in trouble because of the same.

So I’ll take #4.

Again, he could be lying of course. The very fact that he brings up his daughter seems odd to say the least.

In any event, if he was a hard-core racist, why doesn’t he just say ‘I don’t want you dating a nigger, period’? Either he’s telling the truth, or he’s just trying to justify his (real) racism with an excuse about his use of language.

The fact that he actually is getting in trouble in the very way he himself predicted is at least some evidence that his excuse isn’t totally baseless. He has (or had) legitimate cause to be concerned about his use of language.

[As everyone has already pointed out, the obvious solution is not to use such language. But still.]

31

The story about “Don Vito” (Vincent Margera) is more shocking and interesting to me.

32

Apparently the axe has fallen:

The link says the show is canceled, but kindof says it has been suspended too. Who knows.

33

So, nobody else thought it… odd? that somebody’s close partner of seven months would threaten to wear a wire to sell their dad’s dirty secrets to the Enquirer?

34

[QUOTE=Slacker]
Apparently the axe has fallen:

The link says the show is canceled, but kindof says it has been suspended too. Who knows.
[/QUOTE]

So we’ll be spared a TV evening of Rev Al and his cohorts calling for his ouster? There is a God.

Now the only question is did the girlfriend or son (!) leak the tape. Or maybe it will turn out the girlfriend was a plant of some sort.

In hindsight, the thing that turns me off his side is “we can’t take the chance of some fucking nigger hear us use the word the word nigger”- in this case, the second nigger you can see, the first usage you really can’t defend.

35

[QUOTE=Zsofia]
So, nobody else thought it… odd? that somebody’s close partner of seven months would threaten to wear a wire to sell their dad’s dirty secrets to the Enquirer?
[/QUOTE]

Where are you getting that?

36

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Where are you getting that?
[/QUOTE]

Very last sentence of the transcript:

Assuming “that girl” means the girlfriend.

37

[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
So we’ll be spared a TV evening of Rev Al and his cohorts calling for his ouster? There is a God.

Now the only question is did the girlfriend or son (!) leak the tape. Or maybe it will turn out the girlfriend was a plant of some sort.

In hindsight, the thing that turns me off his side is “we can’t take the chance of some fucking nigger hear us use the word the word nigger”- in this case, the second nigger you can see, the first usage you really can’t defend.
[/QUOTE]

If he didn’t do the first, he wouldn’t need to worry about the second. :wink:

38

Well, I think the discussion is great, but I guess I should rephrase my original question. Of course, A&E being a private corporation has the right to fire Dog for his racist beliefs, or for any other reason, and I believe I said that in my post.

My question is why is this such a sensitive issue? Where does Dog have the power to put his thoughts into law? You aren’t voting for him for Congress.

If the show Dog the Bounty Hunter provides you with a half an hour of entertainment which makes you happier, more relaxed, or whatever for having watched it, then why do you care what these people do in their own lives?

Why would the show be different if Dog were or were not racist? What if Beth were a Democrat/Republican/Communist? What if Tim were gay or bisexual or hated cats? Who cares? I’m buying the production, not having a beer with them.

I like watching Gordon Ramsay’s shows, and I have no idea of his politics or views on race relations. I watch for entertainment.

So why would A&E care?

39

[QUOTE=Malthus]
Very last sentence of the transcript:

Assuming “that girl” means the girlfriend.
[/QUOTE]

That’s reading an awful lot into one fragment of one sentence. How does one get from “I gotta girl saying she’s gonna wear a recorder” (who we don’t even know is the same girl. In context, it sounds like he could be referring to the TV crew) to the girlfriend “threatened to wear a wire to sell their dad’s dirty secrets to the Enquirer?”

How about a cite there, Zsofia?

40

Cutting to the chase…

[QUOTE=jtgain]
So why would A&E care?
[/QUOTE]

Because it wants to make money. If sponsors pull out, they lose money. It’s pure economics. Ideology and personal offense have nothing to do with it.

I personally don’t watch the show and don’t care if it stays or goes, but isn’t a lot of the show’s popularity predicated on the idea that Dog is a “good guy” who brings bad guys to justice and espouses positive Christian values (a lot of which is probably pretty sincere)? If his image as a good guy is what draws viewers, then the value of his show could be greatly damaged by something like this. Knowing he’s a racist kind of takes all the fun out of cheering for him. His image IS part of the show, so yes, I think the revelations make it a different show.