# Is my understanding of what Papa John's CEO said accurate? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 16, 2018, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039 "2018-07-16T20:36:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/81 "2018-07-19T00:38:13Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > There are words that are certainly banned in a professional setting like a conference call with your colleagues. I think if someone uses such words privately - outside of a business setting, that is - then maybe it’s bad but that’s life. But once you’re in a business setting, whether that’s a boardroom or a conference call or an individual call or advertising, it’s unacceptable. Literally, not able to be accepted. Not even if everyone around the table is old and white. And not if everyone is young and black either. It’s because of the harmful intent. I am fine with a board meeting in which some absent person is called a stupid fucker - it’s calling him “generic bad word”; maybe he IS a stupid fucker. 🙂 But this is different. ---
**Author:** ![Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Some\_Call\_Me.Tim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_Call_Me.Tim)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/82 "2018-07-19T02:08:31Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > You can spell “ginger” with the same letters. No excuse. Remember, [only a ginger can call another ginger “ginger”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw). ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/83 "2018-07-19T05:54:07Z")
Connotations. This word, which once _may_ have had a neutral meaning, no longer even **includes** a neutral meaning. The word is now **nothing but** a self-contained threat. That’s why you can’t use it. (Yes, I know about the special case involving black men taking the word for themselves. That’s not relevant here.) ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/84 "2018-07-19T06:13:31Z")
> [@Thing\_Fish](#): > > I don’t think anybody here has argued that direct use of the word and quoting someone else’s use of it are the same thing. > > Yes, if you look at it in isolation and ignore all context, it seems like a foolish overreaction to fire someone for this, just as it would be a foolish overreaction to label Bob Dylan a racist based on the song you quote. So most of us are assuming that there has to be more to it, that this was just the final example of a troubling pattern of behavior. Remember, the meeting was called specifically to address concerns about the CEO’s habit of putting his foot in his mouth around racial issues. OK. But why did the prominent feature of the news story emphasize the non-derogatory use of the N-word? Recall that the exact thing happened in another recent firing that was top of the news. Either the reporters are stupid or they think we are. I hope someone will do an experiment for me. (It’s a long-distance call for me to any American radio station.) Call up an AM or FM radio station which takes requests and ask for ‘Hurricane.’ Remind them that it uses the N-word and ask if that’s OK. Will they play the song? ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/85 "2018-07-19T09:13:58Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > OK. But why did the prominent feature of the news story emphasize the non-derogatory use of the N-word? Because the prominent feature of the news story was wrong. There IS no non-derogatory use of the word. There may have been one once, but it’s gone. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/86 "2018-07-19T09:37:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > OK. But why did the prominent feature of the news story emphasize the non-derogatory use of the N-word? Recall that the exact thing happened in another recent firing that was top of the news. Either the reporters are stupid or they think we are. > > I hope someone will do an experiment for me. (It’s a long-distance call for me to any American radio station.) Call up an AM or FM radio station which takes requests and ask for ‘Hurricane.’ Remind them that it uses the N-word and ask if that’s OK. Will they play the song? I don’t think it was non derogatory. It was making up a fictional usage by another in an effort to excuse his own behavior. I think that still counts as derogatory, even if it’s different than just calling a guy on the street that slur. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/87 "2018-07-19T09:48:31Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > Because the prominent feature of the news story was wrong. There IS no non-derogatory use of the word. There may have been one once, but it’s gone. This claim seems to be controversial even among the liberals here. Will you perform the experiment for me? See if a radio station will play “Hurricane”? Make sure they know it contains the N-word. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/88 "2018-07-19T11:32:49Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I don’t think it was non derogatory. It was making up a fictional usage by another in an effort to excuse his own behavior. I think that still counts as derogatory, even if it’s different than just calling a guy on the street that slur. I wonder if the CEO had made up a quote by Colonel Sanders that “Jesus was a cunt,” if his defenders here would still be defending him. Conservatives seem really eager to find loopholes where they can still use the N word. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/89 "2018-07-19T13:41:32Z")
Stories coming out now that the company was/is in talks to be acquired by Wendy’s. The board (boards?) may have seen this incident as a convenient way to get Schnatter out of the way, not that they wouldn’t have anyway. Look for the name change and the disappearance of his slappable face from the logo, next. ---
**Author:** ![Thing\_Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@Thing\_Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing_Fish)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/90 "2018-07-19T18:36:11Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > This claim seems to be controversial even among the liberals here. > > Will you perform the experiment for me? See if a radio station will play “Hurricane”? Make sure they know it contains the N-word. How long have you been out of the country?🙂 Racial issues aside, radio stations that take requests and/or play eight-minute deep cuts from 40 year old albums aren’t really a thing in the US these days. BTW, that is such an awesome song! ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/91 "2018-07-19T21:06:09Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > This claim seems to be controversial even among the liberals here. > > Will you perform the experiment for me? See if a radio station will play “Hurricane”? Make sure they know it contains the N-word. Why can’t you make the call? And what’s your point? ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/92 "2018-07-20T04:13:55Z")
Bonus points if you can get Don Imus to play it. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/93 "2018-07-20T07:14:55Z")
> [@Capn\_Carl](#): > > Why can’t you make the call? > And what’s your point? I don’t live in the United States and haven’t for some time. I don’t have a “point.”(\*) What I have is _genuine curiosity_ about the extent to which the N-word is frowned upon. _Would “Hurricane” draw objections or not?_ It seems like a simple question to me. I vaguely recall, decades ago, that some American school or library banned or censored the novel _Huckleberry Finn_ because of its use of the N-word. - I do have a pet peeve however. I often ask questions, not because I’m JAQing off but because I wonder what the answers are. Yet some people jump to a conclusion, and assume that just to ask the question implies a judgement. I’m sure some of you have mentally branded me a racist because I seem to defend non-derogatory use of the N-word. I’d never heard of Papa John and haven’t wasted a Google click to learn about him. It sounds like he was a racist, so … Good Riddance! It does seem odd, however, that the evidence offered up to outrage us is his ostensibly non-derogatory use of the N-word. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/94 "2018-07-20T14:02:49Z")
I think your question is sort of self-defeating. Call up a station and request Hurricane, that is one thing. Call them and make a point that the n-word is in there and it is a different thing. Good luck with that. (60s icons could do it, it was a live issue then) This word represents the worst of America and pretty much never makes anyone happy, except maybe the worst kind of social trolls. I was dating a girl from Germany years back- she dropped an n-bomb at the museum and that was it. Didn’t matter that she did not seem to know better or wasn’t using it to insult anyone, I simply could not be near it. Next girl! Are you not just a white supremacist but want to put minorities in chains? Do you think non whites are not human but just animals? Throw the n-word around. Papa John’s is scouring the face of its founder off of its logos, signs, pizza boxes, etc. Kind of the pizza version of scrubbing the names of villains off of the obelisks and monuments in Egypt so that they would be forgotten forever. You don’t get treated like that say, promoting lower taxes, or even promoting war with Iran. Non-asshole Americans don’t accept it, except out of rappers or black people who probably have been touched by the lingering effects of segregation. People who, maybe not in the current generation, were Fucked by this kind of treatment. If I get Alzeimer’s and start tossing that word around, please euthanize me; I’m done. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/95 "2018-07-20T14:06:02Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I’m sure some of you have mentally branded me a racist because I seem to defend non-derogatory use of the N-word. It’s not defending people quoting use of the word or people discussing works like Huckleberry Finn that’s a problem, it’s the fact that you’re attempting to defend an obvious racist whining about not being able to drop n-bombs at work by completely ignoring the context of his remarks. If you don’t want people to mentally brand you a racist, don’t pretend like there’s nothing wrong with a guy who wants to call black people ‘niggers’ so badly that on a conference call about improving the company’s image on racial matters he invents a story about Colonel Sanders flinging the word around and wistfully laments that he can’t do it himself in these days. The fact that you’re completely ignoring the context of the comment to say ‘but he was clearly quoting someone’ doesn’t speak well for you. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/96 "2018-07-20T14:40:54Z")
> **[Papa John’s Founder Accused of Sexual Misconduct and Fostering a ‘Bro’ Culture](https://www.eater.com/2018/7/19/17590768/papa-johns-john-schnatter-sexual-harassment-allegations)** > > A new report details allegations against John Schnatter, who stepped down last week following a leaked recording of him using a racial slur Apparently there’s a history of sexual assault allegations against Papa John. He may have been about to be booted anyway, with this as a convenient trigger. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/97 "2018-07-20T14:50:02Z")
CEO John decides to have a meeting with the rest of the executives about the company’s policy on workplace harassment and gender relations. During the meeting, someone mentions that company policy prohibits the use of sexual, ethnic or other slurs in the workplace. John pipes up, “Yeah! Steve, you shouldn’t call Sally a cunt.” Steve has never actually called Sally a cunt. The CEO’s use of the term cunt was merely a quotation (albeit a hypothetical one). What’s wrong with that? It’s pretty obvious that there’s something wrong with it. It’s gratuitous and adds nothing to the discussion. It’s especially stupid given that _it was said in a meeting about workplace behavior standards_. That’s basically what happened here. Schnatter had previously stepped down as CEO for saying boneheaded things about football, and PJ’s stock prices have been tumbling for years, so it’s not like he was fired just because of this. I met him years ago, when I was a driver for the company’s flagship store (and sales and profits were near a peak). Nice guy, but he was obviously socially clueless even to a college kid - he made mildly disparaging remarks about Hispanics in front of two Hispanic employees. ---
**Author:** ![Capn\_Carl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/838e76/32.png) [@Capn\_Carl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capn_Carl)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/98 "2018-07-20T21:49:09Z")
To me, and to several other posters on this thread, it’s obvious that Papa John lost both his jobs for multiple reasons, and just one of those reasons was his use of the n-word. Then, there’s a few posters here that can only see that one reason. I don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2018, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/99 "2018-07-21T00:12:36Z")
I will revise my earlier Scrabble comment to allow for the possibility of getting a double or triple _letter_ score. Had not considered “ginger”. As an aside, we used to play back when I was in college with a 20 “dirty word bonus”, but that didn’t include racial/ethnic/religious slurs. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039/100 "2018-07-26T20:40:14Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > As far as I’m concerned, the only proper place for that word is on a Scrabble board if those happen to be the tiles that you have in your rack. But that’s just me. And you’d better be able to get at least a double word score for it. All the same, I’d use those letter to make “ginger” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-my-understanding-of-what-papa-johns-ceo-said-accurate/818039.md?page=6)