Etiquette and manners

“Yo, Barry, You Did It, My Nigga!”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Larry Wilmore

Wrong.

“Yo, Barry, You Did It, My Nigga!” This was “The Nightly Show’s” Larry Wilmore’s final salute to the President of the United States during an alleged comedy routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Here’s what’s wrong with it:

1. The comment was cynically calculated to cause an uproar, even at the cost of embarrassing the President and causing a racial incident. This is neither good hosting, nor ethical citizenship. Wilmore was only aiming at exploiting an opportunity to expand his rating, which aren’t so great.

2. It is disrespectful, no matter how one interprets the word. Barack Obama isn’t “Barack,” “Barry,” “Bro’,” or “Nigga” to Wilborn. He’s “Sir” or Mr. President. His job as M.C. didn’t permit that liberty.

3. It adds to a widespread and societally disruptive belief that Barack Obama is the black community’s President, and the black community has special privileges as a result. It certainly suggests that’s how black America views him. That’s not the legacy the President seeks, and thus the comment was uncomfortable for him.

4. Most white Americans and a lot of black ones do not agree that “nigger” and variations thereof are taboo when uttered by whites but benign when wielded by blacks. Why look, even Al Sharpton objected! “Many of us are against using the N-word period,” Sharpton told the LA Times. “But to say that to the President of the United States in front of the top people in media was at best in poor taste.”  “So we end the WHCD by touting the historical implications of 1st black president… and we use the N-word. Not cool,” tweeted  ABC producer Sarah Thomas, also an African-American.

5. The comment fed the racial divisiveness that has been the hallmark of Obama’s presidency. “Black Twitter,” as it is called, was full of African American celebrities and commentators making it clear that they didn’t care what white people thought. Mediaite’s resident race-baiter Tommy Christopher approvingly cited many of them, including his own.

I wonder who it was who convinced African-Americans that it was either wise, strategic, fair, reasonable or ethical to simultaneously express contempt for the opinions and feelings of whites while demanding hyper-sensitivity from whites about any word, innuendo, opinion or topic that could be considered the least bit uncomfortable for blacks?

6. “Barry” did what, exactly? What is “it”? Massively increasing the national debt? Dangerously dividing the nation? Undermining the rule of law, free speech and the system of checks and balances? Making a mockery of his promise to be transparent? Nurturing the anger, despair and cynicism that led to the rise of Donald Trump?

Barack Obama’s singular and historical accomplishment was being elected the first black President. Yes, he did that, but he did that almost eight years ago, and it’s old news. After that, his job was to be a good, fair, hard-working, effective, unifying and successful President of the United States, and his color was and is irrelevant to those tasks.  He hasn’t been any of those things, so what has he done? Finished his terms? That not a big accomplishment. I guess he created an environment in which a TV personality thought it was appropriate to call him a “Nigga” in public.

He did that, all right.

I’m not applauding.

Where Do You Get The Idea That It’s OK To Insult My Dog?

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Rugby2

I was walking Rugby yesterday—that’s him above from a recent commercial photo-shoot–and ran into a young woman walking her West Highland Terrier. I like Westies, as does Rugby (but then, he also likes mail carriers, squirrels, my sister and once wagged his tail at a cockroach…), and I made some positive comments about the breed.

“Well, your dog certainly looks like he hasn’t missed many meals!” was her response. The ethicist programming blocked me from saying what first popped into my head, which was, “Well, neither do you, bitch,” and instead I attempted to enlighten her by saying, in a moderate tone,

“Actually, Rugby is an authentic, Jack Russell Terrier Association-certified Jack Russell, meaning that he is not the long-legged, faux monstrosity the AKC calls a “Parson Russell Terrier,” nor the much smaller toy-like version it calls the “Russell Terrier.” Jack Russell Terriers of the Irish, as in genuine variety, are certified by their personality and hunting traits, and not by looks alone. Thus they vary more in physical traits than AKC breeds, bred for show, and since the bulldog is part of the strange and wonderful alchemy that makes these dogs the bundles of joy they are, some Jacks, like Rugby and his still mourned predecessor Dickens, have a thick bulldog build, with a broad chest and stocky body. They are all muscle (“unlike your simpy terrier”–the ethicist filter blocked this too), and you may be surprised to learn, given the fact that he is at this moment acting more lively than your young dog, that Rugby is just short of 13 years-old, and thus just a bit heavier, but not much, than he was in his youth when the vet said he was as perfect a specimen of the breed as he has ever seen. Val Kilmer or Kirsty Alley he isn’t. He remains unslowed by time, and those meeting him for the first time often mistake him for a puppy, which is undoubtedly how he sees himself.”

She just walked on, hearing little of it.

Why do people think that making gratuitously critical comments about a stranger’s pet is any less rude and disrespectful than insulting a child or anything else that the individual obviously cares about? Continue reading →

Talia Jane, Public Jerk, Grabs Credit For Yelp’s Pay Raise

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments
She's baaaaaack!

She’s baaaaaack!

Remember the fifteen-minutes of infamy of Talia Jane, an entry-level Yelp employee who posted an article to the social media site Medium titled, An Open Letter To My CEO?    Cheekily addressed to “Jeremy” (Yelp Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Stoppleman), the letter/rant/ classic of arrogant entitlement was a long, snotty whine about her low compensation—you know, like all entry-level jobs—alleged abject poverty (which was quickly shown to be a lie), high Bay Area living expenses (because they were a secret until she moved there), company policies and the fact that Yelp creator Stoppleman was rich.

Jane was thoroughly shredded by every online commentator (including Ethics Alarms) over the age of 21 and not a Bernie Sanders supporter. The obnoxious screed showed a complete lack of personal responsibility for her own choices, and made her a strong candidate for Most Unattractive Job Candidate of 2016. My conclusion:

I wouldn’t trust Talia Jane to run my lemonade stand.

Hey, but she’s young, she made a mistake, and she’ll learn and grow through this misstep, understanding the error of her ways and going forward to become a fair, reasonable, ethical member of society, right?

Fat chance. I hesitated to pronounce her essay as signature significance, a misbegotten ethics botch of a magnitude that indicated the author was probably an incurable toxic jerk, because 25 is too early to write off even the most egregious offenders. She may learn yet, I suppose, but the most recent evidence is not encouraging. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: San Antonio District Attorney Nico LaHood, The FUN Prosecutor!

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

my_cousin_vinny_9

Casual Friday was always a blight on the professional workplace landscape,and, predictably, it has come to this.

There is a cultural battle going on in San Antonio, Texas, where in the 187th District Court, District Judge Steven Hilbig  announced that he would not allow prosecutors in his courtroom if they were dressed like a local version of Joe Pesci’s Vinnie in “My Cousin Vinnie,” garbed in jeans and guayaberas rather than Vinnie’s leather jacket and leather pants. This wouldn’t be a problem for any sane DA’s office, since almost everywhere else no self-respecting (judge-respecting, court-respecting, law-respecting, respect-respecting…) lawyer would dream of appearing in the halls of justice dressed like an Acapulco tourist, or Cousin Vinnie, for that matter. It is a problem in Bexar County, however, because there District Attorney Nico LaHood thinks that local tradition trumps the legitimate needs of the justice system.

It is Fiesta time, you see, in Bexar county, a ten-day celebration that migrated legally from Mexico to parts of Texas, and previous judges foolishly allowed it to be recognized in their courthouses by permitting prosecutors to “dress down.”  The rough, and equally stupid, equivalent farther from the border would be allowing prosecutors to dress like elves during the Christmas shopping season or Minnie Mouse on Halloween.

Judge Hilbig, an adult, finally decided to put a stop to this nonsense by declaring, as did Judge Fred Gwynne, old Herman Munster himself in “My Cousin Vinnie,” that no lawyer was going to make a mockery of justice in his courtroom by setting foot in it dressed unprofessionally.

I love this guy! Continue reading →

No, Of Course You Don’t End Friendships Over Support For Donald Trump…

/ Jack Marshall / 42 Comments

cat and mouse

Donald Trump derangement has induced Slate’s Isaac Chotiner to pen one of the least self-aware and ethically tone deaf pieces within memory. In a post taking issue with New York Times columnist Peter Wehner’s  recent column arguing that political differences should not sever friendships and other  personal relationships, he argued that while Wehner’s principle was usually sound, it should not apply when the source of discourse is Donald Trump. He writes:

“Of course friendships should survive some political differences: I have friends who think differently than I do about everything from proper tax rates to abortion regulations. But having a friend who supports a blatantly (and proudly) bigoted candidate is categorically different. Everyone might have a different line about what issue to take some sort of moral stand on, but Trump has stepped over pretty much all of them.”

If Chotiner wants to choose his friends like that, he is free to do so. This is the attitude that is tearing apart the traditional connective tissue that makes America a unique and productive society, however, and he is promoting it.  It is also the demonization impulse, now being fed by zealots in both political parties and activists in every field, crusade and issue. This is the ultimate slippery slope. Hate your neighbor, if he doesn’t think like you do. Chotiner is embracing partyism, intolerance and, ironically, bigotry, exactly what he says makes Trump supporters unworthy of human companionship. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Miami Marlins Manager Don Mattingly

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

stabbed-in-the-back

When new Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly chose Barry Bonds as his batting coach, it was considered a bold move. Bonds, after all, is simultaneously baseball’s all-time home run champion, holding both the single season and career records, and its biggest cheat, having achieved both records while being secretly, illegally and unethically assisted by steroids. In addition to knowing how to cheat, Bonds undeniably knows how to hit (he was a great hitter before he decided to mutate himself), so this was a chance at redemption for Barry, as well as an opportunity to soften some of the sports media antipathy toward his conduct and character which has so far kept him out of the MLB Hall of Fame.

Asked this week how Barry Bonds was doing as batting coach, Mattingly replied,

“Him getting used to the coaching part of it is a work in progress from a standpoint of the amount of time and the preparation. You see [assistant hitting coach Frankie Menichino] still doing a lot of the prep work. Barry is still getting into the routine of the ugly side of coaching — being here at 1, and studying video, and studying on the plane and you don’t get a chance to watch movies, and things like that. It just depends how good you want to be as a coach. If you want to be a really good coach, you’ve got to do the work.”

Translation: “So far, Barry’s been lazy and isn’t doing his job. His assistant is doing it for him. The job requires a lot of hard, tedious work, and Barry hasn’t shown that he’s willing to do it. At this point, he not a good coach.”

Ethics foul. Mattingly was a fool to hire Bonds, and MLB is wrong to let this sport-wide ethics corrupter set foot in a clubhouse. Bonds is a living, breathing advertisement for the proposition that cheating pays, and should not be trusted not to promote that proposition to young players. Having hired Bonds, however, Mattingly still is obligated to treat him fairly and professionally.

It is not fair and professional to make a negative job review public by communicating it to the news media. Mattingly gave a critique of Bonds’ performance that should have passed from him to Bonds, and only from him to Bonds, in private. Attacking Bonds—and it was an attack, if a passive aggressive one—in the press is unfair, irresponsible, disrespectful, a betrayal of trust, and also cowardly.

Mattingly’s job is called “manager,” and this is atrocious, unethical management. He owes Bonds an apology, and if I were Marlins management, I would be thinking very hard about whether Don Mattingly is qualified for his job.

 

Ethics Dunce: Guardian Journalist Mona Chalabi

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
But Mona, doesn't you correcting people who correct people's grammar and calling them purveyors of white privilege make you an ANTI-grammar snob?

But Mona, doesn’t you correcting people who correct people’s grammar and calling them purveyors of white privilege make you an ANTI-grammar snob?

This won’t take long. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.

Mona Chalabi, a  journalist for the British tabloid “The Guardian,” has asserted that correcting someone’s grammar (and presumably word use, sentence structure and other aspects of effective communication) is racist.

“Grammar snobs are patronizing, pretentious, and just plain wrong, ” she says. “It doesn’t take much to see the power imbalance when it comes to grammar snobbery. The people pointing out he mistakes are more likely to be older, wealthier, whiter, or just plain academic than the people they’re treating with condescension. All too often, it’s a way to silence people, and that’s particularly offensive when it’s someone who might already be struggling to speak up.”

Of course, correcting anyone to humiliate them, embarrass them, or make them hesitant to speak is cruel and wrong, as would be slapping them in the face and shouting, “Shut up, fool!”  Neither of these, or other examples of bad manners and disrespectful treatment, is the conduct that Chalabi is condemning as a demonstration of white privilege, however. (Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, frequently quips, “White privilege—is there anything it can’t do?”) No, she is saying that the simple act of one human being pointing out to another that they have made a verbal mistake that may embarrass the speaker in the future makes the person offering the correction a “grammar snob,” and is unethical.

To the contrary, correcting anyone’s mistakes in speaking, when done with discretion and proper attention to the speaker’s feelings, is a gift, an act of social kindness and even a social obligation. Expressing oneself in a manner that causes others to conclude, possibly correctly, that you do not know correct meanings, grammar, construction and etiquette is a serious life handicap and an obstacle to success. A listener may conclude that you are badly educated, do not read, do not listen to those who speak to you correctly sufficiently to learn from them, are ignorant, are not very bright, or worse, know how to communicate but don’t have enough respect for the rest of the world to make an effort to do so. Unlike concluding such unflattering things about a stranger or casual acquaintance based on an accent or verbal regionalism, making judgments based on poor communication skills is not prejudice or bias. Communication is a vital life skill and occupational tool. Every individual has an obligation to master these as early as possible, certainly by young adulthood. Believing one has done this and being wrong is a dangerous and potentially tragic situation. Continue reading →

An Urgent And Probably Futile Call For Empathy And Compassion For The Victims Of Cultural Whiplash

/ Jack Marshall / 85 Comments

north-carolina-protest-transgenderIt is sobering to read  the hateful and contemptuous comments from so many of my Facebook friends about the legislators of Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Mississippi and other states that have either passed or have tried to pass laws allowing citizens to opt out of the cultural freight train that gives them the option of boarding or getting crushed. Whether these are “religious freedom” laws or “bathroom laws,” aimed at transgendered interlopers in the once orderly realm of public bathrooms, or whether they are designed to fight for the definition of marriage as “between a man and a woman,” these laws, every one of them unwise and unethical, and probably unconstitutional too, need to be regarded as the inevitable and predictable result when human beings are forced to absorb cultural shifts in a matter of years or less that properly would evolve over generations

Culture–what any society, country, region, religion, business, organization, club, family, secret society or tree house agrees over time as how they do things, think about things, what is right and what is wrong, what is remembered and what is forgotten–is a constantly evolving process. Efforts to freeze it inevitably fail, because human beings as a species can’t stop themselves from learning. Efforts to rush the installment of major changes, however, can be disastrous, even when there seems like no alternative but to rush.

Laws don’t automatically change culture. They are part of the process, both reflecting and facilitating cultural shifts, as well as institutionalizing them. They do not even mark the end of such shifts. Nobody should be surprised, angry or abusively critical when those who have been raised to believe in certain values and practices feel betrayed and mistreated, and see the need to resist when their sense of what is right is suddenly proclaimed as not only wrong but the sign of a character deficiency and a cause for denigration and disrespect. Continue reading →

Fire Kelly Ripa

/ Jack Marshall / 35 Comments

LIVE-with-Kelly-and-Michael-TV-show-on-ABC-renewal

On Tuesday of this week, ABC announced that Michael Strahan, the former NFL player who successfully replaced old pro Regis Philbin on the evolving franchise that was once “Regis and Kathy Lee,” was being promoted to the flagship of ABC’s morning lineup, and would leave “Live: Kelly and Michael” in September to become a co-anchor on “Good Morning America.”

For whatever reason, ABC botched the maneuver, failing to let Strahan’s co-host, Kelly Ripa, know about the change until it was announced publicly.

Ripa was angry and insulted, as well as stunned to lose her partner of four years without warning or the courtesy of an explanation. She decided to show her displeasure by skipping work, which is a non-no for a live TV show.  She called in “sick”  before the  Wednesday’s edition of “Live,” and is apparently on a mini-strike for the rest of the week at least. Some sources say that she will refuse to return to her eponymous show until Strahan, whom she now regards as a betrayer, moves on.

ABC pays Ripa a reported $20 million per year, $36,000.00 per episode, and $818.00 per minute of airtime to charmingly babble away an hour of the mid-morning, seldom uttering a memorable thought or witticism. She should fall down on her knees and worship at ABC’s executives’ feet for this boon. They own her, and they don’t really ask much: all she has to do is keep her mentally squishy audience happy, do what she’s told, and show up….and cash a lot of checks. Yes, ABC was tardy in telling her that she was going to have to find a new co-host. Bad ABC. That does not excuse or justify Ripa’s unprofessional breach of her employment contract. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Boston Red Sox Pitcher Steven Wright

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

beaning

On Sunday, Boston Red Sox knuckleballer Steven Wright hit Toronto first baseman Chris Colabello square in the helmet, and not with his usual floating trick pitch, but with an 87 mph fastball, making a frightening sound and causing  Colabello to collapse on the field.  After being checked out by the team trainer and allowing the replay of his life that flashed before his eyes to wind up, Wright’s beanee took first base and remained in the game.

Wright appeared visibly upset on the mound,and apologized to Colabello when he made his way to first.

The next morning, Colabello found an expensive bottle of liquor in his locker, a present from Wright. He was surprised. “He went above and beyond in my eyes,” the player with the sore head said. “It was pretty obvious there was no intent [to throw a beanball]. You could see by his reaction.” Continue reading →