You just proved my point.
We don't have criminal laws against overt expressions of racism. But what we do as a society is that we claim outrage and threaten people where we more or less constrict freedom of speech without it actually being written into law. People end up losing their livelihoods over things like. While I believe Cooper's case is different, some people like Jimmy the Greek end up getting ostracized from society just because they are honestly misinformed. In fact, Jimmy the Greek's black co-host, Irv Cross, has stated on many occasions that he knew that Jimmy was not racist.
Too often, people like Jimmy the Greek are given a societal death sentence just because some people claim outrage..
CBS immediately fired him without every seeing how legitimate that outrage was. And I would be willing to bet that had he just simply issued an apology and stayed with CBS, CBS would never have lost a red cent. And his co-workers were certainly not distressed over his words.
It's not very far different from dictatorships where somebody voiced their opinion of those in charge, except that Greek was not actually killed...but for all intents and purposes he was dead as he was completely ostracized from society.
If those who claim they are outraged genuinely show their outrage by refusing to by the product or they are rioting at games, etc. Then I would be all for firing the person. But more often than not, it's just not the case. We've allowed people to 'protest' in the laziest way possible and that has created a society that becomes more sensitive and irrational instead of a society that actually thinks and takes situations on a case-by-case basis.
YR
