When We Sabotage The Careers Of Mel Gibson And Paula Deen, Aren't We Overreacting? Jul 25th 2013, 08:00
Chef Paula Deen (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
By Eliyahu Federman
Helen Thomas passed away this weekend. Long recognized for her hard-hitting and bipartisan journalism, Thomas was a fixture of the White House Press Corps for over 50 years. Yet her legacy is now suffering, as many posthumously tarnish and judge her entire career based on anti-Semitic (or anti-Israel according to some) statements she made back in 2010 at a private White House party.
At the time, Thomas stated that Jews should leave Israel and go back to Germany, Poland and America—and as a result, Thomas was kicked out of the White House Press Corps.
Are we at times overreacting when we sabotage the careers of people like Helen Thomas and Mel Gibson, or more recently celebrity chef Paula Deen, based on isolated and non-work-related anti-Semitic or racist comments? Employers and the public should ignore or condemn such comments, not necessarily kill careers over them, and certainly not give them more attention then they deserve.
In a country where free speech is sacrosanct, our society needs to care less about people's personal views and how they express them. While hateful speech should have repercussions such as condemning viewpoints (and at times removing people from positions of power), we still need to champion free speech, while simultaneously condemning hateful ideology.
If discriminatory comments contribute to a hostile workplace or are uttered in the workplace, employers should discipline or fire employees over them. But when comments are outside of work, not related to the workplace or other co-workers, and don't contribute to a hostile working environment, the speech may be protected and employers should consider whether disciplining or firing an employee over them is appropriate.
Just last month The Food Network cancelled Paula Deen's contract over her use of the N-word. Deen made these racist comments several decades ago. She should be condemned for those comments, but is it fair to sabotage her career over comments unrelated to her profession, uttered decades ago outside the workplace?
Civil rights activists have long called for boycotts of Mel Gibson's films over racist and anti-Semitic comments. Gibson has exhibited a pattern of nasty anti-Semitic tirades–mostly after drinking. He is a highly talented actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. If his hateful ideology seeps into films, that needs to be publicly condemned. But why give so much media attention to drunken, misguided, ignorant, bigoted diatribes?
Lynching careers over comments sends the message that we don't value free speech. It sends the message that society should legitimately fear bigoted views, when in reality exposing bigoted views to the light of truth is the best method of marginalizing those views.
I once walked out of a TJ Maxx when a car full of skinheads sped up to me with arms stretched out the window in a Hitler salute chanting "Sieg heil!" I sternly retorted: "I condemn and despise your hateful ideology but support your right to free expression!"
The best way to delegitimize racist and bigoted viewpoints is through ignoring them or publicly condemning them, not necessarily killing careers over them and giving them more attention than they deserve.
Eliyahu Federman is SVP and CCO of 1SaleADay.com, the largest independently owned deal-a-day website. His work on employee-employer issues has been featured on ABC News, CNN Money, Yahoo Yahoo News and elsewhere. The opinions expressed here are solely his own.
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