Poll: Was the response to Kobe Bryant's use of the word "******" appropriate?

[NickCooley]

It is a gay slur and always will be - that's the intent of using it as an insult, but the outrage is obviously overblown.
It's just a word, and rage produces rage.

That comment shows a lack of knowledge of how the English language works. English is a very malleable and shifting language, the spelling and meaning of words change fairly often and foreign words are even picked up and used for our own. This is in contrast to say the French Language which was at one point was rigorously enforced and unchanged by the Academie Francaise, although that enforcement has been relaxed in recent years. Stephen Fry says it a lot better than I ever could in an episode of his radio series Fry's English Delight, the episode in question being called So Wrong it's Right. Or if that's too highbrow for you even South Park did an episode on this very word which I thought was actually quite insightful, for South Park anyway.

Getting more to the point the more and more people use the word ****** as a general insult instead of a gay slur (that is, a slur against homosexuals not generally happy and merry people) it loses it's latest meaning. Lets take a look at the word Bastard for example, I'm confident in saying it's extremely rare for someone to use the term and mean illegitimate offspring of unmarried parents.

Taking all this into consideration it almost seems to me that these LGBT groups are clinging to the word as something to rally against instead of allowing it's meaning to slip away into something new.

Or I could just be talking out of my arse. Up to you the reader to decide really, I'm certainly not going to tell anyone how to think.

EDIT: Having said all this I still think Kobe should be fined, not for homophobia but for unprofessional conduct.

 

[Mikeyfell]

He called someone a ******, obviously he was displaying disdain for that person

He did not say "I hate all faggots." or anything like that. That would have been bigotry which isn't cool.

There's no bigotry in that statement. If I got sued for $100000 every time I called someone a "Fucking ******" I would have outstanding IOU's to rival the national debt.

But he's famous and famous people don't have any rites so I guess that's all fine and good.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

$100,000 for saying two cusses? That's some real shit there, will he may get hit a few times with the Stick of Shame, a fine like that for a phrase which is probably being uttered twenty times in the world every second is pretty stupid.

Yes, it was on TV, but there are a lot worse things being said.

 

[Woodsey]

Whilst I can see that its not so simple to hear someone use the word and assume their attitude towards gays, that doesn't exactly excuse the guy from using it.

I imagine the fine was more to do with misconduct than anything else.

 

[TheTim]

I don't like Kobe at all, but i can understand completely why he would say this as i have played sports my entire life and no what its like when a call is placed on you and you feel like nothing wrong has happened.

 

[Plurralbles]

I think people need to stop being so butthurt about a word.

Of course.. I'd like to see his reaction if someone used hte N word...

I mean.. if it's just a word that is thrown out out of anger... then he should be okay with that too.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

That's some inflation...
when I was a kid, a cuss word required me to shell out an entire quarter. Now they are going for 50k a pop? I couldn't afford to be a kid in this day and age...

 

[Lord Beautiful]

If the call was bullshit, then yes it was appropriate. Then again, I don't consider "******" a homosexual slur in this situation. Rather, I feel he used the word the same way I use it when playing fighting games online against spamming pricks.

 

[The Gnome King]

*snip*

The word "fagot" comes from "bundle of sticks" and it was always historically used to refer to gays in a derogatory sense; linking the USE for the bundle of sticks - burning gays at the stake, which used to be commonplace. Learn linguistics if you want to argue them. It has roots in an extremely offensive practice - the killing of people due to their sexual orientation. Doesn't get much more offensive than that, does it?

And let me guess - you're a white, straight male who doesn't understand what the fuss is about, right?

Blacks can call each other the "N word" all they want, it's called reclaiming power for themselves. I, on the other hand, as part of a class and race of people who historically treated blacks very badly in my country have NO right to use the word.

Gays can call themselves "fags" if they choose because they can be considered to be "reclaiming the power" of a word for themselves in much the same way. It's the study of linguistics, culture, sociology... so many things - that I think you are lacking here to properly understand.

The politically correct movement exists to help reign in some of the abuses of language and change peoples hearts and minds through the highlighting of why things are offensive and why they SHOULD be offensive.

I have to go out with my wife now so I don't have time to argue this all day; have a professor - preferably a civil rights inclined LGBT friendly one - explain this to you if you want an education.

The bottom line is that if you know something is offensive to people you probably shouldn't do it. Period. Then again, kindness and understanding aren't exactly commonplace.

 

[Griffstar]

$100,000 fine by the NBA Commissioner seems about right. If he had said it off camera, in a locker room, this wouldn't be as big a deal.

He should know better than to say such things. I wouldn't be surprised if he lost sponsors over this as well.

When people make such high amounts of money, you have to set higher fines for them to have meaning. That being said, maybe 100k isn't enough.

How does he "know better"? So if I made higher income than you and I was fined $2000, but you did the same thing to my window but were fined $100 dollars because you made less money then me how does that make any sense to you?

---

Ontopic

That's just bullshit, he should not be fined one cent over swearing, maybe a game suspension or something. 100k is not just pushing it, its over-exagerating it to the extremes over a WORD and meaningless, more or less dumb and stupid word .

It's a word people, get over it.

 

[The Gnome King]

If the call was bullshit, then yes it was appropriate. Then again, I don't consider "******" a homosexual slur in this situation. Rather, I feel he used the word the same way I use it when playing fighting games online against spamming pricks.

So if white people started calling each other the N-word and meant it as a general insult instead of a slur against blacks, that should be cool? On TV? Regardless of it possibly offending many blacks?

Because I mean if I call someone a "stupid N-word" and they're not black, I'm not using it as a racial slur - so that's OK, right?

I will never understand why people want the "right" to be insulting and cause pain to others. And I'm probably glad about this.

 

[300lb. Samoan]

I replied other, because: While I think Kobe should be held to a strict standard as a professional representative of the NBA, I don't agree with the action in terms of defending tolerance of the gay community. I agree with Kobe (and South Park) that the word ****** is not often used in this context as an intentional slur against the gay community - fag has a long history as a word denoting outsider-ship, basically a word of generic discrimination, who's intent to slander pales in comparison to ******, or even retard.

However... Fuck Kobe. Fuck Gasol and the rest of the Lakers, and fuck Blake Griffin even. GO EAST.

 

[ProtoChimp]

Didn't a similiar thing happen in the UK with Wayne Rooney a few weeks ago (swearing during a match on live TV, not the rest of it, I think he did it acoring a goal or something)

Yeah, except ya know FUCK ALL HAPPENED TO HIM! Oh wait he missed 2 games and I think one was a final, dunno, don't watch footie. Still none of this is really as bad as Cheryl Cole ASSAULTING SOMEONE and yet EVERYONE IN OUR FUCKING SHITEBALLS COUNTRY FORGETS AND THINKS OF HER AS A CULTURUL ICON. I thought I would only say this about Japan and certainly not my own country but, England, WTF?!

 

[ace_of_something]

Well I can't accurately gauge this situation because I'm biased that I hate rapists who use hush money to avoid their day in court. So any scorn heaped on him for anything no matter how trite is okay by me.

 

[emeraldrafael]

If the NBA is anything like the NFL or NHL, the players have a conduct code they must follow at all times, on and off the court. Using the profanity alone would be enough, but to use the slur in combination, well, thats a coffin nail.

Perhaps the fine is a bit much, but he did need a nice sized fine to remind him who he is and where he is. Actually, I would made him sit out a game, and have a lesser fine, maybe $25k, that would be donated to something positive dealing with the homo/transsexual community. Like how in the NHL, if a player is fined for something like fighting, it goes to the players health charity.

As for the argument that its lost its meaning, well, lets make the N***er and the N***a argument and see how long it takes someone to cry racial slur.

EDIT:
<url=http://www.nba.com/2011/news/04/14/lakers-fines.ap/index.html>Though this may be getting ridiculous