I can't understand the shock and outrage expressed by the media every time a white uses this word. Mark Furman used the word in front of a couple of girls ten years before the OJ trail and his career was ruined as a derective with the LAPD. He was considered a racist and a liar during the trail because of it. Cooper's NFL career will be over after this. Nevermind that what he did was perfectly legal and didn't happen at during a game or training camp or any other NFL function. Cooper may or may not be a racist, that is besides the point. It is not illegal to use the word. A racist has just as much rights in the country as any other person. You may not like like racist people or their views, but they have every right to feel that way. I don't believe in mistreating anybody due to skin color, but if I did it is my right to be an asshole. The fake outrage and drama caused by these situations does nothing more than cause resentment between the races.
Criminalizing speech on any level is inherently more harmful than allowing ALL forms of speech. As a result, hanging onto the legality of saying racist shit is a completely ignorant position to take. It's legal NOT because it is acceptable, it's legal because criminalizing it is far more harmful and on a wider scale. It's the trade off we make for maintaining rights. It's the smell of dog shit at the dog park that we tolerate for being able to take our pets to a place where they can run around when we live an in apartment and don't have a big ass yard out back. It's the infrequent inconvenience that we'll accept in exchange for something that's of greater benefit. Saying racist shit is wrong, legal or not. The law should not have any role in the discussion because allowing them a seat at the table of free speech fucks everyone over to a greater extent.
The Westboro Baptist are well within their legal rights to say the stuff they do. Doesn't change the fact that their pieces of shit for saying it. They're well within their rights to picket the funerals of dead soldiers but that doesn't change the fact that their actions are reprehensible and there's likely not a single person outside of that inbred clan that would endorse their behavior. There also likely isn't a single person out there who'd shed a tear if the leaders of that group died in a car fire.
Cooper can be within his legal rights that doesn't change the fact that society at large has raised their standards regarding what is acceptable and now he has to own up for using that word. Cooper, you, or any random Joe can be a racist all they want but their pretty much swimming upstream and whether or not they like it, societal standards change and people just won't accept that shit anymore so good luck navigating through life with that sort of mindset.
Also, he doesn't have to be at camp or an NFL event. They are told that they are representatives of the team no matter where they are. If that's too big of a burden for him to carry, he can always hand back his multi-thousand dollar checks and find a job where his actions don't reflect upon an entire organization.
Someone compared domestic violence to racial slurs in terms of the media coverage. This is one of those deflections that comes up when someone wants to make another person's grievance seem trivial, and thereby end the discussion based on the idea that the grievance is being blown out of proportion.
If you want a real answer to that question though, here's a couple.
1. Domestic violence is fucked up. There is no debate about that. We don't have people running around asking why it's okay for women to beat on women but not okay for men to do the same. We've all accepted that beating a woman is complete bullshit. Not everyone though has accepted that spouting off racially charged shit is also unacceptable. We actually have people asking why it's okay for blacks to say it but not whites but I just don't even see why that matters. It's not okay for whites to say it but why does it matter? Would you like to be able to use that word without having to worry about being viewed as a racist? I don't get where that argument is going. I can talk all the shit I want about my family but that doesn't mean I'm going to idly sit by and let some stranger say the exact same stuff. It's not okay for whites to say it, everyone knows why, and the discussion in general can proceed just as soon as people accept that.
2. Domestic violence has legal consequences...... and as Jnday pointed out, spouting racial slurs does not. When someone beats the hell out of their women, they suffer real legal consequences. That doesn't happen when people say racist shit. There is no law against spouting off racist stuff. There also doesn't have to be one for people to be acting like dickheads. Legal rights and morality don't always come as a packaged bundle. Sometimes reprehensible actions go unpunished because of legal rights. Such as the case in the Casey Anythony trial where her legal right to a trial by a jury of her peers acquitted her when it's pretty fucking evident that she had something to do with the murder of that child, if she herself didn't kill her. Legally, she can walk the fucking streets a free person after having been acquitted but in reality she's a fucking piece of shit who's morally bankrupt and who should have been thrown into the garbage disposal.
If not for common morality, who is going to ensure that Casey Anthony carries the burden of her actions? Should the rest of the population just accept the verdict? I don't think so and I'm glad that people didn't and likely won't. She'll be haunted for the rest of her life by people who treat her like the scumbag baby murdering bitch that she is. The law doesn't have a place in telling people what to say or what not to say but if not for society who's going to tell someone they're being an asshole and that their behavior is unacceptable? That's why it gets coverage. Because people are being assholes, spouting racist shit, and society at large has decided that they won't accept it anymore. It is what it is. You can either swim upstream and "fight the good fight" or you can just face facts and accept that times have changed and definitions of acceptable behavior have changed. It really doesn't matter because society at large is going to move on with or without any one person.
