Jon Gruden’s emails from over 10 years ago caused him to lose his job this week. Pundits decried his emails as racist, misogynistic, and homophobic. Black former professional football players such as Randy Moss openly wept on television, complaining that our society is going backward (even though the emails themselves were from the past). DeMaurice Smith, the target of some of Gruden’s emails, claimed they were an example of how racism is still a problem.
Oh, come on. Spare me the fake outrage and righteous indignation.
All of these people publicly bemoaning Gruden’s sins were nowhere to be found when California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder was attacked on the campaign trail by a white woman wearing a gorilla mask.
People have every right to be upset at Gruden’s emails if they want to be, but a lot of their outrage is just political theater. It is only happening because it reinforces the racist hatemonger narrative that people on the Left are desperate to promote. Meanwhile, when actual racism and bigotry occurred with the attack on Elder, these same stalwarts of racial equality were nowhere to be found.
There’s a two-tiered outrage system regarding racism and social justice in this country. The condemnation associated with it depends on one of three things: the aggressor’s skin color, the victim’s skin color, and the political ideologies of each. That is why the incident involving Gruden, which involved private emails sent over a decade ago, drew viral outrage from numerous media outlets but the incident involving Larry Elder, a black Republican with the potential to be California’s first black governor, was ignored and swept under the rug by those very same outlets. It’s about time these hypocritical double standards get exposed.
What is the actual message being conveyed? Racist tropes are egregious insults that trigger social justice warriors throughout the country — unless such tropes involve attacking black Republican men running for governor?
Gruden saying DeMaurice Smith has big lips is a sin worthy of being (metaphorically) dragged through the streets and shamed Game of Thrones-style, but the trope of a white woman wearing a gorilla mask to a black man’s campaign stop is “nothing to see here, move along”? Give me a break.
Racism was once a huge problem in this country. Fortunately, that time passed long ago. Now claims of racism are merely theater for perpetual self-victimizers or weaponized propaganda to promote political agendas and narratives.
