Phil.mushnick@nypost.com SLURRING WORDS
WHO’D a thunk it? In our exchanges, he’d never even cussed. Can’t say the same for myself.
I know Fox and Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman long enough to be shocked that he’d speak a slur for homosexuals — the F-word — even when he thought he was off the air, let alone while attached to a microphone.
I don’t know if he’ll receive the career death penalty, given that he was more likely trying to sound like a wise guy rather than a hate monger. Sometimes “Some of my best friends are ...” makes for legitimate mitigation.
But we can rationalize anything. Bottom line: Brennaman should never have been inclined to speak such a slur.
But I do know that even after Jay-Z wrote, recorded, performed and sold rap songs in which he trashed gays — and rapped far worse, including a steady reference to black men as the N-word and the vulgar sexual objectifications of women — Roger Goodell’s NFL embraced him as its Minister of Social Justice.
Thus we do know that justice is selective, seldom reflecting the genuine, blindfolded kind.
Philadelphia’s former mayor, Michael Nutter, a black man, demanded the Eagles fire white receiver Riley Cooper for using the N-word, but had no problem with the Phillies signing Delmon Young after he attacked a bearded man because he thought he was Jewish.
In the meantime, Charlotte Hornets’ first-season radio playby-play man John Focke has been indefinitely suspended for tweeting on the fly from his kitchen table while watching a
Utah-Denver game.
Hitting “send” without looking, he referenced the Nuggets as the plural of the N-word while quickly banging out “Jazz-Nuggets,” a no-look message for the real-time reading edification of very few.
Focke explained his was a careless cell phone mistake. And as the Charlotte Observer’s Scott Fowler wrote, “Look down at your own screen. The ‘u’ is next to the ‘i,’ the ‘t’ is next to the ‘r.’ ”
Still, as CBS’ venerable Verne Lundquist has preached, the most dangerous word in our language has become “SEND.”
Beyond that, for what logical reason would Focke have typed and sent such? Was he trying put an early end to his career or did he make a negligent technological error?
This week I returned an email to a reader named “Puggy,” later to see that I referenced him as “Piggy.”
As a matter of common sense, the suspension of Focke makes none, like ESPN’s firing of tennis analyst Doug Adler for complimenting Venus Williams’ “guerilla” tactics, as if he suddenly and for no reason called her a gorilla.
If the Hornets believe Focke’s intentionally used that word, he must be fired as a racist — even if others in and associated with the NBA regularly use it.
If it was what it sensibly appears to be — modern technology turned on its creator like Frankenstein’s monster — Focke must be forgiven, his career unstained by a speed-typing accident.
Only the unreasonable and illogical would be left to believe otherwise, that out of the blue, Focke, a freshly hired NBA radio man, decided to call the Nuggets a group racial slur. By the way, who suspended or fired the Rev. Jesse Jackson for calling NYC “Hymie Town”?