It's Insanely Unfair That We've Put Our Black Employees In This Situation

When I saw that clip of ignorant and racist comments from the 2016 Colin Kaepernick rundown, I, like a lot of my colleagues, was mad and embarrassed. I chose to take the approach of letting Dave, Kevin, and Dan address the matter since they were the ones in the video. I also wanted to listen to what the black people here had to say about it before I injected my own opinion. The second part, I think, was a mistake on my part given the benefit of hindsight. Because now they are the ones who find themselves as the center of the conversation and controversy that they didn’t even ask for in the first place.

I don't give a shit about “cancel culture.” People can complain about it until the debate becomes “what cancel culture really is” and then there are a hundred different offshoots of that argument and now we’ve forgotten what we’re talking about. What I do give a shit about is my coworkers and listeners who are black and brown and have been put in a cruel position.

To put it bluntly, it’s especially fucked up that our black coworkers have been unfairly put in the position of choosing to either a) accept racist remarks, or b) publicly fighting with their boss. Put yourself in their shoes- Dave won’t apologize because in his eyes it means giving in to the outrage mob- so now our black colleagues are being held to account for something that had nothing to do with any mistakes they’ve made whatsoever. That’s what I’m concerned about. If Dave doesn’t truly feel sorry then he shouldn’t apologize- but understand that the consequences of that will mean that our black coworkers will have to suffer blame, shame, and embarrassment that they don’t deserve and that’s fucked up.

It’s not about virtue signaling or white knighting- I see a lot of people who say there are “the good ones” at barstool. To be clear I’m not “a good one” and I hate that distinction because it serves no purpose. If you know the people here you know that I’m average AT BEST. I work around a lot of great people though- I sit in between Big Cat and Kate- and I’ve been lucky enough to do a daily radio show with Tyler. If anyone at this company deserves universal respect it’s him, and it fucking sucks that he and our other black coworkers are taking ANY heat whatsoever for this. It’s about being a decent human being and helping out the same people who would have your back if the tables were turned. I don’t know exactly how to fix this short of making Willie Dave’s boss, but I do know that what’s happened over the last 4 days is not going to work in the long-term.