Britt McHenry gets nasty with tow company employee, gets suspended
- Thread starter moondog80
- Start date
Anyone remember the shitty 80's movie Krull? It was all over HBO when we first got cable. There was a cyclops and a dude with a ring that had an eyeball. And a stupid swastika-looking throwing weapon.
Billy Jo Robidoux said:
That's the glaive to which I refer.
Also, Liam Neeson was in that movie. No word on his particular set of skills.
smastroyin said:
Stupid Krull, calling that thing a glaive. Definitely closer to a chakram or mambele or something.
Billy Jo Robidoux said:
Stupid? That thing was awesome, it looked like a Chinese throwing star, it acted like a Chinese throwing star, but brother, it wasn't a Chinese throwing star.
And the Krull Atari game was pretty rad scorpion too.
I have no idea what the movie was like.
Kenny F'ing Powers said:
Wow.
Ten cent head--you're a baseball message-board regular. "Regular" to such a degree that we've all figured out how much you actually suck, even. On no planet does that guy get to mock the one who sees a bunch of movies and likes to write about it.
I would take out a notebook and learn from Syd and Blacken because you're unfortunately obviously not going anywhere and fucking suck at this.
And here comes John, sucking at the teet of those more known then he.JohntheBaptist said:
Let us know when you get the validation you need, alright champ?
smastroyin said:
Oddly enough, if you Google "glaive" and check out the images, it appears to be the weapon of choice for semi-nude women
She tweeted this:
I call bullshit on the bolded.
Edit: link
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/britt-mchenry-espn-returns-work-after-suspension-second-chance
I call bullshit on the bolded.
Edit: link
I assume you're basing your call on your intimate knowledge of her personally? Not just judging her on what was probably the only twenty seconds you've ever laid eyes on her in your life, while she was in the middle of a stressful moment where she was likely provoked to some extent?Van Everyman said:
Having worked in the service industry for the past 18 years (in different roles), I can assure you I've been on the receiving end of that interaction dozens of times. Sometimes the people were legit ass holes that have no excuse and just treat people like shit. Sometimes they were good enough people having a bad day and taking it out on the wrong person. Sometimes I will fully admit to provoking it or being an asshole myself and deserving it (in spirit, if not content).
She shouldn't have said what she said but we also don't know the whole story. We have a 20 second clip from a security camera that has been edited to make her look as bad as possible. I challenges everyone here to honestly state they haven't been a dick to a barista, a meter maid, a waitress, a bartender, a tow truck guy, to someone at some point.
The fact that this is even a story is an indictment on society more than it is on her
No, I'm confident that, with or without context, saying what she said makes her a piece of shit.
But I wouldn't pick apart her perceived physical faults, or education level, or presumed economic status like she did. She was, rightly or wrongly, pissed off, and instead of using her words, she threw a tantrum. I don't see this as a moment of frustration that brought on some regrettable behavior, but likely a pretty decent barometer of her as a person. I'm confident in my assessment.
Some friends of mine went to school with her at Stetson. They were a little surprised, but not shocked by this whole thing based on how she treated people when they knew her. Apparently she has always thought she was better than everyone else.
I appreciate your point, PP – we all get upset at certain points. But as B4aT says and others before, her diatribe was so visceral, cruel and personal that I had a pretty hard time imagining this episode was the exception. Put another way, this other woman could have been every bit as horrible but it still wouldn't have warranted a diatribe like that.Papelbon's Poutine said:
Van Everyman said:
I used to work with my wife in publishing. Once we were in a meeting and a petty admin assistant make two or three obnoxious comments toward her. After the third comment, my wife destroyed her in front of the entire staff. That night, she asked me if she was out of line. I told her that it felt like the assistant flicked her on the arm a few times and in response my wife punched her in the face. This seems to be the same situation here. I am sure the tow-truck staffer was an asshole, but it's hard to see her comments warranting McHenry's reply.
Oh, and for those looking for good marriage advice, don't take the honest approach I took with my wife in that anecdote. She transferred all her anger at that assistant to me for that assesment.
The issue isn't necessarily that McHenry got mad, or over-reacted, or acted like a jerk. It's a strawman argument to say that those of us who are being unapologetically "anti McHenry" in this case are failing to recognize that "we all act like jerks sometimes!" or "I bet you wouldn't want to be videotaped during a bad moment!". Both of those statements are true.
But the depths to which she plumbed to demean the staffer; mocking her innate physical attributes, her socio-economic status, and her (presumed) education-level are just beyond the pale. I don't know if it's just as bad as calling someone in a fit of anger a "kike" or a "chi-nk" or something of that nature, but if it's isn't as bad, it's not by much. The intent is the same: to win an argument by ignoring the other person's statements and trying to reduce the other person to a lower status than yourself. That's clearly what McHenry was trying to do, even if she wasn't doing it consciously.
Making statements about someone's genetics, or how much money they make, is to reduce any discussion or argument to one beyond reason and into a morass of bigotry. It's indefensible.
But the depths to which she plumbed to demean the staffer; mocking her innate physical attributes, her socio-economic status, and her (presumed) education-level are just beyond the pale. I don't know if it's just as bad as calling someone in a fit of anger a "kike" or a "chi-nk" or something of that nature, but if it's isn't as bad, it's not by much. The intent is the same: to win an argument by ignoring the other person's statements and trying to reduce the other person to a lower status than yourself. That's clearly what McHenry was trying to do, even if she wasn't doing it consciously.
Making statements about someone's genetics, or how much money they make, is to reduce any discussion or argument to one beyond reason and into a morass of bigotry. It's indefensible.
Papelbon's Poutine said:
She may be the nicest person in the world for all we know. But you can only draw conclusions based on the knowledge you have. If all you know is awful, even if the sample size is small, why is he wrong for having an opinion based on the available information? It's not like he said he knows for sure that she's the worst person in the world.
If the genders were switched, would this even be a thing? If some tow company guy called Skip Bayless a little dicked midget or something rude like that and Bayless fired back that the guy was a toothless high school dropout that should kill himself would he have gotten a week?
Here's another question--how much will this end up helping her career? I'd argue most people had no idea who she was until this blowup, but I am guessing she got a lot of eyeballs and coverage upon her return and her name is far more out there.
No such thing as bad publicity...
No such thing as bad publicity...
At least she owned the comments in the apology and didn't Peter King it. "Oh I didn't know I wasn't supposed to say those things/ask that question"
GeorgeCostanza said:
Peter King is never at risk of losing his job, though (not that this excuses him, just that he could choose to do fuck-all and it would make zero difference). Her apology was damage control and nothing more.
"Indefensible"
"Beyond the pale"
"Bigotry"
You saw 1 half of a conversation between two adults in which one of them called the other poor and ugly, you have literally no idea what the other adult said, and you used those sorts of words to describe it?
Can we all maybe take a deep breath here?
"Beyond the pale"
"Bigotry"
You saw 1 half of a conversation between two adults in which one of them called the other poor and ugly, you have literally no idea what the other adult said, and you used those sorts of words to describe it?
Can we all maybe take a deep breath here?
joe dokes said:
But that's a pretty silly point, isn't it? That insinuates that there is nothing the other adult said that is worse than what McHenry said, and since we're judging the behavior of one half of an exchange the other half needs to be judged accordingly before we can start using phrases like "beyond the pale" and "indefensible", IMO
And that's not to say that the other half of the convo would necessarily help McHenry if it came out either, if it comes out that McHenry berated the woman while she sat there whimpering and begging her to stop because she was hurting her feelings that would make McHenry's words that much worse, right? On the other hand, if the tow lady told McHenry "I hope you get carjacked and sexually assaulted on your way home" all the sudden "lose some weight, babygirl" doesn't really seem so bad, does it?
The point is we have no idea what the tow lady said, but to state that it doesn't matter when judging one half of an angry exchange is, IMO, nonsense.
Judge Mental13 said:
I dont agree because I dont look at it by comparing the relative shittiness of each of their comments. This isn't self-defense, where I might excuse punching someone's lights out if you were physically threatened, but not if someone simply walked by you and said, "nice tie, dickweed."
You are a successful professional and you respond to the verbal insults of a parking lot attendant in a cage by ripping her appearance, education, etc.? I do believe it's indefensible. Not that she responded to the woman (I'll assume some provocation, and not just tow-related frustration). But the particular response.
So their careers matter, How? At least the way I read that is you seem to imply that her being a successful professional somehow makes the behavior less excusable.
I'm going to assume that Britt is pompous and arrogant. I could be wrong though and we don't know that the other woman didn't start with the personal insults about looks and education. And McHenry was just responding in kind letting the situation get the better of her.
Since I will likely never meet her nor had I heard of her before and do not watch ESPN very often, my opinion of her as a person doesn't matter in the least.
I think her career does matter. She's a public figure who represents her employer to millions of people. If you want to be in that position the expectations, fairly or unfairly, are higher than someone sitting in a cage at an impound lot. By no means am I excusing the attendant and she may have said even worse things to Britt. But that doesn't excuse her response at all, and she should have more self-control if she wants to be in the public eye.
The conversation isn't really about McHenry at this point, it's about how you judge a person.
Judge Mental 13 has now posited that it's okay to go to just about any length as long as a person has egged you on. I think that's an interesting question.
It's one thing to have someone provoke you and you respond, "you know what, fuck you, fuck everyone you've ever known, and then fuck you all again," vs. "fuck you, you fat, toothless [insert racial epithet here], I hope your children die poor and starving because you're too stupid to feed them."
Is JM13 really arguing that if someone says something bad enough to you, you can say virtually anything in response it's "okay"?
Judge Mental 13 has now posited that it's okay to go to just about any length as long as a person has egged you on. I think that's an interesting question.
It's one thing to have someone provoke you and you respond, "you know what, fuck you, fuck everyone you've ever known, and then fuck you all again," vs. "fuck you, you fat, toothless [insert racial epithet here], I hope your children die poor and starving because you're too stupid to feed them."
Is JM13 really arguing that if someone says something bad enough to you, you can say virtually anything in response it's "okay"?
To show how fucking ridiculous this thread is.... Pretty Blonde goes off on tow clerk in a highly edited video gets 4 pages of discussion.
The cop that berated an Uber driver with no provocation got one post.
The cop that berated an Uber driver with no provocation got one post.
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
This is such a strawman I don't know where to begin addressing it. He's never excused what she said, he's asked that we consider everything involved before we condemn her to hell and let this edited video clip define everything she is as a person. Yes, it's an incredibly shitty thing she said. But Jesus, context is important. Everything has something that sets them off. That doesn't make it right, that doesn't make it okay, but JM13 is saying it's important to consider the difference between it being "an otherwise decent person doing something shitty" or "a shitty person", and yes, the context is relevant for making that distinction.
She made a comment on the girl's appearance. She made a comment on the girl's education. Both of those are beyond the pale. But do we know who opened the door to that? Do we know if the other woman called her a dumb slut and insinuated the car belonged to a sugar daddy? Do we know if the other girl shit on her appearance? We don't. And that's a pretty big difference to me to deciding whether or not McHenry is a piece of shit attacking someone she knows can't and won't answer back, and a person who lost it and got into a shit slinging match when provoked.
Judge Mental13 said:
This is the part I'm responding to. He's saying we can't decide whether something someone said is "beyond the pale" without knowing what it was in response to. I'm asking if he really means that. Maybe he didn't "excuse what she said," but he did argue that we couldn't define what she said as beyond the pale or indefensible.
You, PBDW, don't seem to agree, as you say the things that McHenry said are, indeed, "beyond the pale," without knowing the other half of the conversation.
I also don't agree. I don't care what someone says to me, I might lose my mind and make a fool of myself, but I hope to god I would never stoop to certain levels. Using a racial epithet would certainly be among those levels, for instance. I think calling someone "fat" is probably there as well. That's an inexcusable thing. It doesn't make a person irredeemable, but it's not a thing you can explain away and just say, "eh, heat of the moment." Rather, it's a thing you genuinely need to apologize for and think long and hard about why that happened (should you have that level of self-awareness).
However, I think it's a topic worthy of discussion: At what point does something you say, irrespective of context, make you a "piece of shit"?
And, as a caveat, I don't think anyone is fundamentally "bad," short of, like, mass murderers. McHenry obviously isn't THAT bad for what she said. I think we can agree there are matters of degree here.
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Can this question be minimized to: should you ever try to hurt someone with words. I've always though it possible to say things you don't mean or believe just in an attempt to get a reaction. McHenry seems to have dropped some Words of Mass Destruction in many of your opinions. Seems to me the instigator got what she wanted and McHenry got trolled. Probably will work out for her in the end though.
Should you just take it if you have higher social status (whatever that means?). I've taken things way too far sometimes, so I don't trust my judgement.
MyDaughterLovesTomGordon said:
Fair enough, I should have said that in my own experience I don't consider "you're fat, ugly, and uneducated" to be indefensible or beyond the pale when it comes to the type of horrible things you can say to somebody. There are things far far worse that she could have said or that could have been said to her. In no way am I saying that telling somebody that they're fat ugly and uneducated is OK to do but it's a lot more OK to do it if the person you said it to just told you to go fuck yourself then if, say, that person was just walking down the street minding their own business.
You, joe dokes, Drleather and others are essentially saying that context doesn't matter. I can't imagine a scenario where that line of thinking makes any sense.
