If there is one thing that I can’t stand it is insincerity.
And insincerity is what you get when you try to make people apologize for things like the "training video" former San Francisco 49ers public relations director Kirk Reynolds made that ultimately cost him his job.
For those of you that don’t know what I am talking about former San Francisco 49ers public relations director Kirk Reynolds, when he still had a job with the team, made a video that was supposed to be an instructional video for the players to teach them how to deal with the media. It contained lesbian soft-core pornography, ethnic slurs, a mock gay wedding and even a few jabs at the mayor of San Francisco.
Someone within the 49ers organizations leaked it to the press and here we are.
Now why am I suggesting that the 49ers official apology to the Asian, gay and other like offended communities was insincere?
It’s simple.
If you thought what you did was really that awful, I am of the belief that you wouldn’t have made the film in the first place.
Period.
This video was never made with the intention of ever being seen by anyone outside of the 49ers organization, and like they say, your character isn’t what you do when people are looking but how you are when no one is looking.
The owner of the 49ers saw the video 5 months earlier but didn’t do anything about it. In fact, nothing was done about it until it was anonymously e-mailed to San Francisco Chronicle columnists Philip Matier and Andrew Ross who when they saw the video, wrote about it, and now suddenly everyone in the 49ers organization understands how terrible this all is.
All of this regret, self-condemnation and penitence coming out of this organization now should’ve been handled internally the moment upper management saw the video. This should’ve been handled within the organization way before it ever got leaked to the outside world.
But my beef isn’t just with the 49ers but also with these so called “offended groups” that are sitting here accepting these apologies from the 49ers like they were so hurt by the video.
They were offended no doubt.
I don’t doubt that for a second.
But hurt?
Now that I doubt it.
And if you were hurt by this obvious attempt at Porky’s type humor, then in my honest opinion you are far too thin skinned for me to give a damn about your feelings anyway.
I guess I am saying that it just comes a time when some of you need to realize that you are so easily bruised that you shouldn’t make a big deal out of them anymore.
This is one of those times.
If the Asian jokes in this film hurt you, may I recommend you stay at least 100 yards away from any scene with that Asian dude in the film Sixteen Candles with Molly Ringwald.
Oh yeah and stay away from Dave Chapelle's show on Comedy Central too.
And for all of the homosexuals out there in the world, if you didn’t know that there are a lot of people out there that find lesbians making out a turn on, while at the same time disapproving of your lifestyle and how the more flamboyant in your community parade themselves around, then I guess now is as good of time as any to welcome you into the real world.
Now I can understand if the video was advocating the beating, maiming or intolerance of homosexuals or Asians, but for crying out loud, never in that film did I think for one second that anything was mean spirited.
I was sitting a Buffalo Wild Wings today enjoying some buffalo wings watching this “sincere apology” the 49ers issued in front of a handful of gay, lesbian and Asian community leaders and I almost wanted to gag.
Spare me.
Spare me the act. On both sides. Spare me the faux regret from the 49ers organization and those the “irreparable damage this does to the community" speeches from the gay, lesbian and Asian community leaders.
This is the insincerity that I hate. This is the worst kind.
All these emotionally delicate so called community leaders are going to do is use this as an opportunity to pull a "Jesse Jackson" and extort donations from the San Francisco 49ers to fund all sorts of pocket lining programs they have dreamed up in their heads which won’t alleviate not a single social issue that they are funding.
What are the 49ers going to have to pay for sensitivity training?
Will that make you feel better?
And the 49ers, well the 49ers will continue to act like they are so sorry, until they feel they have paid enough dues to get the Chronicle to quit talking about this.
I hate when people only act like they are sorry once they are caught, i.e. Rush Limbaugh, San Francisco 49ers, Bill Clinton, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, just as much as I hate it when so-called community leaders act like they actually lost sleep because someone poked fun at them in a training video.
Lighten up.
I know that the Klu Klux Klan can’t stand me, and I don’t lose a single wink of sleep at night worrying about it. And that would be the case whether or not I ever come across one of their recruiting videos or not.
The 49ers didn’t do anything about the video when it was made. No one destroyed it. No one lost their job over it. Nothing happened before it was leaked to the public.
That tells me everything I need to know about the San Francisco 49ers.
And I am sincere about that.