"We Germans are notoriously dreadful at speeches. In 1962, our foreign minister addressed an African audience as ‘Ladies, gentlemen and niggers’."
If you think such a comment shows disgraceful racism and warrants sacking, then you’re an idiot. It’s a self-deprecating line about how awful and tactless people of the speaker’s own nationality can be, and doesn’t in any way reflect negatively on black people.
It is, however, an important reminder that everyone non-American who’s involved in any kind of business dealings with people in the US needs to remember the mantra: Corporate America Has No Sense Of Humour About Anything, Especially But Not Exclusively Race Or Gender.
While on the subject, it’s worth mentioning that the other Metro exec in the scandal (the one who didn’t get fired, oddly) made comments that were genuinely pointless, offensive, bizarre and unfunny. Indeed, if anyone can explain what his joke was even supposed to mean, I’d be both grateful and surprised.
Update: the other Metro exec’s comments were taken from a Richard Pryor joke (cheers Nick) – so the guy was quoting a famously anti-racist, black, comedian. In other words, both comments were made in an entirely not-derogatory-to-black-people way. This is evidence that the PC puritans kicking up this fuss about nothing should seriously consider fucking off and dying of leprosy.
K…just read that joke…
JB: I think that the joke is supposed to be saying that the two men in question had shorter-than average penis sizes:
One said it was too deep (as in, he couldn’t reach the bottom of the puddle with the end of his penis)
One one said it was too cold (we all know what happens to penises when they get chilly!)
Then again, I’m probably wrong…am notoriously bad at getting even blatantly obvious jokes, and I can’t quite believe that, if my interpretation is correct, people class that joke as "funny" It’s spectacularly lame. If anyone laughs when told that joke, they’re probably laughing at the person telling it, not the actual joke!
I think, though I may be wrong, that it was a Richard Pryor joke originally…he definitely had one that ended ‘and it’s deep, too!’
See here for an album that takes that as it’s title, in fact.
I don’t agree John. Did the executive point out that he was quoting a bad speech from 1962? Did the second one say it was a Richard Pryor joke?
Context is key. In fact the second one seems to me to be inexcusable, and a definite sacking offence, even if he did explain.
I get your point about context: telling jokes about cocks on stage at a corporate function is, erm, risky behaviour for a senior exec at the best of times.
However, Nylund should have been carpeted at the time for being an oaf and either sacked or warned; disciplining him years later when the press find out that the way in which he was an oaf tenuously involved race seems pathetically token.