There was an article on the BBC today about a now former referee who eighteen months ago was sacked from his job for making a video in which he mocked a disabled person. The issue has surfaced because the man decided recently he would explain what happened, and why he hadn’t quit because ‘he had decided to relocate due to a change in his personal circumstances’ as his employers said at the time but had been sacked because of this video. He states that in the video he was making fun of himself and saying he may have a chance of winning an adults race at his child’s sports day despite being a fat man – which had been the banter between him and his friend – because, and its not clear here, another person or people racing were either disabled or so bad, an impression of a disabled person could relate to them. This video was sent to a friend who he later fell out with, who sent it on to his employer, was sacked and we find ourselves here.
The reason I bring this up is not to defend him. I have not seen the video and doubt many have, but I can imagine what it is like as I have seen that type of thing or joke plenty over the years. I doubt it’s very funny and for a full grown adult to have made it must be quite embarrassing. I am not offended by it, and don’t believe someone necessarily has the right not to be offended, however it will be offensive to some people and them being offended is most likely justifiable, as he himself admits to it’s crass nature. The reality is he is in the public eye and with public perception so important, these organisations are desperate to maintain the veil of public decency at all times. There are people not in the public eye though who have suffered similar fates for similar actions so arguably the consequences are no different.
My reason for bringing it up then is that by saying it’s bad, discriminatory and worth losing your job over, it arguably deals with the issue without any real debate over why or how bad it is. We seem so determined to either have trial by media or to sweep something under the carpet that it doesn’t allow us the opportunity to debate these issues properly and have any adult conversations. The world is not black and white. This man made a stupid and offensive video and he lost a job at thirty-two years old which he had wanted to do and trained for since he was six years old. We need to move away from the antiquated concept of good and bad, right and wrong, and be able to discuss these issues; which if we view objectively vary along the spectrum of acceptability. I’m not giving an answer to any questions here, merely suggesting we need to be mature enough to not only ask reasonable questions but be willing also to try answer the ones that don’t necessarily have an easy answer.
Observations and Misunderstandings 