Guerrilla, not gorilla, warfare: Fired tennis analyst who nearly died to have his day in court

This lawsuit has more on the line than a game of tennis!
https://www.theroar.com.au/2018/10/11/guerrilla-not-gorilla-warfare-fired-tennis-analyst-who-nearly-died-to-have-his-day-in-court/

Thanks LS. Nice article. Really hope Adler gets a decent amount of money out of ESPN here - their behaviour was shocking, I also thought Venus came across extremely poorly in the quotes attributed to her at the time.

Me too BS!

Post 1 of 2

Interesting article. A problem with his defence is that the term "guerilla effect" is not very common at all. I just googled it and the only references I found were references to this same story. He claims that he has used the phrase a lot in his career. That sounds to me like a provable claim. Footage will likely still exist if him saying it. If that is true, and he can be found to have said "guerilla effect" multiple times in similar situations in matches involving only white players, and show this recording in court, then that would help his lawsuit.

Even if he did use the word "guerilla" it was ill advised to do so. However, surely, most people are capable of making such a mistake occassionally. Certainly I am.

Some years ago I once referred to a black tennis player as black when describing them on a forum - it was I think probably the original BBC forum. I then had people jumping on me and asking why I felt a need to mention his skin colour and clearly implying I was being racist. I don't really think I was guilty of anything other than being a bit naive and careless. The comment did come off as a bit odd but I don't think I really deserved that people were saying things like "we will be watching your comments closely from now on" or something like that as if determined to latch onto the tiniest inference that I might be a racist and smear me as much as possible.

I learned to be more careful as I got older and wiser. For a while I simply stopped commenting on any racial related issues either online or in public. But I'm constantly aware that I'm one of the liberals who is in danger of being ostracized by other liberals. Or, at least I would be if I was a public figure and anyone cared what I thought.

It's smart to be careful. I remember once I was watching some children (including my own) playing and was going to say to the parents that they were jumping about like monkeys. Then I thought twice about it and figured that this would be a bad idea. There were no dark skinned children present, but I figured if I just decided then and there to never use the word monkey in relation to people I could avoid thoughtless saying it on a later occasion. The smart tennis commentator watching this story develop should be making a mental note to never, ever use the word guerilla or gorilla in public or in commentary ever again as well as perhaps even making a list of other things they shouldn't say. It's sad that it's come to this, but it has.

That said, maybe he is a racist and he really did say gorilla. But this can't be known for sure and he shouldn't have been sacked in my opinion. Leaning towards innocence makes more sense in such a grey area. Apology/explanation yes, but no more.

It sounds like he has let this effect his life more than it should though. Hours and hours defending yourself against trolls and the PC hate mob on twitter is not going to be fun.

Post 2 of 2

I think this is part of a wider trend whereby people are excessively punished for any slight indiscretions related to issues of possible sexism, racism or bigotry. One that struck me as particularly crazy a few years ago was Dave Whelan the chairman of Wigan who said “When I was growing up we used to call the Chinese ‘chingalings’." and was banned from football for a time and forced to resign from Wigan. That was in 2014. I think around 2013-2015 was the peak of this craziness. That was also around the time that in the US students were storming into University leaders offices and rioting and and no platforming people for the slightest indiscretion.

Things haven't changed much since then, but I think this will start to get slightly better in the coming years.

In the mean time, if this sort of thing annoys you, it's worth keeping a sense of balance.

We ought to be more annoyed at the terrible injustices suffered by people of colour/ethnic minorities over the years, such as being economically disadvantaged in your whole life, suffering discrimination, getting shot and so on, and only slightly annoyed at the occassional white person unfairly losing their job. If we manage to reduce racism and a few privileged people get unfairly treated by some overzealous liberals along the way, overall it will be a good result.

The Whelan incident was actually fair enough in my recollection. Think that was when he also indicated that Jewish people were keener on money than other people. That’s quite different to being fired for using a perfectly acceptable word that happens to sound like another word which might, depending on the context, be racist.

As for the idea that it’s ok for these type of incidents to occur for the greater good, I don’t really get that. Incidents like this do more harm than good to the fight to remove racism entirely as they trivialise it and lead to resentment at the unfair treatment. We can both reduce racism and avoid this type of incident - they are not mutually exclusive.