This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse tells Katie the story of Jad Sleiman, a Muslim/Catholic/Lebenese/American/veteran/reporter/comic who was fired from public radio station WHYY over his jokes. To support the show and get exta content and much more,
Jad here. Re: Raghead, yeah, not performative/ironic. I cant help it, I get pissed. WIth raghead and shit it's hard to explain, like you hear it and your gut instantly flips and you think oh, somebody once called my mom that. People cant help that shit, it's why I dont use any actual slurs in my act.
It also just seemed unnecessary in the moment, like there's a tape, we all just heard it, what are you proving even? Would you haul a black dude up and chastise him for saying the n word? It was all so pointless.
To Katie's point, yeah I dunno how the law works or like if he had to say it for legal reasons, that may be the case. Didnt seem like it tho in the moment. And of course yeah I'm not gonna fly off the handle if someone I know says towel head or whatever, but that's different from a lawyer dropping it after yelling at you for however long.
Big fan of the show, very grateful for ya'lls time and interest. Most everyone else just ignored this.
If WHYY management think people should be punished for saying bad words regardless of context or intent, and they paid a lawyer to say a slur at a person of color, causing harm and trauma... then by their own values they should all be fired.
Glad you won this round, good luck with the appeal or whatever is happening next.
I got to admit, when your bits were introduced, I was expecting them to be pretty "meh". But there were twice as funny as I was expecting. Nice work you have some real talent.
Best of luck with the MS, I have a friend whose dad has been fighting it since the mid 90s.
And regardless of whether one find xyz funny, the fact that the station would make him defend jokes as though they were political speeches he made during a presidential campaign is what’s truly laughable.
Wow, Mr. Don't-Call-Me-Dude, Esq., was a real dick in there! Trial Practice 101: The point of asking the questions you ask is so that any answer helps your case. He was obviously trying to get you either to admit that what you said was inappropriate or else to deny it and seem non-credible, but in so doing, he came across as badgering, infuriatingly clueless (i.e., on the usage of "pussy"), pretending not to understand the concept of jokes or satire or irony, not very good at this whole asking questions thing. Back when I practiced law, I encountered many situations where lawyers, especially unprepared ones or ones without a very good position, thought that rhetorically pounding the table was the way to score points with a judge or jury, but it usually doesn't work and seems desperate. The guy was even taking a tone with the judge, which is really dumb! Good job keeping your cool and standing up for yourself under pressure. I probably would have lost it. The judge clearly knew the score. Shame on WHYY for putting you through this mess and taking this absurdly vindictive stance on your unemployment.
well again as a fromer lawyer you have to argue with judges whenever they are slow to the point, especially if it's a fine but essential legal point. my tactic used to be have my argument on finer legalpoints phrased three different ways, say all,repeat untill the judge realizes this is an appealable point, then they pay attention. most judges rarely hear fine legal argument and you often have to wake them up. it ain't easy. some yell at you, you keep going anyway.
I got the impression that he's not a trial lawyer, and only goes to what is usually considered low-effort hearings. I may be wrong, but he sounded out of practice.
Yeah I disagreed immediately with Katie. Actually more than usual Katie’s takes weren’t good.
But it made sense like “Hey, aren’t I getting pilloried here for saying ‘offensive’ shit but here’s this fucking cracker saying the same shit to make his point against me, an actual Arab.”
It didn’t come off as being offended, it came off as a guy being pissed he’s in this dumbass position in the first place and throwing whatever he had back at this dumbass clown ass lawyer.
Context is super important, especially for comedians. And as I a person with an edgy comedians soul, (but not the skill or will) I understood this.
I did find it funny that he still doubled down on the raghead point.
I hope you don’t go back to this shithole job and go into comedy full time. It would be great to end up seeing you on a billboard or on Joe’s podcast one day. Good luck brother!
Hi! Just wanted to say that I loved hearing your descriptions of/jokes re: growing up Muslim in America. I’m an ex-Muslim and I wish I could just joke about it more AND to a crowd that gets it. My partner is Jewish and I’m now more familiar with Judaism than Islam - and the conversations we have in private are uproariously funny, however offcolor or generally targeting our future children (who will be the most neurotic people to ever walk this earth).
Your comedy tickles a part of my brain that “Muslims: we’re just like you x” stuff a la Little Mosque on the Prairie doesn’t really get to. Especially apt as I’m presently passing through Hamtramck/Dearborn and miss the community even more. But also not at all.
If you're really funny, it doesn't hurt anything but your ego to go and try some stand up. Worst case scenario is that people don't laugh, but you might find that they do, and you have something new and really fun to do in your life. Lots of people try it and find that they like it even if they most often get crickets. Might be worth a go.
Re: raghead, I got where Katie was coming from but I also can empathize, suddenly having to hear a slur like that after all the pressure from stressful questions, especially coming from such a smug sounding person sounds like it would be really hard for me to keep my cool too. I think you did well defending yourself despite all that.
That's basically it. I understand how Katie could see it as a phony reaction or hypocritical, but that's through like twitter glasses. This happened in real time, in person. I'm not reading a screen and carefully typing out a response, I just hear some white stranger who has been giving me shit all day say rag head, which is usually my cue to go ahead and lose a fight, and now I have to respond immediately. It would have been bizarre if I was like "Yes, sir" like what the hell are you supposed to say in that situation
This part was particularly enraging because of the context in your act. It was exactly the same move, and no one cancelled Sly Stone for “Don’t Call Me [n-word], [w-word]”, a major record label released it, urban radio stations played the shit out of it.
Honestly I felt like the first time the lawyer said it it was a pretty innocent usage of the word in a quote scenario, seemed pretty innocent to me. But then the second time -- after Jad had expressed discomfort -- really felt like he was was leaning into it in a very aggressive way. Couple that with the lawyer's own outrage at being called dude minutes later (lol what?)... the irony was too much. What a fucking dickless shit head pussy *dude*
I teach and I was in a reentry meeting for a black student who was suspended for saying the n word multiple times in the hall . This was around 2011…from what I remember no form of the n word was viewed as appropriate, even if black kids were saying it to each other. In the meeting the admin kept repeating the n word over and over..explaining what the kid said. His mom was getting super pissed. I could see it in her face. I had to literally kick my admin (my boss) under the table to get him to stop. Things cooled down after that
I remember this, IMO they used this as an excuse to get rid of an elder voice who wasn’t having their woke bullshit.
I mean its Walter fucking Mosley, slumming it in your writers room and you’re gonna get your panties in a twist when the king of black detective noir uses racial slurs?!?
ST: Disco was ok but even for ST it could be insufferably preachy and if they can’t deal with a legend like Mosley (who checks 2 of their BS intersectional boxes BTW), they’re worse than hypocrites and it sends such a bad signal to any creative up and comers.
I posted a version of this over on Reddit too, and hope it helps. I am a lawyer but this is just basic info—not legal advice.
The reason the lawyer asked the series of questions about "rag head" is related to how legal cases like this one are proven to the judge. Legal standards are made up specific elements which must be proven by evidence.
Here, the WHYY lawyer needed to prove to the judge ALL the elements including: (1) that a reasonable person would interpret your comedy as offensive; (2) that you understood your comedy was offensive; (3) that people who listened to your comedy show would associate your statements with WHYY; and (4) that the company's reputation would suffer as a result of that association.
The lawyer was asking if you understood "rag head" to be a slur in order to satisfy the second element listed above—that you understood your comedy was offensive, and not, e.g., that you were simply unaware that "rag head" is a slur. The reason it became an extended back-and-forth is because of how you responded to his question. The lawyer needed you to affirm something you thought was so obvious to the point of being stupid; specifically, that calling someone a "rag head" is indeed a slur.
Testifying in a court proceeding sucks. Being cross-examined especially sucks because most people feel like the opposing counsel's questions are too narrow and lack critical context. I work hard with witnesses to prep them to avoid losing their cool on the stand. I ALWAYS tell my witnesses to just answer the question with the truth. I want my witnesses to focus on telling the truth, and not how their answer sounds for the case—let me worry about that! And the main thing that sets their mind at ease is that my witnesses know that, after the cross, I will get a chance to ask them to fully explain the context of their answers.
Legal proceedings are nothing like a normal conversation, and a person like you who finds themselves in the middle of one will almost always be frustrated. Normal conversation involves a lot of give-and-take between people talking, as well as glossing over facts everyone knows/understands. In a court, EVERY specific element must be supported by evidence, even if it sounds stupid. E.g., in a murder trial, the prosecution MUST produce evidence that the person died, even if everyone saw the defendant cut the decedent's head off on national TV.
I think something that made this extra frustrating is the fact that he had no one to do his direct examination. I kind of breathed a sigh of relief when it seemed like the judge decided to ask a couple of those contextual questions he didn’t have a lawyer to ask.
NPR was wrong and that lawyer was a total asshole.
HOWEVER, if you're going to be an edgy comedian, it seems pretty disingenuous to do literally EXACTLY the same thing the virtue signaling neolibs at NPR would do, when you clutch your pearls and police the language of other people... Like, c'mon.
I'm a woman and have heard people say offensive, derisive things abt my "pussy," (I'm pretty sure my mom has too, if that's the metric we are using here) so should I hop on Twitter and whine abt your act? Should I @WHYY & demand to know how they could employ someone who claims women's bodies are so foul and disgusting that even heterosexual men can visualize them in order to lose an unwanted erection? Or would that be an annoying overreaction to what was meant as a joke?
I'm sorry but this is in the same vein, imo. You can either promote people being able to speak freely without fear of uncharitable accusations regarding race, gender identity, CLASS (the most important one, if we're honest wich I get it, almost no one is), sexual preference, etc. OR you can engage in this stupid back and forth abt what can be said, and by whom ad infinitum, but you can't have both.
Are we adults or are we babies or does it just depend on the context? Namely, "Can I weaponize this in my favor, or not?"
Oh definitely. Like I remember when NPR ruled and I think it's unfair dumb extremists get to run the show. Like Katie was talking about of course you cant be a stand up and work for NPR, but I see that as surrender without a fight. Like how leftists look at the American flag as a conservative thing, fuck that. It's your flag too take it the fuck back
Good point on the flag thing. Obviously the USA flag means a lot of things to different people, but having participated in a number of the George Floyd "mostly peaceful" demonstrations here in NYC, it surprised and saddened me to not see 1 single USA flag in any of the protests. HUGE opportunity to make a point missed. (and I say this as someone who burned many a USA flag in the 90's.)
2020. None of the shows that were good ever really recovered. Invisibilia, radiolab, TAL, Snap judgement all those shows that were kind of better versions of my show(The Pulse, which is fine, but a small team so never able to do as much) kind of all tanked and never quite recovered.
Beyond intense political messaging replacing story and discovery, I think the thing NPR did very well was just replicated by outside production houses and it made NPR's shortcomings more stark.
Like is Fresh Air even that interesting anymore now that there's a version of it with super hot chicken wings?
There was a time when no one was doing long form, deep dives interviews same as there was a time no one was doing serialized narrative investigations (Serial, for instance) and now there's 1000s of alternatives that remain curious instead of dogmatic. That are just, fuckin, chill you know? That surprise the audience instead of brow beat it
I completely agree. Listening to old episodes of shows I used to like makes me really sad because they genuinely were a lot better! The stuff that, like, radiolab is producing now is just complete dreck compared to what they used to make.
I probably speak for a few listeners when I say I'm grateful for and give this show time and interest precisely because most everyone ignores this stuff. Thanks for being so forthcoming with your story, which could happen to any of us and is well worth the coverage. I wish you the best (you're really funny and I'm glad you're doing and defending your thing--I don't know if I'd be as composed or brave).
It was bad lawyering for Servodidio to use the term after Jad objected to it. There's no reason to offend a witness on purpose, and even tactically, he could score points by saying "since you find the word offensive, I won't use it."
I wouldn't blame anyone who wasn't used to these things for being caught off guard, but PSA here: the tactics these people use are totally normal. They tell you they're bringing you in for a conversation, and turn it into an interrogation. They demean you, lie to you, make stuff up.
These disciplinary proceedings (be they for employment, school, etc.) are very dangerous because in your head you're thinking it's like our criminal legal process. You intuitively think you have constitutional rights. You think the people questioning you are professionals with tons of education, a code of ethics, and a board of licensure that they answer to. You think there are rules of due process that they will follow. You think this thing you're in is all totally legit. It's not. It's sketchy as hell. And it attracts the worst sorts of people and incentivizes them to act like little shits.
The fundamental way to deal with this is complete cynicism. Have no respect for them. Believe nothing they say. Give them nothing. But also, be civil and in control. Be better than them. And never give in. Fight everything.
Plenty more to be said on this issue, but that's the big picture.
And by the way - You did GREAT representing yourself in this shit-show. If the comedy thing doesn't work out, never too late to become a lawyer (yuck, I know.). But, luckily, the comedy thing WILL work out.
He should hit up Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, they're the biggest draw on Patreon right now, based in Pennsylvania, and I'm sure would love to swap towelhead/pussy jokes. Plus, Shane Gillis also lost out on a huge career boost (SNL) for the crime of telling jokes.
OMG, yes Rogan should totally take this on! The story alone is absolutely right up his alley and Jad's standup gigs would totally blow up! They would be hilarious together. I'm not on twitter but someone should tweet at Joe about this.
Yes, but Fresh Air IS consistently Great. Love me some Terry and her often stand-in Dave Davies. Both good, very smart people. But WHYY can surely go fuck itself!
So true. He's brilliant - some of it is over the line for me but that's my decision to make -- I don't want anyone telling me what I can and can't listen to.
Interesting to me because Brian Babylon is a public radio employee (Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) and a comedian who makes crude jokes sometimes. And he hates woke stuff. Maybe you two should tour together.
Spot on! I was going to make a similar comment but you say it better.
The lawyer is such an idiot. Men never never call a woman a “pussy”. Men only call other men that term. Pussy in that meaning is derived from pusillanimous, not the female fun spot.
What a moron. What dumb and stupid trial. What idiot times we live in.
I now admit after doing more research, that the link between pusillanimous and pussy is not really there as I have thought. Pussy originally referred to cats and then to feminine men, where we obviously get men calling other men pussys. If you’re male, you learn it young and use it as a verbal weapon on your male enemies.
I read that pussy as female genitalia has come about from its use in porn and it doesn’t have a nasty side like, well, you know the C word or the T word or the S word, etc.
Finally I found no meaning of the word pussy being used to mean an individual woman.
Man, it was painful to hear Thomas Servodidio falling on his face like that. It's one of the worst cross examinations I've ever heard a lawyer perform. It got even worse when Servodidio started snapping at the judge.
Hearing someone joke like that, with that neutral of a viewpoint, willing to be crass but also speak hard truths would make me so much more interested in listening to public radio. I no longer listen and can't listen because it's like listening to news from inside Salem Village. They have become so sanitized, so singular in their viewpoint -- it's become repulsive to me. So I would hire him back and give him an executive position at the public radio station to help fix our broken world.
If we can't laugh about taboos we go collectively insane -- as Salem goes, so goes the left.
I completely agree. I'd even argue that comedy and other popular media may have had benefits to American society that aren't super obvious/people would be lothe to admit. When the whole reckoning thing was brewing back up (from my POV) a few years ago my first thought as a lifelong leftie was "maybe we had too much political correctness." That may sound contradictory but I guess what I mean is that it could possibly have been worse if the Salem Village was all there was.
I don't wanna go all boomer but it's definitely true that wokeism basically kills good comedy. Just anecdotally I remember excellent episodes of The Office and Community that were pulled for being offensive even though often the context is what makes the humor. In both cases we're not laughing at the racist stereotype we're laughing at the characters' stupidity and lack of self-awareness which cause them to act in unintentionally offensive ways.
Ugh, it kills everything. My brother (mid-50's) was the drummer for a thrash metal band for most of his adult life, but quit a few years back because the late nights don't mesh with his construction job. He says the new drummer is great, a guy in his mid-30's, so has more energy to get through a show without almost dying of a heart attack. But the band is begging my brother to come back. Apparently the new guy is woke--so woke and scoldy that they can't take it anymore! He scolds them about their t-shirt design, ancient song lyrics, stage banter, things they say in casual conversation. He wants them to Do! The! Work! Anyhow, I'm kind of shocked that wokeness has come for an aging metal band.
Back in my day, our bands played at eardrum bursting decibels with subliminal messages worshiping Satan that encouraged suicide. THAT was metal. Man, kids these days...
Metal is often scolding and condescending. Lamb of God, System of a Down were two of my favorite bands in high school; the music is amazing but the lyrics are so condescending and cringe. Especially System. Guys who know little-to-nothing about geopolitics talking about the Iraq war and cults of personality. Please. Also, people like Rage against the Machine. Musicians who think they know the first fucking thing about politics.
Yeeeah, thats a good point and great examples. Great music from naïve hypocrites. Even Cake, while not metal, was great music and now its just cringey FB memes.
Ha one of my best friends (early 50s) had a locally popular hardcore band back in the '90s; they reunited recently (yeah I know) and their new drummer is one of their early fanboys who is at least 15 if not 20 years younger. I thought he was hilarious and a really cool in person IRL but on social media he is witheringly woke--he's one of these who doesn't talk to his own relatives anymore because they voted the wrong way. My friend has woke as shit late-teen/early 20s kids so I guess he's versed in playing along and puts up with the drummer because he's happy to get out of the house playing music again but I just find it weird that people into what is essentially an "eff you" art form could be so different in this way.
The part that annoys me so much is that Jad was using off-color jokes that worked in exactly the same way, which points out the ridiculous, truly offensive shit that goes on in the world and lambasts it — he was not making purposefully defamatory racist/sexist or whatever jokes. People who just read a few bad words and don’t even bother looking into the context — who can’t even use their few brain cells to think critically — are killing comedy.
For the Office I think Comedy Central pulled episodes of Diversity Day tbf I don't think it's been pulled from the actual streaming platform like with Community.
I'm not a stand-up comedy fan, but the bit about rescuing older women from the American hotness mandate made me laugh. For the first time, Saudi Arabia sounds pretty great! I'm sick of driving, and I'm more than happy to cover myself for the rest of my life. I don't want to be looked at anyway.
Not Arab, but I would be so happy if abayas were to be considered stylish enough that I felt comfortable wearing them in Europe. I love my “visit the family in Morocco” wardrobe because frankly it makes me feel like I can eat what I want.
I totally laughed, having listened to this just hours after posting in the Open Thread about feeling social pressure to get cosmetic treatments. It is spot on.
On Jesse's comment that the lawyer seemed bad at his job: The lawyer's job was to humorlessly represent the interests of a humorless employer. I agree that his cross-examination was pretty cringe, but I'm not sure what other strategy was available to him. It would be interesting to know whether any lawyerly listeners think the lawyer could have done better by taking a different tack.
I loved much of Jad Sleiman's act. And after years of obsessively love-/hate-listening to public radio, I found the last two episodes' examination of the internal contradictions in much of public radio's treatment of racial diversity therapeutic. Good stuff.
It kind of reminded me of the Michael Peterson case where the prosecution's whole thing re motive was that he was "bisekshul!" I don't *not* believe he killed his wife, but they came across as ridiculous even for 20 years ago.
I'm not an unemployment attorney, but I do litigate. This attorney's big problem was trying to present his theory through the witness instead of through his own argument. When you're cross examining someone, rule number one is to never, ever ask a question to which you don't know the answer, and rule number two is to get in and get out. In other words, don't ask questions that give the witness a chance to make his own case, and ask a few short, specifically-targeted questions whose answers you can spin in your closing. Arguing with a witness about his own interpretation of his artistic work? I understand why that's tempting, but yikes. Very dangerous. I could tell you what I would have done myself, but I don't want any of the attorneys to read it and get ideas LOL I'm on Jad's side here.
I’m a trial lawyer. This was a low level administrative hearing. The lawyer for the station’s did a terrible job and annoyed the hearing officer. In California employers usually don’t contest unemployment because it’s a dick move and the employer is very unlikely to win because public policy favors awarding unemployment as it should
A completely dick move, it’s astonishing to me that they would send multiple lawyers and that a high level executive would want to sit in this hearing. Also the bar for cutting off unemployment is deliberately made pretty high because otherwise employers would be taking advantage all the time (they’re the ones with the resources), they should have known there was a good chance they’d lose. And they’re still appealing it?? Nobody should ever donate to npr again until they fire every exec that signed off on this bs.
True it’s a low level, 30 minute administrative hearing, but the examining attorney is vice chairman of a 900 person, Amlaw 100 firm - Duane Morris is not Gibson Dunn but one would expect better and for him to follow basic cross examination precepts as the other commenter notes.
It seems to me that the lawyer vastly overestimated his own intelligence and vastly underestimated Jad's, and thought that he'd be able to punch it out on the fly. An unrepresented plaintiff in the box? That's a goldmine!
Well, it is a goldmine if the unrepresented plaintiff hasn't been spending years thinking on his feet for a living. If they had specific training in doing that, like working as a stand up comedian as a random example, you really shouldn't kick that beehive.
A lot of people underestimate how difficult comedy is. Looks easy from the outside. It ain't.
I'm not a lawyer, but just from the clips they played, he could have done a better job of picking out supposedly 'offensive' statements from that stand-up, without lying that Jad called women 'pussies', or pretending that the term 'eating pussy' was super offensive.
Yeah it's not a term you would bust out in polite company - what I was trying to convey is that the lawyer was trying to make out that it wasn't just taboo language, but was somehow misogynistic. Which is presumably why he tried the whole 'calling a woman a pussy' line of questioning, even though it wasn't actually supported by the material. It's like a wire crossed in his brain between the concept of using the word 'pussy' to mean a vagina (rude and gross to some, but not inherently sexist IMO) and referring to women collectively as 'pussy' (arguably sexist or at least edgier), and he came out with a mangled half-formed hybrid of the two.
They need to somehow relate the name to the way a chickens stabilize their heads because the tricky part is staying on target because as soon as you find the target the terrain tries to shift around you.
Or the way boxers have to duck and weave to hit the objective.
The term eating pussy is offensive for a lot of people. I hate it. Bur so what? I think that was the problem the lawyer had. He was telling jokes in his free time
I mean some people could see it as offensive - I guess what I meant is that the lawyer was trying to make out that using the term 'pussy' to mean vagina is somehow inherently derogatory and sexist. To support that he made up the lie that Jad called a woman 'a pussy', trying to imply that he was reducing a woman to just her vagina - except that didn't happen, and the judge clearly saw through the argument.
What makes all this especially clueless is that calling someone a "pussy" just means calling them a coward. I've never connected that with the slang for vagina. It's short for "pusillanimous," meaning cowardly.
Maybe gross, maybe offensive. Either way, I'm not for establishing a legal precedence that saying it should be grounds for not only firing someone but denying them unemployment for saying it in a comedy routine.
Yeah I guess it could be seen as 'offensive', but the lawyer was trying to make out that his use of the word 'pussy' was derogatory to women. I think his line of questioning was supposed to establish that Jad wasn't guilty just of saying rude words that people don't like to hear, but that his standup was against the values of NPR because it revealed he had discriminatory opinions - which clearly the judge didn't agree with.
Same with the line of questioning about 'raghead' being a slur, completely ignoring that Jad is Arab American so the context is very different... It didn't really land but when Jad said he was uncomfortable with the lawyer using the term, I think what he was driving at is that it's a slur if it's directed at someone - he could have said something like 'is it OK for you, a lawyer, to be saying that term? Yes, because of the context. Same thing with how I used it in my set.'
If the lawyer had been better at his job he could have focused on the line about Jad's parents hating other types of Muslims so much that they 'might as well be Jews'. Clearly that means that Jad's *parents* are anti-semitic (or at least he's playing on the fact that those sentiments are common among Muslims) - but a smart lawyer would have tried to distort the meaning to claim that that line means Jad is anti-semitic too. I'm glad the lawyer was bad at his job!
Maybe I'm showing my age but I wouldn't have been able to identify the supposedly "offensive" parts of the act without the help of that asshole lawyer. Like I didn't think anything was beyond the pale, nor all that different than stuff I heard on Comedy Central circa 2015* or so
*Back when I had cable and comedians were allowed to tell jokes instead of delivering applause lines about politics
Lawyerly listener here. (Though full disclosure, a Canadian lawyer, and didn't do really do trial work when I was in private practice.). I haven't listened to the full hearing, but assuming the clips are representative, I found the WHYY lawyer's approach puzzling. I see a lot of comments assuming the lawyer was a fool or incompetent. He's been practising for more than 35 years, he's an employment law specialist, and is vice chair of his firm (look him up), so I do assume he knows a thing or two. And yet: I couldn't for the life of me understand what he thought he was doing when the referee (the "judge" for purposes of this administrative hearing) told him the question had been asked and answered and he argued with her. And as other lawyers in the chat have pointed out, it was a strange tactical choice to willfully misrepresent Jad's routines. It allowed Jad to challenge the premise of the question and get his own perspective on the record instead. Plus it looked like the lawyer was insulting the referee's intelligence, as though she couldn't figure out what Jad's routines were actually about.
The optics of the situation were also terrible to begin with, and the lawyer's approach seemed to exacerbate that. In my experience decision-makers bend over backwards to cut self-represented litigants some slack, even when they don't deserve it, and here Jad clearly did. Mr Senior Partner, who likely makes more money by far than anyone else in the room, looked like he was beating up on Jad - and then lecturing him because he got upset and referred to the lawyer as "dude"? I'm sorry, that was just such an unforced error, and was not serving his client's interests at all.
Clearly, it was a weak case, basically these routines offended the employer so they fired him without notice and now they want to take away his unemployment for being so offensive in a comedy routine about the issues their station often pretends to care about. Maybe the lawyer was disgusted by how bad the research was that he was handed, the weakness of the case and just lost it himself. In making the argument about offense, he became offensive.
Definitely a bad lawyer at least from the clips aired. Just can't get into his thick skull the idea that eating pussy does not equate to eating women. The way he was stressing especially the word "pussy" but also the R-word was like an emotional play. If he could just keep repeating it we would see what a bad person Jad is. I think the judge, when referring to a moderately sophisticated person understanding what was happening, was really aiming at the lawyer for treating her as an idiot who wouldn't understand that.
But he wasn't really paying attention to anything. The judge told the lawyer that Jad had responded several times to the same question and the lawyer kept asking it. It was inane.
Re: the pussy stuff; It's a very transparent, cynical attempt to poison the female judge against Jad. That's why the lawyer twisted himself into knots to mischaracterize it and kept trying to hammer home how offensive it was. Thankfully, the judge didn't seem to be buying it.
I think this is absolutely correct. I had a male opposing attorney try something like this in a trial once. It did not work; we (me, the female judge, and the other women in the room) all thought it was condescending.
I liked this ep, was pleased Jad won the suit, but wished he actually appeared on the pod! My favorite B&R ep to this day was the long form interview with the Filipino author whose book was pulled. I was really hoping we would get to hear from Jad directly as we heard from that author.
Katy, you are wrong. There was no excuse for the way Jad was treated. It’s all about context. Comedy is its own context and public radio needs to get a grip - they’re claiming diversity & acting the opposite.
NPR does a lot of favorable to neutral coverage of edgy artists - Sascha Baron Cohen for just one. It’s not the same as a job at a bank. And context counts. He wasn’t expressing personal opinions or acting as a reporter or journalist. It was comedy. Also, his boss and coworkers knew about it.
This is so true and something I didn't consider. Remember when the song WAP came out? NPR fell all over themselves to try and seem cool and edgy by interviewing the artists and talking about the song, and they do that all the time with controversial hip hop shit that pisses conservatives off.
That’s a really good point, Edward. I always lean toward defending the underdog, but I think you may have changed my mind on this one. I didn’t consider the years spent cultivating a reputation that a business depends on and that it can be undone instantly by an employee who doesn’t share the same risk. I enjoy reading these posts, they always give me a new perspective.
I get that but I don’t blame him for fighting back and being upset about it — his colleagues and higher-ups followed him on social media AND talked to him about his comedy, and they said it was fun and even asked for tickets. He was hit with this out of the blue.
I don’t blame him either. He’s fighting for survival. I would do the same. However, he did sign an agreement with the company, not with his supervisors or coworkers. Regardless of their enjoyment or appreciation of his humour, he was still bound by his contract. To quote Jesse “it’s complicated.”
As far as I know no one forced him to sign a contract saying he agreed not to put things on his socials that might affect the company. Fair doesn’t really come into it. If he didn’t want to agree to the terms, he needed to negotiate his contract better or find different employment.
This isn’t really a great argument when employees need to work to live though. NPR even has a strong union and yet they all have to sign these contracts - it’s not something that can be negotiated, we’ll maybe if you’re famous you could but not the avg employee
Great argument or not, it is a reality. That’s the thing about living in a litigious society, you have to honor your agreements. Do you think he should be able to put a company and all its employees at risk so he can do a comedy routine that is specifically designed offensive humor? And don’t bother tell me they’re too big. Anheuser-Busch lost $27 billion over trying to be edgy, and don’t believe for a minute that the higher ups are going to face a cut for it. The “avg employee” is going to take a pay cut or get dumped. The risk of offending and getting financially screwed is all too real.
Reality? NPR covers edgy stuff all the time, this was a comedy act - he wasn't acting as an NPR employee nor mentioning it onstage. His supervisor as a representative of the company knew about it and did not warn him, the judge in the courtroom sided with him in spite of the fact that he was acting as his own lawyer -- it's hard to buy the idea that he was putting his company and all its employees at risk. If he were working for a church, maybe. But a media company? A liberal one at that? That doesn't seem clear at all. I think your idea of the Overton window is shifted too far to the right. Of course, there's the spine test - on that perhaps NPR has shifted in the jello direction.
He DID in effect create "an anonymous persona" by CHANGING HIS NAME (even if ever so slightly.). And it seems almost EVERYBODY AT HIS JOB WAS AWARE OF HIS COMEDY ACT. So what's your point exactly?
Your points seem to contradict each other. He was hardly anonymous if everyone knew. And there’s no need to “YELL,” we’re just discussing different views of the situation. Isn’t that what this podcast is for?
No worries. I personally like the guy and really hope that he can launch a successful comedy career and leave this business behind him. I’m just noodling around with the legalities of the situation. It seems like the lawyer did a pretty poor job representing the company, but that could’ve been a creative editing choice for the podcast.
This is kinda my position with the caveat I liked the jokes and found the guy funny and wish him the best. And also fighting the unemployment claim was overzealous.
Your employer might now own you, but he or she owns your job. And in the US, capital owners have a lot of rights. We have at will employment which means you can be fired for any or no reason. So it's not about them needing to pay you 24/7, it's about you needing to find a new job.
Reminds me of the twitter debate and free speech which so many get so wrong. Legally, Twitter is the owner of the platform and THEY have free speech and the government can't make them publish things they don't want to. Twitter is not the government, so individuals do not have protected speech rights on the platform. Here, the employer is the owner of the job and has really full rights to hire and fire as they see fit, except if a union is involved and thus Jad will probably get his job back, it seems.
the employer owns the job and twitter own free speech, that sums up american capitalism which is just a step away from fascism. fascism with lots of celebreties
His discretion was part of what they were paying him for, it was in his contract. I’m not disputing whether it was right or ideal or what “should be.” I’m simply stating that he agreed to a code of conduct and that was cause for dismissal. We saw Bud Light lose billions for putting a picture on a few cans and a single employee of the company calling their key demographic names. There’s money and other people’s livelihoods at stake now more than ever.
I don't think Katie is in any way morally justifying management's reaction -- but that's not to say their reaction is unexpected, and if we're going to make use of this story moving forward people should be anticipating corporate blowback. Katie literally summarises her view at the end that it's not right, it simply is the way things are.
I got the impression that she was talking about the chilling effect on your speech that you inherently have as a worker in public radio. Seems pretty straightforward to me: if you're in a v liberal institution and have recordings of you making edgy jokes, it only takes one person with a grudge to make that a problem for you so you should probably tread carefully.
Honestly I think it would have been reasonable for the station to be like 'You gotta be more anonymous online' or something like that. When you're government and public funded you gotta be super careful to avoid negative press that could jeopardise it. The problem wasn't the station having a problem with it, the problem was the way over-the-top reaction.
Shoot I shouldn't have posted until I finished this entirely. But I would say that if his biss knew from the beginning what he was posting then he was not being naive in posting his videos.
Bur Jesse. Jeez. A Muslim of immigrant background versus a bunch of white people,? I cannot fucking stand this shit. It is entirely possible the lawyer's parents are also immigrants. Same with the execs - it is Phillie. I HATE this stupid racialization which is basically black and white is long time American and everyone else is an immigrant. At this point there are plenty of Arab Americans whose grandparents immigrated to the US.
There is so much poor taste in a white corporate lawyer grilling a Middle Eastern dude over HIS use of a middle-eastern slur while unrepresented by an attorney. Just because you style yourself as anti-PC or being opposed to contemporary racial politics doesn't mean ethnicity is never a factor in anything ever.
Funnily enough, Arabs are officially considered to be "white" by the US Census (there have been efforts to change this, though). In general, the Middle East is once region where the American understand of race (especially "White" vs "Non-white") breaks down, because the sort of clear distinctions in physical appearance that define the American understanding of race are much blurrier there. If I had just seen a picture of Jad I would not have guessed that he was an Arab Muslim.
That was not my point. I was not defending NPR. My critique was of what Jesse was saying. He was talking about the child of Arab immigrants versus a bunch of white people.
A white American can be the child of immigrants.
More importantly, and this is not a critique of Jesse but of societal discourse, there are plenty of non-black POC whose families have been here for generations.
The radio station was being hypocritical. Shocking.
I thought Jesse (I just made the typo jewsy lol) was more so pointing out how hypocritical it all was, because the very people who support public radio would be livid if they saw a bunch of white people interrogating and being awful to a person of color…in any other circumstance.
Doesn’t matter, since he won his case. But yes, when he goes to the appeal he clearly should have an actual lawyer rather than only a union rep who doesn’t represent him on the cross examination.
Well. Yeah .I mean. If Jad asked the lawyer not to say the word in order to show NPRs hypocrisy, that was pretty good. Don't know if he meant it. But this was 1 individual lawyer quoting him..
The lawyer’s pronunciation of the word “pussy” was sending me. Just the thought of a schlubby lawyer in a loose fitting suit emphasizing the word “pussy” to a judge who seems too old for this shit had me cackling. Kinda like the video of the female lawyer quoting a defendant saying “girl you’re thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.”
Also, RE: “diversity;” it’s funny how white progressives have essentially created their own “model minority.” One who stays in line and says the right thing.
I dont know if you'll be disappointed to hear that "schlubby lawyer" is the Vice Chairman of a firm that did $631 million in revenue last year and its average profit per equity partner is $1,225,000.
He may have bumbled his way through this hearing, but he's getting a ton of money regardless.
I am growing more and more skeptical of unions. They are becoming selective about when they stand up for workers. If something a worker does runs afoul of upper middle class progressive social mores, there 's a very good chance they won't stand up for the workers. At the same time they are putting less effort into traditional things like worker safety. I saw this during the summer of 2020 when some of the unions representing healthcare workers here on the west coast were spending most of their time and energy advocating for racial justice in the form of police defunding. Meanwhile, their members were stuck with inadequate PPE: doctors were getting N95s which are effective when used properly, while CNAs and patient care techs were stuck with surgical masks which are basically useless. They weren't doing much to push for more paid sick leave either. The PPE and paid sick leave deficiencies were disproportionately affecting black and hispanic as well as recent immigrant members of these unions because they were more likely to be in those lower paying, lower prestige jobs. They literally ignored the safety of their members and the patients in order to spend their time advocating for the social justice movement's latest poorly-thought out crusade.
I think this is an incredibly naive take. Nowadays all it takes is for some viral video starring your employee to come out, then when they get doxxed and attached to you, all of a sudden you're taking massive heat for something the company didn't do. This could have massive negative consequences for the company which could manifest itself in cancelled contracts, your talent leaving, talent being less interested in your company, etc., which ultimately can manifest itself as lost revenue.
Should a company have to tank losses worth millions of dollars because of statements their employee made? What if the employee maliciously exploits this, denigrating their workplace as much as possible through highly offensive (but legal) speech, while not hiding their association with the company, but otherwise performing well in the job?
What happened here is obviously unacceptable, and there should be some level of protection for employees in cases like these and compromises should be offered. Too much protection against firing people for extracurricular activities unless it's illegal is very dumb though.
Should a company have to just accept potentially infinite amounts of reputational damage and financial damage from association with an employee's extracurricular activities, assuming they're fine in the office? This appears to be a fair reading what you're suggesting, correct me if I'm wrong.
Imagine if as a society we accepted that an employee doesn't represent the business, and that actions that are not illegal should not be prosecuted by angry mobs.
I am indeed saying that that's how it should be, and specially in this century, when everybody on the internet is potentially a public person or can do something that makes a group angry. Should people stop posting on the internet things that someone somewhere could potentially decide that is offensive? Is that more realistic? Something that is likely to happen? A better perspective of a future society?
This is just fantasy, man. Sure, it would be nice if that was the case. Would be nice if we didn't have to work at all. Would be nice if we were all friends. Would be nice if there were no wars ever.
I just find the realistic and pragmatic discussion more interesting. Today, in the real world, actions of your employees - even when not representing the company - can lead to devastating financial losses that can impact more than just that one employee. Employers should have some amount of reasonable freedom of association, but of course this should be balanced with workers' rights, as I've said from the beginning.
We need a middle ground where bosses can fire someone for off-duty behaviour, but with a fat severance to disincentivise abusing it.
Imagine a talented white surgeon at a mostly black hospital. His on-duty record is above average. Off-duty, he runs a channel about phrenology where he uses slurs to describe black skulls. The hospital asks him to stop and he refuses. When patients and insurers find out, they bail, and the hospital's future is at risk.
Should the hospital be forced keep him and go under, or should they be able to fire him with e.g. a two-year payout and potentially dodge the crisis?
I think we should remember that this is the United States of America. You do not have a right to a job. I want to repeat that: YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO A JOB. Even the one you hold. If you don't like it, start a company and employ yourself. It's called at-will employment.
I should also point out that your employer does not have a right to your services. You can quit at anytime. Now maybe we should change that. If you have a union, you will certainly have some rights to your job. And that's probably why Jad is going to get his job back.
People against cancellations like this are (often) arguing that at will employment is bad and should be reformed.
That is you as an employer should actually have to have a damn good reason to fire someone for something other than work performance. and in a case like his, you’d have to actually show that the company would or did suffer actual reputational harm for off work behavior (rather than now where this isn’t required).
A few recent cases from the UK such as maya forstater are informative - they have employment tribunals to which employees who are fired can appeal.
I'm not even sure if there should be exceptions... Maybe on a case by cases basis? The internet has changed the way privacy works, and out culture is becoming one of showing. There's a lot of thinking to be done in the subject, from legal matters to ethical considerations.
BAR is always transcontinental, because you're on different sides of a continent. Trans means across, so, e.g. a transcontinental railroad goes across a continent, not between continents. Now BAR is intercontinental.
Jad here. Re: Raghead, yeah, not performative/ironic. I cant help it, I get pissed. WIth raghead and shit it's hard to explain, like you hear it and your gut instantly flips and you think oh, somebody once called my mom that. People cant help that shit, it's why I dont use any actual slurs in my act.
It also just seemed unnecessary in the moment, like there's a tape, we all just heard it, what are you proving even? Would you haul a black dude up and chastise him for saying the n word? It was all so pointless.
To Katie's point, yeah I dunno how the law works or like if he had to say it for legal reasons, that may be the case. Didnt seem like it tho in the moment. And of course yeah I'm not gonna fly off the handle if someone I know says towel head or whatever, but that's different from a lawyer dropping it after yelling at you for however long.
Big fan of the show, very grateful for ya'lls time and interest. Most everyone else just ignored this.
If WHYY management think people should be punished for saying bad words regardless of context or intent, and they paid a lawyer to say a slur at a person of color, causing harm and trauma... then by their own values they should all be fired.
Glad you won this round, good luck with the appeal or whatever is happening next.
I got to admit, when your bits were introduced, I was expecting them to be pretty "meh". But there were twice as funny as I was expecting. Nice work you have some real talent.
Best of luck with the MS, I have a friend whose dad has been fighting it since the mid 90s.
Find a better job even if you get this one back.
I agree, he’s really talented! I laughed out loud a few times
totally I was ready to skip them, but was funny
And regardless of whether one find xyz funny, the fact that the station would make him defend jokes as though they were political speeches he made during a presidential campaign is what’s truly laughable.
Wow, Mr. Don't-Call-Me-Dude, Esq., was a real dick in there! Trial Practice 101: The point of asking the questions you ask is so that any answer helps your case. He was obviously trying to get you either to admit that what you said was inappropriate or else to deny it and seem non-credible, but in so doing, he came across as badgering, infuriatingly clueless (i.e., on the usage of "pussy"), pretending not to understand the concept of jokes or satire or irony, not very good at this whole asking questions thing. Back when I practiced law, I encountered many situations where lawyers, especially unprepared ones or ones without a very good position, thought that rhetorically pounding the table was the way to score points with a judge or jury, but it usually doesn't work and seems desperate. The guy was even taking a tone with the judge, which is really dumb! Good job keeping your cool and standing up for yourself under pressure. I probably would have lost it. The judge clearly knew the score. Shame on WHYY for putting you through this mess and taking this absurdly vindictive stance on your unemployment.
He also failed trial practice 102: don’t argue with the judge
well again as a fromer lawyer you have to argue with judges whenever they are slow to the point, especially if it's a fine but essential legal point. my tactic used to be have my argument on finer legalpoints phrased three different ways, say all,repeat untill the judge realizes this is an appealable point, then they pay attention. most judges rarely hear fine legal argument and you often have to wake them up. it ain't easy. some yell at you, you keep going anyway.
As a kid, I had a "slow" neighbor. If I told her to shut up she would whine to her mom "Sami called me shut up!"
This lawyer gave me the same vibe.
SIR DO YOU THINK IT IS APPROPRIATE TO REFER TO DISABLED KIDS AS SHUT UPS???
I got the impression that he's not a trial lawyer, and only goes to what is usually considered low-effort hearings. I may be wrong, but he sounded out of practice.
He gendered the dude. That lawyer could identify as Dudette. Also the lawyer has clearly never eaten p-slur.
Yeah I disagreed immediately with Katie. Actually more than usual Katie’s takes weren’t good.
But it made sense like “Hey, aren’t I getting pilloried here for saying ‘offensive’ shit but here’s this fucking cracker saying the same shit to make his point against me, an actual Arab.”
It didn’t come off as being offended, it came off as a guy being pissed he’s in this dumbass position in the first place and throwing whatever he had back at this dumbass clown ass lawyer.
Context is super important, especially for comedians. And as I a person with an edgy comedians soul, (but not the skill or will) I understood this.
I did find it funny that he still doubled down on the raghead point.
I hope you don’t go back to this shithole job and go into comedy full time. It would be great to end up seeing you on a billboard or on Joe’s podcast one day. Good luck brother!
Hi! Just wanted to say that I loved hearing your descriptions of/jokes re: growing up Muslim in America. I’m an ex-Muslim and I wish I could just joke about it more AND to a crowd that gets it. My partner is Jewish and I’m now more familiar with Judaism than Islam - and the conversations we have in private are uproariously funny, however offcolor or generally targeting our future children (who will be the most neurotic people to ever walk this earth).
Your comedy tickles a part of my brain that “Muslims: we’re just like you x” stuff a la Little Mosque on the Prairie doesn’t really get to. Especially apt as I’m presently passing through Hamtramck/Dearborn and miss the community even more. But also not at all.
If you're really funny, it doesn't hurt anything but your ego to go and try some stand up. Worst case scenario is that people don't laugh, but you might find that they do, and you have something new and really fun to do in your life. Lots of people try it and find that they like it even if they most often get crickets. Might be worth a go.
Hi Jad,
I’m half Filipino and white. Your joke about Asian man power was funny, I enjoyed it. The lawyer sounds like he has a stick up his ass.
-PC
Re: raghead, I got where Katie was coming from but I also can empathize, suddenly having to hear a slur like that after all the pressure from stressful questions, especially coming from such a smug sounding person sounds like it would be really hard for me to keep my cool too. I think you did well defending yourself despite all that.
That's basically it. I understand how Katie could see it as a phony reaction or hypocritical, but that's through like twitter glasses. This happened in real time, in person. I'm not reading a screen and carefully typing out a response, I just hear some white stranger who has been giving me shit all day say rag head, which is usually my cue to go ahead and lose a fight, and now I have to respond immediately. It would have been bizarre if I was like "Yes, sir" like what the hell are you supposed to say in that situation
"that situation" meaning in a very on-the-record, official, formal courtroom situation?
This part was particularly enraging because of the context in your act. It was exactly the same move, and no one cancelled Sly Stone for “Don’t Call Me [n-word], [w-word]”, a major record label released it, urban radio stations played the shit out of it.
True. And by the time this happened who knows how long Dude Esq had been pestering him with inane bad faith questions.
Honestly I felt like the first time the lawyer said it it was a pretty innocent usage of the word in a quote scenario, seemed pretty innocent to me. But then the second time -- after Jad had expressed discomfort -- really felt like he was was leaning into it in a very aggressive way. Couple that with the lawyer's own outrage at being called dude minutes later (lol what?)... the irony was too much. What a fucking dickless shit head pussy *dude*
I teach and I was in a reentry meeting for a black student who was suspended for saying the n word multiple times in the hall . This was around 2011…from what I remember no form of the n word was viewed as appropriate, even if black kids were saying it to each other. In the meeting the admin kept repeating the n word over and over..explaining what the kid said. His mom was getting super pissed. I could see it in her face. I had to literally kick my admin (my boss) under the table to get him to stop. Things cooled down after that
Oh, good grief! I'm reminded of this:
'A pleasant-sounding young man said, “Mr. Mosley, it has been reported that you used the N-word in the writers’ room.”
'I replied, “I am the N-word in the writers’ room.”'
From https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/06/opinion/sunday/walter-mosley.html
I remember this, IMO they used this as an excuse to get rid of an elder voice who wasn’t having their woke bullshit.
I mean its Walter fucking Mosley, slumming it in your writers room and you’re gonna get your panties in a twist when the king of black detective noir uses racial slurs?!?
ST: Disco was ok but even for ST it could be insufferably preachy and if they can’t deal with a legend like Mosley (who checks 2 of their BS intersectional boxes BTW), they’re worse than hypocrites and it sends such a bad signal to any creative up and comers.
Archived URL: https://archive.li/SgLbA
I posted a version of this over on Reddit too, and hope it helps. I am a lawyer but this is just basic info—not legal advice.
The reason the lawyer asked the series of questions about "rag head" is related to how legal cases like this one are proven to the judge. Legal standards are made up specific elements which must be proven by evidence.
Here, the WHYY lawyer needed to prove to the judge ALL the elements including: (1) that a reasonable person would interpret your comedy as offensive; (2) that you understood your comedy was offensive; (3) that people who listened to your comedy show would associate your statements with WHYY; and (4) that the company's reputation would suffer as a result of that association.
The lawyer was asking if you understood "rag head" to be a slur in order to satisfy the second element listed above—that you understood your comedy was offensive, and not, e.g., that you were simply unaware that "rag head" is a slur. The reason it became an extended back-and-forth is because of how you responded to his question. The lawyer needed you to affirm something you thought was so obvious to the point of being stupid; specifically, that calling someone a "rag head" is indeed a slur.
Testifying in a court proceeding sucks. Being cross-examined especially sucks because most people feel like the opposing counsel's questions are too narrow and lack critical context. I work hard with witnesses to prep them to avoid losing their cool on the stand. I ALWAYS tell my witnesses to just answer the question with the truth. I want my witnesses to focus on telling the truth, and not how their answer sounds for the case—let me worry about that! And the main thing that sets their mind at ease is that my witnesses know that, after the cross, I will get a chance to ask them to fully explain the context of their answers.
Legal proceedings are nothing like a normal conversation, and a person like you who finds themselves in the middle of one will almost always be frustrated. Normal conversation involves a lot of give-and-take between people talking, as well as glossing over facts everyone knows/understands. In a court, EVERY specific element must be supported by evidence, even if it sounds stupid. E.g., in a murder trial, the prosecution MUST produce evidence that the person died, even if everyone saw the defendant cut the decedent's head off on national TV.
I think something that made this extra frustrating is the fact that he had no one to do his direct examination. I kind of breathed a sigh of relief when it seemed like the judge decided to ask a couple of those contextual questions he didn’t have a lawyer to ask.
NPR was wrong and that lawyer was a total asshole.
HOWEVER, if you're going to be an edgy comedian, it seems pretty disingenuous to do literally EXACTLY the same thing the virtue signaling neolibs at NPR would do, when you clutch your pearls and police the language of other people... Like, c'mon.
I'm a woman and have heard people say offensive, derisive things abt my "pussy," (I'm pretty sure my mom has too, if that's the metric we are using here) so should I hop on Twitter and whine abt your act? Should I @WHYY & demand to know how they could employ someone who claims women's bodies are so foul and disgusting that even heterosexual men can visualize them in order to lose an unwanted erection? Or would that be an annoying overreaction to what was meant as a joke?
I'm sorry but this is in the same vein, imo. You can either promote people being able to speak freely without fear of uncharitable accusations regarding race, gender identity, CLASS (the most important one, if we're honest wich I get it, almost no one is), sexual preference, etc. OR you can engage in this stupid back and forth abt what can be said, and by whom ad infinitum, but you can't have both.
Are we adults or are we babies or does it just depend on the context? Namely, "Can I weaponize this in my favor, or not?"
I'm sorry this happened to you and glad you won, can't believe they're trying to appeal their loss but they don't seem all that smart.
If you got reinstated, would you even want to go back, knowing the caliber of gutless assholes you're dealing with?
Oh definitely. Like I remember when NPR ruled and I think it's unfair dumb extremists get to run the show. Like Katie was talking about of course you cant be a stand up and work for NPR, but I see that as surrender without a fight. Like how leftists look at the American flag as a conservative thing, fuck that. It's your flag too take it the fuck back
I hope you do get your job back and I hope you give them the absolute shits everyday just by existing there.
Also, whoever dimed you out can eat a large bag of unsalted dicks.
Good point on the flag thing. Obviously the USA flag means a lot of things to different people, but having participated in a number of the George Floyd "mostly peaceful" demonstrations here in NYC, it surprised and saddened me to not see 1 single USA flag in any of the protests. HUGE opportunity to make a point missed. (and I say this as someone who burned many a USA flag in the 90's.)
Do you have your own specific moment in time when NPR jumped the shark?
2020. None of the shows that were good ever really recovered. Invisibilia, radiolab, TAL, Snap judgement all those shows that were kind of better versions of my show(The Pulse, which is fine, but a small team so never able to do as much) kind of all tanked and never quite recovered.
Beyond intense political messaging replacing story and discovery, I think the thing NPR did very well was just replicated by outside production houses and it made NPR's shortcomings more stark.
Like is Fresh Air even that interesting anymore now that there's a version of it with super hot chicken wings?
There was a time when no one was doing long form, deep dives interviews same as there was a time no one was doing serialized narrative investigations (Serial, for instance) and now there's 1000s of alternatives that remain curious instead of dogmatic. That are just, fuckin, chill you know? That surprise the audience instead of brow beat it
I completely agree. Listening to old episodes of shows I used to like makes me really sad because they genuinely were a lot better! The stuff that, like, radiolab is producing now is just complete dreck compared to what they used to make.
I like the cut of your jib and I hate the corporate part of my soul that is afraid to be you.
I probably speak for a few listeners when I say I'm grateful for and give this show time and interest precisely because most everyone ignores this stuff. Thanks for being so forthcoming with your story, which could happen to any of us and is well worth the coverage. I wish you the best (you're really funny and I'm glad you're doing and defending your thing--I don't know if I'd be as composed or brave).
Yeah this is another episode that BARpod does really well.
It was bad lawyering for Servodidio to use the term after Jad objected to it. There's no reason to offend a witness on purpose, and even tactically, he could score points by saying "since you find the word offensive, I won't use it."
I wouldn't blame anyone who wasn't used to these things for being caught off guard, but PSA here: the tactics these people use are totally normal. They tell you they're bringing you in for a conversation, and turn it into an interrogation. They demean you, lie to you, make stuff up.
These disciplinary proceedings (be they for employment, school, etc.) are very dangerous because in your head you're thinking it's like our criminal legal process. You intuitively think you have constitutional rights. You think the people questioning you are professionals with tons of education, a code of ethics, and a board of licensure that they answer to. You think there are rules of due process that they will follow. You think this thing you're in is all totally legit. It's not. It's sketchy as hell. And it attracts the worst sorts of people and incentivizes them to act like little shits.
The fundamental way to deal with this is complete cynicism. Have no respect for them. Believe nothing they say. Give them nothing. But also, be civil and in control. Be better than them. And never give in. Fight everything.
Plenty more to be said on this issue, but that's the big picture.
This is awesome.
This is unfortunately my area of expertise.
And by the way - You did GREAT representing yourself in this shit-show. If the comedy thing doesn't work out, never too late to become a lawyer (yuck, I know.). But, luckily, the comedy thing WILL work out.
Sorry but Jad should immediately go full time with his comedy. His talents are wasted in public radio and he’s legitimately funny.
I was not prepared for the random guy doing standup on the side to be that funny
Totally agree. He can go far in standup. He just needs to develop more.
Joe Rogan needs him to have him on his podcast so he can get some national exposure and meet with other standups.
We need more comedians who will break up this idiotic nonsense.
As forW HYY Take your fresh air and shove it.
He should hit up Matt and Shane's Secret Podcast, they're the biggest draw on Patreon right now, based in Pennsylvania, and I'm sure would love to swap towelhead/pussy jokes. Plus, Shane Gillis also lost out on a huge career boost (SNL) for the crime of telling jokes.
OMG, yes Rogan should totally take this on! The story alone is absolutely right up his alley and Jad's standup gigs would totally blow up! They would be hilarious together. I'm not on twitter but someone should tweet at Joe about this.
Jesse was on Rogan. Maybe he can contact him.
Katie erasure
Jesse ate shit on Rogan.
Yes, but Fresh Air IS consistently Great. Love me some Terry and her often stand-in Dave Davies. Both good, very smart people. But WHYY can surely go fuck itself!
True. Terry and Fresh Air was and is great. Shame on HYY. Not Terry and Fresh Air.
So true. He's brilliant - some of it is over the line for me but that's my decision to make -- I don't want anyone telling me what I can and can't listen to.
that’s very kind thanks. it’s also basically what i’m doing, don’t really have a choice but to make stand up work
Interesting to me because Brian Babylon is a public radio employee (Wait Wait Don't Tell Me) and a comedian who makes crude jokes sometimes. And he hates woke stuff. Maybe you two should tour together.
I wish Jesse would have just been forthright, admitting the whole point of this episode was to promote Jad.
I just spent an hour listening to an advertisement for a stand-up comedian under the guise of a block and reported podcast.
His jokes are funny but his delivery needs improvement.
Right? I hope your cancellation, Jad, is as good for your career as it was for our hosts. Break a leg…crayon eater.
That WHYY lawyer was baffling and bumbling with the whole “do you refer to a woman as a pussy?”
It irritates me so much that WHYY is using donated money to pay for this idiocy.
Spot on! I was going to make a similar comment but you say it better.
The lawyer is such an idiot. Men never never call a woman a “pussy”. Men only call other men that term. Pussy in that meaning is derived from pusillanimous, not the female fun spot.
What a moron. What dumb and stupid trial. What idiot times we live in.
When guys in 2023 call each other a pussy, they are not making an abbreviation of "pusillanimous," regardless of the arcane etymology of the word.
I now admit after doing more research, that the link between pusillanimous and pussy is not really there as I have thought. Pussy originally referred to cats and then to feminine men, where we obviously get men calling other men pussys. If you’re male, you learn it young and use it as a verbal weapon on your male enemies.
I read that pussy as female genitalia has come about from its use in porn and it doesn’t have a nasty side like, well, you know the C word or the T word or the S word, etc.
Finally I found no meaning of the word pussy being used to mean an individual woman.
I know. I know. I was wrong. Easy boy.
Man, it was painful to hear Thomas Servodidio falling on his face like that. It's one of the worst cross examinations I've ever heard a lawyer perform. It got even worse when Servodidio started snapping at the judge.
Hearing someone joke like that, with that neutral of a viewpoint, willing to be crass but also speak hard truths would make me so much more interested in listening to public radio. I no longer listen and can't listen because it's like listening to news from inside Salem Village. They have become so sanitized, so singular in their viewpoint -- it's become repulsive to me. So I would hire him back and give him an executive position at the public radio station to help fix our broken world.
If we can't laugh about taboos we go collectively insane -- as Salem goes, so goes the left.
I completely agree. I'd even argue that comedy and other popular media may have had benefits to American society that aren't super obvious/people would be lothe to admit. When the whole reckoning thing was brewing back up (from my POV) a few years ago my first thought as a lifelong leftie was "maybe we had too much political correctness." That may sound contradictory but I guess what I mean is that it could possibly have been worse if the Salem Village was all there was.
I don't wanna go all boomer but it's definitely true that wokeism basically kills good comedy. Just anecdotally I remember excellent episodes of The Office and Community that were pulled for being offensive even though often the context is what makes the humor. In both cases we're not laughing at the racist stereotype we're laughing at the characters' stupidity and lack of self-awareness which cause them to act in unintentionally offensive ways.
Ugh, it kills everything. My brother (mid-50's) was the drummer for a thrash metal band for most of his adult life, but quit a few years back because the late nights don't mesh with his construction job. He says the new drummer is great, a guy in his mid-30's, so has more energy to get through a show without almost dying of a heart attack. But the band is begging my brother to come back. Apparently the new guy is woke--so woke and scoldy that they can't take it anymore! He scolds them about their t-shirt design, ancient song lyrics, stage banter, things they say in casual conversation. He wants them to Do! The! Work! Anyhow, I'm kind of shocked that wokeness has come for an aging metal band.
Scold Metal, the newest sub-genre. Like most metal, it’ll make your ears bleed but this time it won’t be the good way.
Back in my day, our bands played at eardrum bursting decibels with subliminal messages worshiping Satan that encouraged suicide. THAT was metal. Man, kids these days...
Metal is often scolding and condescending. Lamb of God, System of a Down were two of my favorite bands in high school; the music is amazing but the lyrics are so condescending and cringe. Especially System. Guys who know little-to-nothing about geopolitics talking about the Iraq war and cults of personality. Please. Also, people like Rage against the Machine. Musicians who think they know the first fucking thing about politics.
Yeeeah, thats a good point and great examples. Great music from naïve hypocrites. Even Cake, while not metal, was great music and now its just cringey FB memes.
Ha one of my best friends (early 50s) had a locally popular hardcore band back in the '90s; they reunited recently (yeah I know) and their new drummer is one of their early fanboys who is at least 15 if not 20 years younger. I thought he was hilarious and a really cool in person IRL but on social media he is witheringly woke--he's one of these who doesn't talk to his own relatives anymore because they voted the wrong way. My friend has woke as shit late-teen/early 20s kids so I guess he's versed in playing along and puts up with the drummer because he's happy to get out of the house playing music again but I just find it weird that people into what is essentially an "eff you" art form could be so different in this way.
The part that annoys me so much is that Jad was using off-color jokes that worked in exactly the same way, which points out the ridiculous, truly offensive shit that goes on in the world and lambasts it — he was not making purposefully defamatory racist/sexist or whatever jokes. People who just read a few bad words and don’t even bother looking into the context — who can’t even use their few brain cells to think critically — are killing comedy.
Wait, what episodes of The Office?
For the Office I think Comedy Central pulled episodes of Diversity Day tbf I don't think it's been pulled from the actual streaming platform like with Community.
That episode was so funny! Do people really not realize that the episode was making fun of racial and ethnic stereotypes.
And poking fun at Michael!!
People can be so THICK
Advanced dungeons and dragons.
Shirley dies say that. Yvette Nicole Brown (the actress) thinks it's bad that the episode was pulled.
I'm not a stand-up comedy fan, but the bit about rescuing older women from the American hotness mandate made me laugh. For the first time, Saudi Arabia sounds pretty great! I'm sick of driving, and I'm more than happy to cover myself for the rest of my life. I don't want to be looked at anyway.
That was a seriously funny bit. I don't know what size the audience was but I was like come on, this is gold.
i mostly perform in the dead of night. most of my ig clips are recorded well after mid night
Not Arab, but I would be so happy if abayas were to be considered stylish enough that I felt comfortable wearing them in Europe. I love my “visit the family in Morocco” wardrobe because frankly it makes me feel like I can eat what I want.
I totally laughed, having listened to this just hours after posting in the Open Thread about feeling social pressure to get cosmetic treatments. It is spot on.
On Jesse's comment that the lawyer seemed bad at his job: The lawyer's job was to humorlessly represent the interests of a humorless employer. I agree that his cross-examination was pretty cringe, but I'm not sure what other strategy was available to him. It would be interesting to know whether any lawyerly listeners think the lawyer could have done better by taking a different tack.
I loved much of Jad Sleiman's act. And after years of obsessively love-/hate-listening to public radio, I found the last two episodes' examination of the internal contradictions in much of public radio's treatment of racial diversity therapeutic. Good stuff.
My feeling was that he didn't have much of a case and so had to fill his billable hours with pussy talk.
Bingo
It kind of reminded me of the Michael Peterson case where the prosecution's whole thing re motive was that he was "bisekshul!" I don't *not* believe he killed his wife, but they came across as ridiculous even for 20 years ago.
I'm not an unemployment attorney, but I do litigate. This attorney's big problem was trying to present his theory through the witness instead of through his own argument. When you're cross examining someone, rule number one is to never, ever ask a question to which you don't know the answer, and rule number two is to get in and get out. In other words, don't ask questions that give the witness a chance to make his own case, and ask a few short, specifically-targeted questions whose answers you can spin in your closing. Arguing with a witness about his own interpretation of his artistic work? I understand why that's tempting, but yikes. Very dangerous. I could tell you what I would have done myself, but I don't want any of the attorneys to read it and get ideas LOL I'm on Jad's side here.
I’m a trial lawyer. This was a low level administrative hearing. The lawyer for the station’s did a terrible job and annoyed the hearing officer. In California employers usually don’t contest unemployment because it’s a dick move and the employer is very unlikely to win because public policy favors awarding unemployment as it should
A completely dick move, it’s astonishing to me that they would send multiple lawyers and that a high level executive would want to sit in this hearing. Also the bar for cutting off unemployment is deliberately made pretty high because otherwise employers would be taking advantage all the time (they’re the ones with the resources), they should have known there was a good chance they’d lose. And they’re still appealing it?? Nobody should ever donate to npr again until they fire every exec that signed off on this bs.
True it’s a low level, 30 minute administrative hearing, but the examining attorney is vice chairman of a 900 person, Amlaw 100 firm - Duane Morris is not Gibson Dunn but one would expect better and for him to follow basic cross examination precepts as the other commenter notes.
It seems to me that the lawyer vastly overestimated his own intelligence and vastly underestimated Jad's, and thought that he'd be able to punch it out on the fly. An unrepresented plaintiff in the box? That's a goldmine!
Well, it is a goldmine if the unrepresented plaintiff hasn't been spending years thinking on his feet for a living. If they had specific training in doing that, like working as a stand up comedian as a random example, you really shouldn't kick that beehive.
A lot of people underestimate how difficult comedy is. Looks easy from the outside. It ain't.
I'm not a lawyer, but just from the clips they played, he could have done a better job of picking out supposedly 'offensive' statements from that stand-up, without lying that Jad called women 'pussies', or pretending that the term 'eating pussy' was super offensive.
I truly hate the term “eating pussy” and would be happy to never hear it again.
Same. And I’m a lesbian.
Yeah it's not a term you would bust out in polite company - what I was trying to convey is that the lawyer was trying to make out that it wasn't just taboo language, but was somehow misogynistic. Which is presumably why he tried the whole 'calling a woman a pussy' line of questioning, even though it wasn't actually supported by the material. It's like a wire crossed in his brain between the concept of using the word 'pussy' to mean a vagina (rude and gross to some, but not inherently sexist IMO) and referring to women collectively as 'pussy' (arguably sexist or at least edgier), and he came out with a mangled half-formed hybrid of the two.
Exactly and thus the lawyer came across as a complete idiot for this whole line of questioning.
I feel like you should avoid Pennsylvania comedy clubs in that case
But we all agree, this was a comedy show, right?
They need to somehow relate the name to the way a chickens stabilize their heads because the tricky part is staying on target because as soon as you find the target the terrain tries to shift around you.
Or the way boxers have to duck and weave to hit the objective.
The term eating pussy is offensive for a lot of people. I hate it. Bur so what? I think that was the problem the lawyer had. He was telling jokes in his free time
It's gross, not offensive.
I mean some people could see it as offensive - I guess what I meant is that the lawyer was trying to make out that using the term 'pussy' to mean vagina is somehow inherently derogatory and sexist. To support that he made up the lie that Jad called a woman 'a pussy', trying to imply that he was reducing a woman to just her vagina - except that didn't happen, and the judge clearly saw through the argument.
What makes all this especially clueless is that calling someone a "pussy" just means calling them a coward. I've never connected that with the slang for vagina. It's short for "pusillanimous," meaning cowardly.
Maybe gross, maybe offensive. Either way, I'm not for establishing a legal precedence that saying it should be grounds for not only firing someone but denying them unemployment for saying it in a comedy routine.
Can you speak up? I am having difficulty hearing you while I eat this pussy.
lol
Yeah I guess it could be seen as 'offensive', but the lawyer was trying to make out that his use of the word 'pussy' was derogatory to women. I think his line of questioning was supposed to establish that Jad wasn't guilty just of saying rude words that people don't like to hear, but that his standup was against the values of NPR because it revealed he had discriminatory opinions - which clearly the judge didn't agree with.
Same with the line of questioning about 'raghead' being a slur, completely ignoring that Jad is Arab American so the context is very different... It didn't really land but when Jad said he was uncomfortable with the lawyer using the term, I think what he was driving at is that it's a slur if it's directed at someone - he could have said something like 'is it OK for you, a lawyer, to be saying that term? Yes, because of the context. Same thing with how I used it in my set.'
If the lawyer had been better at his job he could have focused on the line about Jad's parents hating other types of Muslims so much that they 'might as well be Jews'. Clearly that means that Jad's *parents* are anti-semitic (or at least he's playing on the fact that those sentiments are common among Muslims) - but a smart lawyer would have tried to distort the meaning to claim that that line means Jad is anti-semitic too. I'm glad the lawyer was bad at his job!
Yes, but the lawyer did not ask about the phrase "eating pussy."
Maybe I'm showing my age but I wouldn't have been able to identify the supposedly "offensive" parts of the act without the help of that asshole lawyer. Like I didn't think anything was beyond the pale, nor all that different than stuff I heard on Comedy Central circa 2015* or so
*Back when I had cable and comedians were allowed to tell jokes instead of delivering applause lines about politics
Aside, but I'm extremely proud of your campaign and all the work you're doing to prevent adult grooming. You truly are a hero. https://fightfor25.com
Lawyerly listener here. (Though full disclosure, a Canadian lawyer, and didn't do really do trial work when I was in private practice.). I haven't listened to the full hearing, but assuming the clips are representative, I found the WHYY lawyer's approach puzzling. I see a lot of comments assuming the lawyer was a fool or incompetent. He's been practising for more than 35 years, he's an employment law specialist, and is vice chair of his firm (look him up), so I do assume he knows a thing or two. And yet: I couldn't for the life of me understand what he thought he was doing when the referee (the "judge" for purposes of this administrative hearing) told him the question had been asked and answered and he argued with her. And as other lawyers in the chat have pointed out, it was a strange tactical choice to willfully misrepresent Jad's routines. It allowed Jad to challenge the premise of the question and get his own perspective on the record instead. Plus it looked like the lawyer was insulting the referee's intelligence, as though she couldn't figure out what Jad's routines were actually about.
The optics of the situation were also terrible to begin with, and the lawyer's approach seemed to exacerbate that. In my experience decision-makers bend over backwards to cut self-represented litigants some slack, even when they don't deserve it, and here Jad clearly did. Mr Senior Partner, who likely makes more money by far than anyone else in the room, looked like he was beating up on Jad - and then lecturing him because he got upset and referred to the lawyer as "dude"? I'm sorry, that was just such an unforced error, and was not serving his client's interests at all.
Clearly, it was a weak case, basically these routines offended the employer so they fired him without notice and now they want to take away his unemployment for being so offensive in a comedy routine about the issues their station often pretends to care about. Maybe the lawyer was disgusted by how bad the research was that he was handed, the weakness of the case and just lost it himself. In making the argument about offense, he became offensive.
He was baaad. He was even rude to the judge, which is terrible lawyer behaviour.
Definitely a bad lawyer at least from the clips aired. Just can't get into his thick skull the idea that eating pussy does not equate to eating women. The way he was stressing especially the word "pussy" but also the R-word was like an emotional play. If he could just keep repeating it we would see what a bad person Jad is. I think the judge, when referring to a moderately sophisticated person understanding what was happening, was really aiming at the lawyer for treating her as an idiot who wouldn't understand that.
"Pretty cringe"? NO, it was cringe comedy GOLD is what it was...
But he wasn't really paying attention to anything. The judge told the lawyer that Jad had responded several times to the same question and the lawyer kept asking it. It was inane.
Was that really a cross examination though? He had no lawyer laying out his side of the story. What’s to cross examine?
Re: the pussy stuff; It's a very transparent, cynical attempt to poison the female judge against Jad. That's why the lawyer twisted himself into knots to mischaracterize it and kept trying to hammer home how offensive it was. Thankfully, the judge didn't seem to be buying it.
I think this is absolutely correct. I had a male opposing attorney try something like this in a trial once. It did not work; we (me, the female judge, and the other women in the room) all thought it was condescending.
I liked this ep, was pleased Jad won the suit, but wished he actually appeared on the pod! My favorite B&R ep to this day was the long form interview with the Filipino author whose book was pulled. I was really hoping we would get to hear from Jad directly as we heard from that author.
Good ep, guys!
This thing is in progress. Maybe in a few months, we can hear update in a long form interview Jad himself. I hope this pays off and things go his way.
Katy, you are wrong. There was no excuse for the way Jad was treated. It’s all about context. Comedy is its own context and public radio needs to get a grip - they’re claiming diversity & acting the opposite.
Where I work we have a strict policy regulating what we can post on social media on our personal accounts.
It's intended to prevent the loss of legitimacy in the institution.
If I want to try my hand at raw dog comedy, I'd either have to create an anonymous persona on the side or turn in my badge.
And I certainly would never expect to get away with putting clips of my act on the internet with my identity visible.
NPR does a lot of favorable to neutral coverage of edgy artists - Sascha Baron Cohen for just one. It’s not the same as a job at a bank. And context counts. He wasn’t expressing personal opinions or acting as a reporter or journalist. It was comedy. Also, his boss and coworkers knew about it.
This is so true and something I didn't consider. Remember when the song WAP came out? NPR fell all over themselves to try and seem cool and edgy by interviewing the artists and talking about the song, and they do that all the time with controversial hip hop shit that pisses conservatives off.
That’s a really good point, Edward. I always lean toward defending the underdog, but I think you may have changed my mind on this one. I didn’t consider the years spent cultivating a reputation that a business depends on and that it can be undone instantly by an employee who doesn’t share the same risk. I enjoy reading these posts, they always give me a new perspective.
I get that but I don’t blame him for fighting back and being upset about it — his colleagues and higher-ups followed him on social media AND talked to him about his comedy, and they said it was fun and even asked for tickets. He was hit with this out of the blue.
I don’t blame him either. He’s fighting for survival. I would do the same. However, he did sign an agreement with the company, not with his supervisors or coworkers. Regardless of their enjoyment or appreciation of his humour, he was still bound by his contract. To quote Jesse “it’s complicated.”
Seems like it was way more than "tacit approval", if you ask me.
As far as I know no one forced him to sign a contract saying he agreed not to put things on his socials that might affect the company. Fair doesn’t really come into it. If he didn’t want to agree to the terms, he needed to negotiate his contract better or find different employment.
This isn’t really a great argument when employees need to work to live though. NPR even has a strong union and yet they all have to sign these contracts - it’s not something that can be negotiated, we’ll maybe if you’re famous you could but not the avg employee
Great argument or not, it is a reality. That’s the thing about living in a litigious society, you have to honor your agreements. Do you think he should be able to put a company and all its employees at risk so he can do a comedy routine that is specifically designed offensive humor? And don’t bother tell me they’re too big. Anheuser-Busch lost $27 billion over trying to be edgy, and don’t believe for a minute that the higher ups are going to face a cut for it. The “avg employee” is going to take a pay cut or get dumped. The risk of offending and getting financially screwed is all too real.
Reality? NPR covers edgy stuff all the time, this was a comedy act - he wasn't acting as an NPR employee nor mentioning it onstage. His supervisor as a representative of the company knew about it and did not warn him, the judge in the courtroom sided with him in spite of the fact that he was acting as his own lawyer -- it's hard to buy the idea that he was putting his company and all its employees at risk. If he were working for a church, maybe. But a media company? A liberal one at that? That doesn't seem clear at all. I think your idea of the Overton window is shifted too far to the right. Of course, there's the spine test - on that perhaps NPR has shifted in the jello direction.
He DID in effect create "an anonymous persona" by CHANGING HIS NAME (even if ever so slightly.). And it seems almost EVERYBODY AT HIS JOB WAS AWARE OF HIS COMEDY ACT. So what's your point exactly?
Your points seem to contradict each other. He was hardly anonymous if everyone knew. And there’s no need to “YELL,” we’re just discussing different views of the situation. Isn’t that what this podcast is for?
Yes, sorry for the yelling - My bad.
No worries. I personally like the guy and really hope that he can launch a successful comedy career and leave this business behind him. I’m just noodling around with the legalities of the situation. It seems like the lawyer did a pretty poor job representing the company, but that could’ve been a creative editing choice for the podcast.
Thank you!
This is kinda my position with the caveat I liked the jokes and found the guy funny and wish him the best. And also fighting the unemployment claim was overzealous.
Your employer might now own you, but he or she owns your job. And in the US, capital owners have a lot of rights. We have at will employment which means you can be fired for any or no reason. So it's not about them needing to pay you 24/7, it's about you needing to find a new job.
Reminds me of the twitter debate and free speech which so many get so wrong. Legally, Twitter is the owner of the platform and THEY have free speech and the government can't make them publish things they don't want to. Twitter is not the government, so individuals do not have protected speech rights on the platform. Here, the employer is the owner of the job and has really full rights to hire and fire as they see fit, except if a union is involved and thus Jad will probably get his job back, it seems.
the employer owns the job and twitter own free speech, that sums up american capitalism which is just a step away from fascism. fascism with lots of celebreties
His discretion was part of what they were paying him for, it was in his contract. I’m not disputing whether it was right or ideal or what “should be.” I’m simply stating that he agreed to a code of conduct and that was cause for dismissal. We saw Bud Light lose billions for putting a picture on a few cans and a single employee of the company calling their key demographic names. There’s money and other people’s livelihoods at stake now more than ever.
If he worked for me and I found it I would do lots of coughing advising him how to hide it but I do think your hand gets forced in these situations.
I don’t think this is a healthy culture at all.
I don't think Katie is in any way morally justifying management's reaction -- but that's not to say their reaction is unexpected, and if we're going to make use of this story moving forward people should be anticipating corporate blowback. Katie literally summarises her view at the end that it's not right, it simply is the way things are.
I'm so confused, I didn't hear anybody being pissy, lmao. Are you reading BARPOD fanfiction or something
This. Just because public radio is uptight by default doesn't make it right.
I got the impression that she was talking about the chilling effect on your speech that you inherently have as a worker in public radio. Seems pretty straightforward to me: if you're in a v liberal institution and have recordings of you making edgy jokes, it only takes one person with a grudge to make that a problem for you so you should probably tread carefully.
Honestly I think it would have been reasonable for the station to be like 'You gotta be more anonymous online' or something like that. When you're government and public funded you gotta be super careful to avoid negative press that could jeopardise it. The problem wasn't the station having a problem with it, the problem was the way over-the-top reaction.
Sure, but she is also self-employed. It's pretty obvious she agrees he was treated unfairly of the episode would likely not exist.
"I'm not a *dude*, don't call me dude."
"Sure thing, bro."
"Not your *bro*!"
"Ok, Mr. Lawyer Man"
I’m not your buddy, guy
I need this to go on for at least 5 more exchanges.
OK, I'll try.
"I'm not a *dude*, don't call me dude."
"Sure thing, bro."
"Not your *bro*!"
"Ok, Mr. Lawyer Man"
"Don't call me a lawyer"
"Fine my friend"
"I'm not your friend."
"You seem to be helping me so far."
"Objection"
"You pussy"
“Yessir Mr. Whitefella!”
Shoot I shouldn't have posted until I finished this entirely. But I would say that if his biss knew from the beginning what he was posting then he was not being naive in posting his videos.
Bur Jesse. Jeez. A Muslim of immigrant background versus a bunch of white people,? I cannot fucking stand this shit. It is entirely possible the lawyer's parents are also immigrants. Same with the execs - it is Phillie. I HATE this stupid racialization which is basically black and white is long time American and everyone else is an immigrant. At this point there are plenty of Arab Americans whose grandparents immigrated to the US.
There is so much poor taste in a white corporate lawyer grilling a Middle Eastern dude over HIS use of a middle-eastern slur while unrepresented by an attorney. Just because you style yourself as anti-PC or being opposed to contemporary racial politics doesn't mean ethnicity is never a factor in anything ever.
Totally agree. In addition to what you said, it’s just a cheap way to score a point by playing the game by their rules.
Funnily enough, Arabs are officially considered to be "white" by the US Census (there have been efforts to change this, though). In general, the Middle East is once region where the American understand of race (especially "White" vs "Non-white") breaks down, because the sort of clear distinctions in physical appearance that define the American understanding of race are much blurrier there. If I had just seen a picture of Jad I would not have guessed that he was an Arab Muslim.
I'd rather not care about any of the identities involved and work off of the substance of the issue at hand.
That was not my point. I was not defending NPR. My critique was of what Jesse was saying. He was talking about the child of Arab immigrants versus a bunch of white people.
A white American can be the child of immigrants.
More importantly, and this is not a critique of Jesse but of societal discourse, there are plenty of non-black POC whose families have been here for generations.
The radio station was being hypocritical. Shocking.
I thought Jesse (I just made the typo jewsy lol) was more so pointing out how hypocritical it all was, because the very people who support public radio would be livid if they saw a bunch of white people interrogating and being awful to a person of color…in any other circumstance.
The majority of the WHYY newsroom appears to be POC.
The best thing about the whole Raghead-gate part of the hearing is that NPR has published many takes on who is “allowed” to say the N word.
That's what I think Jad was pointing at, but he was a bit clumsy in doing it, so it ended up being ambiguous.
Doesn’t matter, since he won his case. But yes, when he goes to the appeal he clearly should have an actual lawyer rather than only a union rep who doesn’t represent him on the cross examination.
Well. Yeah .I mean. If Jad asked the lawyer not to say the word in order to show NPRs hypocrisy, that was pretty good. Don't know if he meant it. But this was 1 individual lawyer quoting him..
The lawyer’s pronunciation of the word “pussy” was sending me. Just the thought of a schlubby lawyer in a loose fitting suit emphasizing the word “pussy” to a judge who seems too old for this shit had me cackling. Kinda like the video of the female lawyer quoting a defendant saying “girl you’re thicker than a bowl of oatmeal.”
Also, RE: “diversity;” it’s funny how white progressives have essentially created their own “model minority.” One who stays in line and says the right thing.
Keep it up bud, your shit’s good!
I dont know if you'll be disappointed to hear that "schlubby lawyer" is the Vice Chairman of a firm that did $631 million in revenue last year and its average profit per equity partner is $1,225,000.
He may have bumbled his way through this hearing, but he's getting a ton of money regardless.
I'm also very uncomfortable about firing people because of what they do outside of their workday, unless it's illegal.
A lot of people argue that the worker represents his employer, but even if true, I don't think it should matter with few exceptions.
Also, the union seemed completely useless. Did they wanted to help their colleague or not?
I am growing more and more skeptical of unions. They are becoming selective about when they stand up for workers. If something a worker does runs afoul of upper middle class progressive social mores, there 's a very good chance they won't stand up for the workers. At the same time they are putting less effort into traditional things like worker safety. I saw this during the summer of 2020 when some of the unions representing healthcare workers here on the west coast were spending most of their time and energy advocating for racial justice in the form of police defunding. Meanwhile, their members were stuck with inadequate PPE: doctors were getting N95s which are effective when used properly, while CNAs and patient care techs were stuck with surgical masks which are basically useless. They weren't doing much to push for more paid sick leave either. The PPE and paid sick leave deficiencies were disproportionately affecting black and hispanic as well as recent immigrant members of these unions because they were more likely to be in those lower paying, lower prestige jobs. They literally ignored the safety of their members and the patients in order to spend their time advocating for the social justice movement's latest poorly-thought out crusade.
Yeah- I feel like I could have done a better job than both attorneys and my training is watching Law and Order.
I think this is an incredibly naive take. Nowadays all it takes is for some viral video starring your employee to come out, then when they get doxxed and attached to you, all of a sudden you're taking massive heat for something the company didn't do. This could have massive negative consequences for the company which could manifest itself in cancelled contracts, your talent leaving, talent being less interested in your company, etc., which ultimately can manifest itself as lost revenue.
Should a company have to tank losses worth millions of dollars because of statements their employee made? What if the employee maliciously exploits this, denigrating their workplace as much as possible through highly offensive (but legal) speech, while not hiding their association with the company, but otherwise performing well in the job?
What happened here is obviously unacceptable, and there should be some level of protection for employees in cases like these and compromises should be offered. Too much protection against firing people for extracurricular activities unless it's illegal is very dumb though.
As a society we shouldn't accept cancellations, and anything else is keeping us slaves of moral panic. And I refuse to do so.
Should a company have to just accept potentially infinite amounts of reputational damage and financial damage from association with an employee's extracurricular activities, assuming they're fine in the office? This appears to be a fair reading what you're suggesting, correct me if I'm wrong.
Imagine if as a society we accepted that an employee doesn't represent the business, and that actions that are not illegal should not be prosecuted by angry mobs.
I am indeed saying that that's how it should be, and specially in this century, when everybody on the internet is potentially a public person or can do something that makes a group angry. Should people stop posting on the internet things that someone somewhere could potentially decide that is offensive? Is that more realistic? Something that is likely to happen? A better perspective of a future society?
This is just fantasy, man. Sure, it would be nice if that was the case. Would be nice if we didn't have to work at all. Would be nice if we were all friends. Would be nice if there were no wars ever.
I just find the realistic and pragmatic discussion more interesting. Today, in the real world, actions of your employees - even when not representing the company - can lead to devastating financial losses that can impact more than just that one employee. Employers should have some amount of reasonable freedom of association, but of course this should be balanced with workers' rights, as I've said from the beginning.
So what's the answer? Hire robots?
We need a middle ground where bosses can fire someone for off-duty behaviour, but with a fat severance to disincentivise abusing it.
Imagine a talented white surgeon at a mostly black hospital. His on-duty record is above average. Off-duty, he runs a channel about phrenology where he uses slurs to describe black skulls. The hospital asks him to stop and he refuses. When patients and insurers find out, they bail, and the hospital's future is at risk.
Should the hospital be forced keep him and go under, or should they be able to fire him with e.g. a two-year payout and potentially dodge the crisis?
I think we should remember that this is the United States of America. You do not have a right to a job. I want to repeat that: YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO A JOB. Even the one you hold. If you don't like it, start a company and employ yourself. It's called at-will employment.
I should also point out that your employer does not have a right to your services. You can quit at anytime. Now maybe we should change that. If you have a union, you will certainly have some rights to your job. And that's probably why Jad is going to get his job back.
People against cancellations like this are (often) arguing that at will employment is bad and should be reformed.
That is you as an employer should actually have to have a damn good reason to fire someone for something other than work performance. and in a case like his, you’d have to actually show that the company would or did suffer actual reputational harm for off work behavior (rather than now where this isn’t required).
A few recent cases from the UK such as maya forstater are informative - they have employment tribunals to which employees who are fired can appeal.
Jad said the union has been helpful to him, if I am not mistaken what I heard.
I'm just curious about what some of the exceptions are. Can you cite a few?
Errrr... Politician? Religious leader? I'm still thinking about it, but I'll let you know. It's a complicated subject and I'm a pervert for nuance.
I'm not even sure if there should be exceptions... Maybe on a case by cases basis? The internet has changed the way privacy works, and out culture is becoming one of showing. There's a lot of thinking to be done in the subject, from legal matters to ethical considerations.
Politician definitely seems like an exception to me. They literally represent the public
Yeah, that's my intuition, but I haven't come to a conclusion about all of this. It irks me, though.
BAR is always transcontinental, because you're on different sides of a continent. Trans means across, so, e.g. a transcontinental railroad goes across a continent, not between continents. Now BAR is intercontinental.
Would you say Jesse and Katie are detransitioners since they used to be trans and now they're not