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Netflix Fires PR Chief After Use of N-Word in Meeting
- nailer 8y ago> I was insensitive in speaking to my team about words that offend in comedy. If you're offended about words that offend you may not want to work in an industry where they're discussed.
- ceejayoz 8y agoSomehow, I doubt Netflix's head of PR is sitting in the writers room for a Chris Rock special.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- twtw 8y agoHe said the word in a meeting regarding the use of "sensitive words" in comedy.
- ceejayoz 8y agoIf you're the head of public relations at a multi-billion dollar company, and you don't know to say "n-word" instead of the actual word, that seems like grounds for firing with cause. That's like being an accountant who can't add.
- nailer 8y ago> That's like being an accountant who can't add. No, because he didn't use it in a press release. He used it in a meeting with (presumably) professional adults who should be able to understand intent.
- ceejayoz 8y agoHe's the head of a department responsible for dealing with these sorts of fuck-ups. A PR professional should easily know "I probably shouldn't ever say n----r".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ironjunkie 8y agoAmerican political correctness on full display. Edit because I realize that I'm going to be super downvoted: I understand the history and the reasoning behind it, and I would agree with the termination as it is "American" common sense. But coming from another country it is still strange to me that there are a couple of well defined words that are COMPLETELY forbidden, and that saying any of those words will immediately terminate any job, relation, everything that you worked for.
- tootie 8y agoYup. It's being applied very fairly and effectively in this case.
- yycom 8y agoCould you explain how this is fair and effective? I would be interested in reading something other than bald assertions and cyclic argument ("it's bad because it's bad").
- tootie 8y agoI mean, that's it. It's a rule of our society. That word means "black people that are weak, ignorant, servile and subhuman". We as a society have elected to make it a word that is forbidden in polite conversation unless you think the definition is accurate. Using it casually, even if you think you are not racist, is a signal that you don't care about other people's feelings.
- b6 8y ago> We as a society have elected to make it a word that is forbidden in polite conversation unless you think the definition is accurate. We have done no such thing. Your statement is about as inaccurate and misleading as it could possibly be. The word you are talking about can be heard throughout TV shows, movies, and music. The vast majority of the time, it is not being used in the way you suggest. Your assertion that it is a "rule of our society" is as absurd as claiming the earth is flat.
- mkempe 8y agoHow can someone rise to such a position and at the same time be so stupid as to talk like that?
- ironjunkie 8y agoTwo sides here: - He is stupid to not know the social untold rules, such as never say the "n-word". - Those untold rules are also so stupid to start with. How is it ok to say the "n-word" but not the original form. They are the same thing.
- abnry 8y agoObviously the guy should have been fired if the intent was to offend or demean. Personally, I would never in any circumstances use the word. But do we or don't we want black culture to shape all of american culture? The word shows up in movies, TV shows, and music that white people consume and enjoy. When a word is offensive enough that it is derogatory when a white person uses it no matter the context, but okay for a black person, that is a cultural form of separate but equal. Either make the word something everybody can say or nobody can say. I vote the latter but if black people truly want to reclaim the word as a positive, then I am okay with that as long as anybody can use the word (at least with positive intent). EDIT: Black people took a word that meant something horrible and made it into such a good thing among themselves that even white people want in on the goodness of the word. How is that not a huge cultural achievement that they should be proud of and allow the broader culture to take up? Doesn't it show the strength of their community to make something awful into something good?
- jaas 8y agoI think this is the best answer to your question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO15S3WC9pg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO15S3WC9pg
- abnry 8y agoThank you for sharing. I accept the first half of his argument, which is why I don't use certain words. However, Coates gives himself the freedom to use certain words he would not himself use in situ. The news article posted appears that there is a word that white people cannot utter in any context, even in describing why they don't use it.
- threatofrain 8y agoI think his context is as a speaker on stage speaking in a meta way. Did he successfully predict audience reaction?
- yycom 8y agoThe parent didn't ask for a link to a video, so a link to a video cannot be an answer to the question. Perhaps you could summarise or quote the part of the video that you believe answers the question.
- guiambros 8y ago> "Leaders have to be beyond reproach in the example we set and unfortunately I fell short of that standard " vs. > "Thanks. Rise high, fall fast. All on a couple of words...." [Later deleted] Something tells me that even after being fired, he still doesn't get it. For someone who leads a team specialized in communicating with the public, seems incredibly tone deaf.
- randyrand 8y agowhich makes sense. Because it's incredibly stupid. His use was descriptive, and descriptive use of the word is not how it was used in the past. Sure, maybe some people get offended - let them be. American society has a victimhood complex and we should stop playing into it - it only encourages it. We're not in preschool anymore. If someone descriptively saying a word offends you so much, you need to grow up.
- austincheney 8y ago> It recounts an incident that occurred "several months ago" when Friedland used the N-word during a meeting with Netflix public relations staff during a discussion about "sensitive words." Several people told him they were offended by his use of the full word, according to Hastings's memo. http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/22/news/companies/netflix-spokesperson-n-word/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/22/news/companies/netflix-spoke... Sensitive, like the recent internal protests at Google, Amazon, and Microsoft over political matters. * Amazon - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/amazon-workers-tell-bezos-to-stop-selling-facial-recognition-to-police/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/amazon-workers-t... * Microsoft - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/technology/tech-companies-immigration-border.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/technology/tech-companies... * Google - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-... Due to this degree of social sensitivity I will never relocate to the west coast for employment.
- scarface74 8y agoIt’s not just on the west coast - you would get fired for saying that anywhere almost.
- evook 8y agoI think only in the US. That's not even 5%.
- pranjalv123 8y agoSo you're refusing to work anywhere where you'll be fired for repeatedly using racial slurs??
- sundaeofshock 8y agoJust to be clear, you want to work in an environment where you can say racist things with impunity. Is that really how you want to present yourself on HN?
- deleted 8y ago
- Jedd 8y agoThere's a few things about this (specifically and in general) that are frustrating. Writing 'the n-word' is similar to saying 'the f word' or 'the c bomb' - everyone knows what we're referring to, and I suspect many simply mentally substitute the actual word as they read. There's some Le Guin style 'power of true names' thing going on with the myriad words that are somewhere on the sensitive-to-offensive spectrum for whoever you may be talking to or near. It's especially tricky for non-USA persons, as a lot of US pop-culture is exported, and it comes bundled with a surfeit of political, social, and historical cruft we are expected to track. In AU it famously caught out one of our comedians in 1979 during an award show, when he used the word 'boy' with Muhammad Ali [1] -- spectacularly neither the host, nor pretty much anyone watching in the ballroom or at home, had any idea it meant something other than someone younger than you, let alone something derogatory. The wonderful comedian Reginald D Hunter has a strong opinion on the matter -- basically that as long as we all keep skirting around certain words they'll maintain their regrettably powerful effect over people -- but he has the benefit of being in a demographic (black and a comedian) that, by social convention, can casually drop the word. Anyway, I love the idea, but I have no idea how we can get there from here. [1] Search: bert newton muhammad ali
- djtriptych 8y agoas far as the n-word and c-word, why not consider the opinion of black people and women in this argument?
- cfadvan 8y agoThis may come as a shock, but neither group is really cohesive and homogenous, and therefore each present a multitude of opinions on the topic ranging from permissive to prohibitive.
- djtriptych 8y agoThis isn’t true.
- Jedd 8y ago
- RickJWagner 8y agoInexcusable. No person-- black, white, otherwise-- should use that word.
- atom-morgan 8y agoWhy?
- b6 8y agoThis is extraordinarily stupid. I fear people in the US are living under some form of mass psychosis about this topic. I grew up in the south. It's been probably 30 years since I heard anyone use the dreaded word in the traditional derogatory and demeaning way. But, like every other American, I've heard it used thousands upon thousands of times in the new way, and I know exactly what it means: "man", or sometimes just "person". That's all it means. I wish that word had died long ago. But it's still here, for better or worse, and everyone knows it means man/person. Did the people who supposedly took great offense at the use of this word take great offense at its usage by other people throughout daily life, including being used in probably thousands of programs on Netflix itself?
- 22junethrowaway 8y agoReed Hasting’s letter is coming from a point of view I find very strange. >The first incident was several months ago in a PR meeting about sensitive words. Several people afterwards told him how inappropriate and hurtful his use of the N-word was, and Jonathan apologised to those that had been in the meeting. We hoped this was an awful anomaly never to be repeated. Guy slipped up, apologized, and was warned. Makes sense to me. > Three months later he spoke to a meeting of our Black Employees @ Netflix group and did not bring it up, which was understood by many in the meeting to mean he didn’t care and didn’t accept accountability for his words. Why was he expected to bring up unintentional mistakes made months ago? At what point can someone be allowed to let bygones be bygones? > For non-Black people, the word should not be spoken as there is almost no context in which it is appropriate or constructive (even when singing a song or reading a script). There is not a way to neutralize the emotion and history behind the word in any context. The use of the phrase “N-word” was created as a euphemism, and the norm, with the intention of providing an acceptable replacement and moving people away from using the specific word. When a person violates this norm, it creates resentment, intense frustration, and great offense for many. Perhaps I’m not coming from the same cultural background as Reed (or his PR advisers) I don’t really understand how the mere utterance of a word, without the intention to offend or even to use it as anything other than a descriptor for the word itself, can be this offensive. For my part, I’m trans, and I don’t feel “resentment, intense frustration, and great offense” when I hear people speaking slurs referentially, as long as they’re trying to refer to the words themselves as opposed to using them as labels for a person or group. I would find it very helpful if someone can explain this to me.
- evook 8y ago> I don’t really understand how the mere utterance of a word, without the intention to offend or even to use it as anything other than a descriptor for the word itself, can be this offensive. You call that concept facism.
- Rebelgecko 8y ago>For non-Black people, the word should not be spoken as there is almost no context in which it is appropriate or constructive (even when singing a song or reading a script). That kind of rings hollow while Netflix continues to offer movies in which non-Black people use this word-that-shall-not-be-named.
- tejohnso 8y ago"Three months later he spoke to a meeting of our Black Employees @ Netflix group..." Wait, what? Black employees have a "group"? How many different race, culture, sexuality, and gender identity groups are there at Netflix? Is this internal corporate tribalism an American tech company thing?
- eesmith 8y agoEvery large company I've visited in Europe seems to have an ex-pat group, based around the cultural identity of "foreigner". I don't see why a (say) large French company would blink at (say) Swedish employees having an employee group of people interested in Swedish culture, who have a Swedish-style coffee break once a month, and organize events around midsummer and other holidays. Do you think a Swedish employee group at Crédit Agricole is a problem? You make "internal corporate tribalism" sound like a bad thing. Is a photography club also internal corporate tribalism?
- dingaling 8y ago> Is a photography club also internal corporate tribalism? Of course not, anyone can join that group even if they're not a particularly good photographer at that time. The test of membership is 'personal interest' which is not an inherent, immutable trait. But a Swedish-ex-pats group directly conflicts with equality ( everyone has the same opportunities ) on a corporate scale and diversity ( tolerate and leverage differences ) on a group scale. I would protest to C-level management if such a group existed on company premises or company time. And I'd hope they'd align with me, else come the time for the E&D report there might be some interesting comments.
- eesmith 8y agoI said "an employee group of people interested in Swedish culture". I did not say "Swedish-only group". I think that difference is the nub of this topic. If a non-Swede were to show up to the Swedish group, and be harassed (eg, be told to leave on the basis of not being a Swede), then that's an civil rights violation already in the US. Was tejohnso's question specifically about employee groups which discriminate membership on the basis of national origin, sex, etc.? As I understand US law, an employee organization which uses donated company space or funds and which discriminates on the basis of sex, national origin, veteran status, etc. is covered under the same anti-discrimination laws that the company itself is. More specifically, "It is illegal to harass an employee because of race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information." ... "The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer." (quotes from https://www.eeoc.gov//laws/practices/ https://www.eeoc.gov//laws/practices/ ). Since tejohnso was talking about things which were at US tech companies, I assumed that tejohnso was referring to currently-legal US practices. Is "Black Employees @ Netflix group" restricted to only people who self-identify as black? Or is it also open to people who do not consider themselves black? (Eg, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) membership is not limited to colored people). I do not know. Nor do I know if it uses Netflix resources. I do know that my sister's women's group at a large international company has men who are members. I think your statement "The test of membership is 'personal interest' which is not an inherent, immutable trait" is too narrow. Religion faith is a mutable trait. Just like we both would reject an on-site employee club which excluded non-Swedes, I would also reject an on-site employee club which exclude non-Protestants.
- earenndil 8y ago> For non-Black people, the word should not be spoken as there is almost no context in which it is appropriate or constructive (even when singing a song or reading a script) Alright, I'll ask it: why? Or, perhaps a better question: how can you justify saying that there are situations in which it is constructive for a black person to say it but not for a white person? Is this not simply its own form of racism? As a word, I understand that it has cultural charge, but why should people's right to speak a word be derived simply from who they happened to be born to, an event completely outside of their control?
- dwaltrip 8y agoThere's no "rights" at play here. It's just moral and social norms. Black people took ownership of the word. White people using it is disrespectful to that fact, as well as to the complex, terrible history and large impacts that history is still having even today.
- earenndil 8y agoOnce again, I ask: why, because someone happens to be born black, do they get 'ownership' of the word? What does it even mean for an ethnic group to have ownership of a word? A single word doesn't have enough meaning to express a complete idea.
- dwaltrip 8y agoYou don't have to agree that they have ownership. There are some people who disagree. It's an emergent phenomenon. There is no committee that decides this. But you would be fighting a difficult uphill battle, one that doesn't seem to have much upside (from my perspective). The word's complex meaning is found in its enormously rich historical and cultural contexts.
- pvg 8y agoThis is a very common, slightly less obvious variant of 'how come there is no white history month'. You can google your way to plenty of discussions of it, including a recently very popular Ta-Nehisi Coates video.
- Teeer 8y ago> For non-Black people, the word should not be spoken as there is almost no context in which it is appropriate or constructive (even when singing a song or reading a script) That last part is pretty silly...
- lwhalen 8y agoI think Johnathan Friedland is really wishing right now that his comments were evaluated within the context of the content of his character, and not the context of the color of his skin.
- redthrowaway 8y agoSo let's be clear about what happened, here. During a meeting about offensive words in comedy, Friedland said the word "nigger". We don't know the context, but we do know that people who were in the room with him were uncomfortable with his using it. Later, he met with two black employees to talk about his use of the word during the meeting about offensive words. During this meeting, he used the word again. Now, I can appreciate the incandescent radioactivity of that word. I can, I think, begin to imagine what a black person might feel upon hearing a white person say it. But at some point we have to be able to talk about words as words. If you're having a discussion about offensive language, the demand that one word be euphemized is infantile. So, too, if you're having a discussion about some people's reaction to the use of that word. We have to be able to recognize that the discussion of a word as a word, and the use of that word as an epithet, are completely separate phenomena. By way of illustration, if a sociologist were to conduct a study about the use of racial epithets among various groups of people, would you expect them to publish a paper that analyzed the use of "the N-word", or would you expect them to analyze the use of the word "nigger"? If the former, why? Of what stuff is built this wall of timid prevarication?
- rthrowayay 8y agoI'm trying to avoid ranting about this because the timeline looks more like someone powerful in the company needed an excuse to remove him so this was dredged up as a rationale. However, firing someone for not properly following some unintuitive social rule seems insane. I'm really surprised there is so much support for this on HN where we are either stereotyped as not being good at intuiting social norms or celebrated for deliberately breaking stupid social rules. I remember as a kid in school we would discuss the content censorship policies that were in place 10-20 years ago and the absurdities of whether the censors or the rules could make reference to the words they were trying to censor. We laughed at this situation but it seems a lot of these people have grown up and are making the same mistake but just with a different set of underlying values. I also find this requirement for self-criticsm very cultish and weird. He was criticized for not voluntarily bringing up the issue with a black group at Netflix and this was seen as a serious issue. That is f#cking insane. We are creating a cult. We see people on this thread using Bayesian inference as justification for sanctioning people who use this word in any context. As a hacker if you see society using Bayesian inference like this you should see this as an opportunity to exploit rather than a bandwagon to jump on. This is basically society's argument for higher education. Anyone who doesn't spend an enormous amount of time and treasure wastefully on their future when everyone else is, is obviously defective.