Mel Gibson 's racist rant

Ladewig said:
For me, it's not the n-word at all. If Mr. Gibson had said, your dressing that way will get you raped by Puerto Ricans, I would still have just as low of an opinion of him. It's claiming that one ethnic or racial group is more likely to rape someone based on her style of dress that offends me.
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Ye. It's offensive, and ment to be just that. Though my point was that we do or have in the past said a lot of offensive stuff in private, not necessarily from hate or convergent resentment against the given group et al, but from a place of spew aimed to hurt and disrespect. For me the word he used is secondary, I do not become offended by being people calling me pale-face or telling me white or scandinavian people are, globaly, comparetively born rapists. I would however, while not offended, be angry if this was simply icing on the cake and it turned out he had a tendency to physically abuse her. It has been reported, but not much ado has come out of it either way. In a sense it seems it isn't as juicy as what slurs the man might spout next.
 
plumjam said:
People have said this, about gathering evidence.
It has been established that in Californian law it is illegal to record a private conversation that your interlocutor believes to be private.
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It has? In this thread? If so, I missed it. Can you provide a link?
 
iknownothing said:
Wow, I'm a bit startled by the responses like this, "we all do that" kind of attitude. I don't think I've ever used slurs like that. I can't imagine ever having the thoughts that it would take to spew out something like that. I'd be more likely to speak in tongues (which will never, ever happen).
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Well it's not to be taken literally, but rather comparetively. I myself have called people, who were of a different race, derogatory stuff aimed to hurt. For example, I have a cousin who's part native-american. I called her "negro savage" many years ago during a heated argument, and even though my comment was followed by a comment I regarded as hurtful to me, it doesn't change the fact that what I said was just from a plain piss-poor state of mind.
There's certainly no hard feelings today between the two of us, it was simply a heated verbal fight. Point is, we all know what popular 'ism's' there are available of more or less crude and nasty tone to throw around. And as I said I'm willing to bet that if we had recordings of what a lot of the PC-thought police on this forum have said in their private dwellings, hell would be raised more than once. I just think it gets a bit exagurated when people scream bloody murder in these cases.

Well A) If he acted all crazy and vicious and yelled it at her instead of "told" her, it would be news. B) But it still doesn't approach the number of levels of nasty going on in what he said.
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Personally, yes I'm more disturbed that he would use such hurtful words against her. It wouldn't be any different than if he would've said that she'd get raped for looking like a tramp, to me. It's a crappy and nasty way to talk to the mother of your child, for sure.
 
Jono said:
Ye. It's offensive, and ment to be just that.
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If you want to offend me, you'd be much more successful if you insulted me, or possibly my mother or my goldfish. Insulting a randonm group of people that really has nothing to do with me is unlikely to work.

I do not become offended by being people calling me pale-face or telling me white or scandinavian people are, globaly, comparetively born rapists.
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He wasn't talking about her or her ethnicity, though.
 
Rasmus said:
If you want to offend me, you'd be much more successful if you insulted me, or possibly my mother or my goldfish. Insulting a randonm group of people that really has nothing to do with me is unlikely to work.
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Indeed, but ascribing an event involving a given group, doing something nasty to your sensitive perspective/object/person (what ever that might be or involve), might add polemic spice to it.

He wasn't talking about her or her ethnicity, though.
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True. Allthough he was talking about her wasn't he?
 
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Jono said:
Indeed, but ascribing an event involving a given group, doing something nasty to your sensitive perspective/object/person (what ever that might be or involve), might add polemic spice to it.



True. Allthough he was talking about her wasn't he?
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But that's not the issue.

Saying "that dress is gonna get you raped" would not be much of a problem. It diesn't say much about what the speaker thinks of people, women, the person he is speaking to specifically, or anything else.

the problem is simply that Gibson chose to say that "a group of black people" would be guilty. I really don't see how he'd use that to get at her. It doesn't make sense to assume that.

Suppose you opened a store and I told you that your alarm system would not prevent anyone from breaking into your place and stealing your stuff.

Now suppose you I told you it wouldn't stop a bunch of French people from breaking in and stealing your things.

what reason could i *possibly* have to say that?
 
Jono said:
For example, I have a cousin who's part native-american. I called her "negro savage" many years ago during a heated argument . . .
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And how has that affected your relationship. To me it would be a clear sign that you can't be trusted. You are obviously thinking something entirely different about your cousin than you express to them regularly. I mean, that isn't something someone thinks up on the spur of the moment about a family member. That's been thought about beforehand.
 
SezMe said:
It has? In this thread? If so, I missed it. Can you provide a link?
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I earlier reproduced a sentence from one of the news reports saying so (from the Daily Mail).

Here is more:
http://www.citmedialaw.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law


California makes it a crime to record or eavesdrop on any confidential communication, including a private conversation or telephone call, without the consent of all parties to the conversation. See Cal. Penal Code § 632. The statute applies to "confidential communications" -- i.e., conversations in which one of the parties has an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation. See Flanagan v. Flanagan, 41 P.3d 575, 576-77, 578-82 (Cal. 2002). A California appellate court has ruled that this statute applies to the use of hidden video cameras to record conversations as well. See California v. Gibbons, 215 Cal. App. 3d 1204 (Cal Ct. App. 1989).

If you are recording someone without their knowledge in a public or semi-public place like a street or restaurant, the person whom you're recording may or may not have "an objectively reasonable expectation that no one is listening in or overhearing the conversation," and the reasonableness of the expectation would depend on the particular factual circumstances. Therefore, you cannot necessarily assume that you are in the clear simply because you are in a public place.

If you are operating in California, you should always get the consent of all parties before recording any conversation that common sense tells you might be "private" or "confidential." In addition to subjecting you to criminal prosecution, violating the California wiretapping law can expose you to a civil lawsuit for damages by an injured party. See Cal. Penal Code § 637.2.
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So, it appears that Gibson's lawyers would have every right to file a lawsuit against her.

And I can't see how such illegal recordings could have been done to gather evidence for a court case.
 
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Jono said:
Well it's not to be taken literally, but rather comparetively. I myself have called people, who were of a different race, derogatory stuff aimed to hurt. For example, I have a cousin who's part native-american. I called her "negro savage" many years ago during a heated argument, and even though my comment was followed by a comment I regarded as hurtful to me, it doesn't change the fact that what I said was just from a plain piss-poor state of mind.
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Again, you called her that, not some random, other people.

Still, why would you say that? To hurt - but why should it hurt? It ios not a random thing to call her, after all.

Personally, yes I'm more disturbed that he would use such hurtful words against her. It wouldn't be any different than if he would've said that she'd get raped for looking like a tramp, to me. It's a crappy and nasty way to talk to the mother of your child, for sure.
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This I don't understand.

Suppose she had been wearing the most slutty outfit ever, or at least something he genuinely thought of as a standard-issue hooker uniform: Saying those clothes would likely get her raped would have been a somewhat honest comment. It describes her choice of clothes as dangerous. Beyond that, it only comments about society in general.
 
4 pages in 1 day on a Mel Gibson thread? Really?

That is...surprising. I hadn't realized he was still that relevant.
 
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I would say the thread is essentially about racism and misogyny rather than Mel himself. He's just the trigger point.
 
Lisa Simpson said:
I would say the thread is essentially about racism and misogyny rather than Mel himself. He's just the trigger point.
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I don't know. The majority of posts seem to be talking about this specific situation. Whether or not she leaked the tapes, whether or not he may or may not have been provoked, how at fault each of them were in regards towards their child, etc...
 
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The use of the N word is not even a blip on the radar to me based on his past ranting. He's just a racist piece of work.

However plumjam I have to take you to task for making such a big deal out her taping him. Do you know how many women are killed or abused every year because they can't prove that the men in their lives are threatening them?

He said that he would burn down her house but she'd blow him first. In my opinion that alone justifies her taping it.

I don't care what buttons you push, I can see a racial slip from a racist and not respect him but not be surprised. But threatening her life? I think she did the only thing she could to protect herself.

Is she a saint no, but he is beyond the pale here.
 
Oh boy. Here I must go again, playing devil's advocate, even though I don't have a racist bone in my body:

After 30 years of working with concrete truck drivers in the rural Appalachians, I came to expect the mandatory racist and sexist jokes from these truck drivers. I could nearly set my watch by them...2 before they even got the truck into position; 3 more when the pour was done. It meant very little. Pop culture.

Good thing none of these concrete truck drivers went on to have a Hollywood career.
I'd be selling the story right now, because it pays so much more than running a crew of rednecks and coming in under budget.
 
I was thinking the same kind of thing quarky about how I grew up around rednecks. The argument falls apart when you realize that Gibson isn't a redneck. Rednecks generally perpetuate it because people around them think it's funny and they are uneducated and live in small communities where many people share the same views.

Gibson is a world famous actor who has lived in huge circles. That's just not going to cut it as an excuse.

And it's not a sexist "joke" to threaten to burn down someone's house when you are furious with them, "but they will blow you first?" I mean come on.
 
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