There is fear and loathing in this city, with men looking over their shoulders for the thought police, and hard-eyed women roaming the television studios with lists of sexual predators. There is also dread over the latest exports from the city’s youth detention centers, thanks to Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Robert Kennedy and ex-wife of Governor Cuomo, known to hit the bottle and the pills occasionally, and now busy bailing out criminals who cannot afford bail thanks to the Robert F. Kennedy Foundation.
This is a hell of a city. The criminals are being let out and the innocent (presumed) are losing their jobs after having been accused of sexual harassment. The 500-pound gorilla in the room, of course, is the R-word, with people being fired or suspended by the thought police, who are everywhere. To be accused of racism in New York or California is a death sentence for one’s career, even worse than being accused of grabbing someone’s tits. Shock horror.
Ron Darling was a famous major-league baseball pitcher for the New York Mets who is now a broadcaster. He looks Western but is of Chinese descent. He used the term “a chink in his armor” to describe a Yankee pitcher’s wildness, the Yankee being a Japanese. Shock horror all over again. Darling was threatened with career-ending penalties unless he groveled, which he did. An often-used metaphor almost cost him his career. See what I mean about fear and loathing? Imagine what would happen to you if you did inadvertently brush against a Chinese woman’s tits. Twenty-five to life, most likely.
And it gets worse. Some years ago Doug Adler, a broadcaster for ESPN, described Venus Williams’ forays to the net during a tennis match as a “guerrilla tactic.” Shock horror, he must have meant she looked like an ape, and Adler was…fired. ESPN was bombarded by no-nothings using Twitter, claiming that he had called her a gorilla. He had actually complimented her for suddenly going to the net. Adler was out of a job and now works on a different network after a hiatus of three years.
