"A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning" or "How a Vindictive Classmate..

[Cosmo_ac]

"A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning" or "How a Vindictive Classmate and a Cowardly University Ruined a Girl’s Life" ?
Here is is the first article: "A Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/26/us/mimi-groves-jimmy-galligan-racial-slurs.html

LEESBURG, Va. — Jimmy Galligan was in history class last school year when his phone buzzed with a message. Once he clicked on it, he found a three-second video of a white classmate looking into the camera and uttering an anti-Black racial slur.

The slur, he said, was regularly hurled in classrooms and hallways throughout his years in the Loudoun County school district. He had brought the issue up to teachers and administrators but, much to his anger and frustration, his complaints had gone nowhere.

So he held on to the video, which was sent to him by a friend, and made a decision that would ricochet across Leesburg, Va., a town named for an ancestor of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee and whose school system had fought an order to desegregate for more than a decade after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling.

And here is a response article: "How a Vindictive Classmate and a Cowardly University Ruined a Girl’s Life"

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/12/how-a-vindictive-classmate-and-a-cowardly-university-ruined-a-girls-life/

A "Racial Slur, a Viral Video, and a Reckoning”

That’s how the New York Times headlined its hit piece on a college freshman for something she had said as a high school freshman. Mimi Groves was still a child when she said, in a Snapchat recording, “I can drive” followed by the “n-word” — the racial slur.

Jimmy Galligan, a half-black student who graduated from Heritage High School in Virginia this past spring with Groves, obtained this video during their senior year. Per Galligan himself, he waited until Groves had been accepted to, and chose to enroll at, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville to release the video — which went viral.

The resulting firestorm led to a torrent of abuse, and to an ultimatum from the University of Tennessee to Groves: withdraw voluntarily or have your offer of admission rescinded. Groves, who is white, chose the former and is now taking courses at a local community college instead of at her dream school — the reckoning.

I'm curious what peoples opinions are on this subject. I would strongly recommend people read all of both of the articles, to get all of the details provided.

Personally, I find myself more inclined to agree with the second article.  While I don't condone what the girl did, I think the reaction and punishment she has gotten seem disproportionate to what she actually did.  It doesn't seem like there was any personal problems between the two students, but there seems to be a vindictiveness in the way Galligan chose to deal with this that seems personal to me.  He could have dealt with it in a lot of ways, but he wanted to punish this girl, and send a message while doing it.

Thoughts?

[Saria]

Personally, I find myself more inclined to agree with the second article.

Really? Because I find it incredibly awful. The NYT article isn’t great either, but of the two… good grief. I mean, this:

Even conceding the obvious — she shouldn’t have used that slur in any context — there’s little indication she used it out of hatred for black people.

🤦🏾‍♀️

Do I really need to explain why that’s gob-smackingly stupid?

And then there’s this:

If Groves can be held responsible for a poor decision rendered in her mid teens, surely Galligan can be as well for deliberately trying to ruin a classmate’s life four years later — a worse crime at a more mature age.

The guy explicitly explained his motivations for posting the video, and for why he did it when he did. Nowhere in there did he say he was “deliberately trying to ruin [Groves’s] life”. The author even goes on about how Galligan is “personally vindictive”, etc.. Mimi Groves was just a sweet, innocent kid, but Jimmy Galligan is a vindictive adult whose only agenda is to ruin someone’s life (no, his goal wasn’t justice you silly bear!). Isn’t it weird that this writer has no trouble making up sinister motivations for the black guy… but goshdarnit, it’s such a crime to assume anything but the sweetest of intentions for the white girl! (Nah, but that can’t be latent racism rearing its head in there, now can it?)

How is this even journalism? Doesn’t National Review have an editor? Standards?

And then of course, the author of that piece tries to frame Galligan as some kind of hypocrite because he publicly castigated Groves while only privately correcting his father. Even though, yanno, he had video evidence of Groves’s shitty behaviour that she herself had previously publicly posted, whereas with his father, it was just a private comment. Yeah, yeah, totally the same situation.  The fact that he didn’t manifest a video of his father using the slur out of æther and post that is clearly a sign of hypocrisy. 🙄

Of course, the author of the second piece has no real point other than being pissed off, so naturally he tries to cast aspersions everywhere, in the hopes that something will stick. So it’s not just Galligan who’s a villain. The NYT article author is, too:

Levin adds that “the story behind the backlash also reveals a more complex portrait of behavior that for generations had gone unchecked in schools in one of the nation’s wealthiest counties, where Black students said they had long been subjected to ridicule” before going on to share the stories of students who were forced to endure appalling racist treatment by their classmates or even have “Underground Railroad” games forced on them in gym class. As maddening as these stories are, they describe people guilty of far worse than Groves’s offense. Levin’s attempt to blur the lines between her case and more damning ones is contemptible — or worse.

Of course, Levin isn’t doing what Schorr claims he’s doing… but don’t let a little thing like truth ruin a good blast of outrage posturing.

Look, does it suck that Groves is suffering such a harsh comeuppance? Well, yeah, it does. And it’s certainly true the university showed how spineless it is. And of course, any hate or threats Groves received is absolutely unacceptable.

But here’s the thing. As Galligan’s story clearly indicates – over and over with multiple horrific examples – there was a serious, widespread problem at that school. And it was going to have to be dealt with eventually. The administration was part of the problem. He tried dealing with it internally, and just got rebuffed. So someone was going to have to pay the price of a hard lesson. If it wasn’t Groves we’re all pearl-clutching about, it might be the teacher who did the “Underground Railroad” lesson, and we’d be hearing a sob story about how they were such a good teacher, and how they made one mistake, and how they learned it was wrong so long ago and have never done it since, blah, blah, blah. Or someone else who did one of the many, many terrible things that Galligan endured and described, but who was goshdarnit really just a decent person on the inside.

A lesson needed to be taught, and all the avenues for that lesson being genial and peaceful were shut down, so someone was going to have to be the scapegoat. I’m sure Mimi Groves feels it’s so unfair that it’s her… and maybe it is, on a cosmic scale… but whoever eventually ended up being the face of the hard lesson being taught would have felt the same.

That school sounds like it was a nightmare. (And the university doesn’t sound much better, but that’s a whole other story.) I thought my high school was racist; that school puts it to shame. I can’t imagine how horrible it was/is for all the racialized students who went/go there. If Groves’s public humiliation, and her horrendous suffering of… not getting into the particular university she wanted… turns out to actually change the school, then I would say it was well worth it.

And for all Schorr’s performative outrage, Groves isn’t really suffering that much. She didn’t get into the school she really wanted and had to settle for community college. Being denied enrolment in a prestigious school? Gee, sucks that she had to endure what people of colour have endured in the US for generations, eh? Whatever. 🤷🏾‍♀️ She’ll turn out just fine. Either she’ll truly learn her lesson and turn her story into a cautionary tale, and probably end up writing books and doing speaking tours. Or she’ll go hard right, join the “I was cancelled!1!!11!” grifter club and, well, probably end up writing books and doing speaking tours.

… there seems to be a vindictiveness in the way Galligan chose to deal with this that seems personal to me.  He could have dealt with it in a lot of ways, but he wanted to punish this girl, and send a message while doing it.

Oh, is that what he wanted? Okay, forget everything I wrote above; I just lacked the ability to read the mind of Jimmy Galligan and foolishly based my conclusions on the things he said and did. But now that I know that this was all really just about his personal vendetta against Mimi Groves….

I urge you to take a step back and take a long hard look at this story, and your take on it. Specifically, I want you to focus on the motives and personality you’ve invented for the two key players… and yes, I did say “invented”, because you (almost certainly) don’t know either of them, so you can’t possibly know what they’re really like. For all you know, Mimi Groves may have been in the habit of using the n-word quite liberally, and she may have even been one of the “go pick cotton” people. Why do you assume she’s innocent (or at least, mostly innocent) here, and Galligan has a personal vendetta against her? Why is that the story you automatically jumped to? Why didn’t you jump to the equally likely story that Groves is a racist monster who tormented people of colour with slurs on a regular basis, and the reason Galligan chose to publicly humiliate her is precisely because she was such a monster?

Or, you know, why not just believe the story as it’s laid out: where Groves is just an insensitive idiot and Galligan used her video not because he had a personal grudge with her, but because it was handy and something had to be done to correct all the insensitive idiots at that school? It isn’t necessary to make up “vindictiveness” or a personal grudge against Groves – Galligan’s story clearly shows he actively fights prejudice, including latent prejudices, and posting that video clearly fits with that agenda – so why did you jump to the assumption of bad faith on the black guy’s part?

There’s a lesson here ­– well multiple lessons. But one in particular that Galligan was trying to teach, but that Schorr was either too stupid, or too wilfully ideological, to get. Racism doesn’t require hatred, or even malicious intent. If you’re throwing the n-word around even as a joke with “no ill intent”… you’re still doing a racism. Groves may be the sweetest little pumpkin that ever did live… but she did a racism. Period. Sucks for her that she became the figurehead for all the racism at that school… but do not for even one nanosecond swallow the bullshit that Schorr is selling that she is innocent. She did racism. Period.

Racism can be very subtle, and it can be very nefarious. These days it very rarely boils down to a single, massive act. It’s a pernicious sea of belittling and dehumanization… and Galligan was drowning in that sea, while Groves was cheerfully adding more water. This doesn’t mean she’s a monster; racism doesn’t need monsters. But it does mean she was responsible for the environment of racism Galligan had to deal with. No, not solely responsible, and not even particularly responsible – she was just one dumbass of many. But some dumbass needed to be made an example of. I guess it sucks that it was her… but… meh, not really.

Also, that National Review website looks like flaming garbage. Don’t read trash like that. It will rot your brain.

[Skynet]

The National Review is an American conservative 'news' pamphlet that heavily hews along the Republican Party ethos. I'm not surprised that they take a more subjective editorial stance on their articles for things like this. They've gone on record as repeatedly denying climate change for example.

They're not as far gone as some other Republicans who mindlessly back Trump on everything, but that's a really low bar to clear. I wouldn't find them trustworthy in general in comparison to non-right wing content.

[Andol]

Sounds like a lesson of why people need to be a hell of a lot more careful of what they post on the internet, and they need to teach their kids the same lesson. Because once it is up then it is up their forever.

Do hope that Groves actually takes what happened and learns a lesson from it, or it could go worse case and have someone who just said something idiotic when they where younger actually go full blow racist from this... who knows.   

[Oniya]

The only 'cowardice' I see is on the part of the Leesburg School District.  My child was bullied in middle school, and boy howdy, did we go up the damn chain until it was dealt with.

[Beorning]

Okay, I'll try tackling this, because I feel there's a need for a bit of counterpoint. Just please bear in mind that I'm not American, so I might not be getting the whole context. So if I say something stupid, please educate me.

Just so that it's clear: I find racism sickening and what I'm about to say is not meant as a defense of a racist behaviour. I simply am not sure whether this particular situation is an example of racism having been tackled in a fully right way.

The guy explicitly explained his motivations for posting the video, and for why he did it when he did. Nowhere in there did he say he was “deliberately trying to ruin [Groves’s] life”. The author even goes on about how Galligan is “personally vindictive”, etc.. Mimi Groves was just a sweet, innocent kid, but Jimmy Galligan is a vindictive adult whose only agenda is to ruin someone’s life (no, his goal wasn’t justice you silly bear!). Isn’t it weird that this writer has no trouble making up sinister motivations for the black guy… but goshdarnit, it’s such a crime to assume anything but the sweetest of intentions for the white girl!

Overall, this is a good point. I agree that the NR author is obviously taking Groves' side. That said, when it comes to Galligan...If I understand correctly, he admitted that he specifically waited with drawing the attention to Groves' video until she was accepted into college. Honestly speaking, I don't see any other explanation for such a wait than an intent to cause Groves' trouble with her college. Considering how social media work today, it was rather obvious that drawing the attention to the video would cause a lot of anger and that it would put pressure on the school that Groves was admitted to. So... yeah, I am inclined to think that Galligan's intent was for Groves to have her college admission cancelled. It can be discussed whether doing such thing constitutes unjust vindicativeness or not, of course.

And then of course, the author of that piece tries to frame Galligan as some kind of hypocrite because he publicly castigated Groves while only privately correcting his father. Even though, yanno, he had video evidence of Groves’s shitty behaviour that she herself had previously publicly posted, whereas with his father, it was just a private comment. Yeah, yeah, totally the same situation.  The fact that he didn’t manifest a video of his father using the slur out of æther and post that is clearly a sign of hypocrisy. 🙄

Yeah, that was a rather stupid idea on the NR author's part. What was Galligan supposed to do not be a "hypocrite", record his own father and cause him trouble in social media? Right...

Look, does it suck that Groves is suffering such a harsh comeuppance? Well, yeah, it does. And it’s certainly true the university showed how spineless it is. And of course, any hate or threats Groves received is absolutely unacceptable.

But here’s the thing. As Galligan’s story clearly indicates – over and over with multiple horrific examples – there was a serious, widespread problem at that school. And it was going to have to be dealt with eventually. The administration was part of the problem. He tried dealing with it internally, and just got rebuffed. So someone was going to have to pay the price of a hard lesson. If it wasn’t Groves we’re all pearl-clutching about, it might be the teacher who did the “Underground Railroad” lesson, and we’d be hearing a sob story about how they were such a good teacher, and how they made one mistake, and how they learned it was wrong so long ago and have never done it since, blah, blah, blah. Or someone else who did one of the many, many terrible things that Galligan endured and described, but who was goshdarnit really just a decent person on the inside.

A lesson needed to be taught, and all the avenues for that lesson being genial and peaceful were shut down, so someone was going to have to be the scapegoat. I’m sure Mimi Groves feels it’s so unfair that it’s her… and maybe it is, on a cosmic scale… but whoever eventually ended up being the face of the hard lesson being taught would have felt the same.

See, this is something I really take an issue with.

I agree that the examples of what was happening in that school sound abysmal (that "Underground Railroad" thing... what the actual f*ck???). That said, you cannot just lump it all together, choose one person as a scapegoat and say that her being treated harshly is some sort of justice for every awful racist thing everyone in the school did. Sorry, no, there is no "Somebody has to pay for all of this" in situations like these. People should be punished for things they are responsible for. You cannot just turn somebody into a scapegoat and punish her for every wrong that happened in a given enviroment. Especially if what this person did was a minor thing compared to other problems in that school...

And yes, I currently feel that what Groves did cannot be compared to the other things reported. I may be misreading the situation, but from what was written in these two articles, I understand that 4 years ago, she sent a video with a racial slur to a friend (with the friend not being a target of that slur). That video got passed around for some time (we don't know whether it happened with Groves' permission or not) and it eventually reached Galligan... again, 4 years after the fact. And only then he made the video public. Seriously, I can't see how anyone can consider this as something in the same category as the racially-motivated abuse of children by a school employee! It'd be as saying that an employee of company using a sexist slur in a private conversation after work is the same as sexual molestation of female employees by a high-level manager of said company... Sorry, no. It's not.

It'd be a different story if we knew that Groves is using such language on a daily basis, that she has been observed behaving in a racist way regularly etc. In other words, if it was known that she was a racist. But we don't have any indications of that. What we know is that 4 years ago, when she was 15, she used a racist slur in one private video. We don't even know if this slur was directed at anyone in particular, or if she stupidly wanted to sound "cool". Making her a target of social media humiliation and causing her to lose college admission because of that *after 4 years*... it really sounds unjust.

One more thing I'd like to point out: she was 15 when making that video. So, not only was this video recorded 4 years ago, but it was recorded when she still was developing as a person. Teenage years are a time of intense personal growth and it's not really just to compare someone's action from mid-teens to who they are as a young adult. Personally speaking, I can tell you that many of my personal views took a 180-degrees turn between 15 y.o. and 19 y.o. So, it's perfectly possible for a Groves to use a racial slur at the age of 15 and be totally ashamed of it by the age of 19. Dragging out this video now and punishing her for it, after all this time and whatever development she went through, really does sound wrong. I mean, 15 year olds are usually treated differently than adults even by the justice system, when it comes to committing serious crimes! And here we are punishing a young woman for something *she once said* as a teen? With everybody just assuming this incident is representative of who she is as an adult..?

And for all Schorr’s performative outrage, Groves isn’t really suffering that much. She didn’t get into the school she really wanted and had to settle for community college. Being denied enrolment in a prestigious school? Gee, sucks that she had to endure what people of colour have endured in the US for generations, eh? Whatever. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Again, nope. Seriously, you cannot just say that what happened to Groves wasn't bad, because POC people have had (and still have) it much worse. Sorry, but you cannot just write off Groves as a necessary scapegoat for all the social injustice POC suffered in the US. Also, if I understand American education system correctly, there's a huge difference between a prestigious college like the one Groves was admitted to and a community college. There is a reason why people fight so hard to get into such colleges. Being denied entry to such a school could have lifelong consequences for Groves - so you cannot write it off as "She'll be alright". Come on.

She’ll turn out just fine. Either she’ll truly learn her lesson and turn her story into a cautionary tale, and probably end up writing books and doing speaking tours. Or she’ll go hard right, join the “I was cancelled!1!!11!” grifter club and, well, probably end up writing books and doing speaking tours.

And here you're being just mean, honestly. What you say is something akin to saying that having your career ruined due to false accusations of corruption isn't a problem, because the ruined person can write a book and make money on it. Seriously?

Or, you know, why not just believe the story as it’s laid out: where Groves is just an insensitive idiot and Galligan used her video not because he had a personal grudge with her, but because it was handy and something had to be done to correct all the insensitive idiots at that school? It isn’t necessary to make up “vindictiveness” or a personal grudge against Groves – Galligan’s story clearly shows he actively fights prejudice, including latent prejudices, and posting that video clearly fits with that agenda – so why did you jump to the assumption of bad faith on the black guy’s part?

Again, you shouldn't punish someone just because it's "handy" and you want to teach a lesson a group of people. Who might be doing much worse things than then person you're actually going after.

[Cosmo_ac]

Sorry it has taken me a while to respond.  I wanted to give my response post some thought, as well as give others a chance to read the articles and a chance to post.

Oh, is that what he wanted? Okay, forget everything I wrote above; I just lacked the ability to read the mind of Jimmy Galligan and foolishly based my conclusions on the things he said and did. But now that I know that this was all really just about his personal vendetta against Mimi Groves….

I urge you to take a step back and take a long hard look at this story, and your take on it. Specifically, I want you to focus on the motives and personality you’ve invented for the two key players… and yes, I did say “invented”, because you (almost certainly) don’t know either of them, so you can’t possibly know what they’re really like. For all you know, Mimi Groves may have been in the habit of using the n-word quite liberally, and she may have even been one of the “go pick cotton” people. Why do you assume she’s innocent (or at least, mostly innocent) here, and Galligan has a personal vendetta against her? Why is that the story you automatically jumped to? Why didn’t you jump to the equally likely story that Groves is a racist monster who tormented people of colour with slurs on a regular basis, and the reason Galligan chose to publicly humiliate her is precisely because she was such a monster?

My view has nothing to do with mind reading.  It has more to do with examining the information put forth in the article, the actions of those in it, and the comments they made.  Why do feel that it was personal?  Because of quotes like this:

“I wanted to get her where she would understand the severity of that word,” Mr. Galligan.

This combined with the fact that he held unto the video until it could do the most damage before releasing it, suggests to me that it was done in a more vindictive way.

There is also the part where he is asked at the end if he had any regrets.  His response:

“If I never posted that video, nothing would have ever happened,” he said. And because the internet never forgets, the clip will always be available to watch.

“I’m going to remind myself, you started something,” he said with satisfaction. “You taught someone a lesson.”

He taught somebody a lesson.  See, this comment seems personal, to me.

The guy explicitly explained his motivations for posting the video, and for why he did it when he did. Nowhere in there did he say he was “deliberately trying to ruin [Groves’s] life”. The author even goes on about how Galligan is “personally vindictive”, etc.. Mimi Groves was just a sweet, innocent kid, but Jimmy Galligan is a vindictive adult whose only agenda is to ruin someone’s life (no, his goal wasn’t justice you silly bear!). Isn’t it weird that this writer has no trouble making up sinister motivations for the black guy… but goshdarnit, it’s such a crime to assume anything but the sweetest of intentions for the white girl! (Nah, but that can’t be latent racism rearing its head in there, now can it?)


And then of course, the author of that piece tries to frame Galligan as some kind of hypocrite because he publicly castigated Groves while only privately correcting his father. Even though, yanno, he had video evidence of Groves’s shitty behaviour that she herself had previously publicly posted, whereas with his father, it was just a private comment. Yeah, yeah, totally the same situation.  The fact that he didn’t manifest a video of his father using the slur out of æther and post that is clearly a sign of hypocrisy. 🙄

There’s a lesson here ­– well multiple lessons. But one in particular that Galligan was trying to teach, but that Schorr was either too stupid, or too wilfully ideological, to get. Racism doesn’t require hatred, or even malicious intent. If you’re throwing the n-word around even as a joke with “no ill intent”… you’re still doing a racism. Groves may be the sweetest little pumpkin that ever did live… but she did a racism. Period. Sucks for her that she became the figurehead for all the racism at that school… but do not for even one nanosecond swallow the bullshit that Schorr is selling that she is innocent. She did racism. Period.

See, here's the thing.  You're right that we don't know a whole lot more then what is posted in the articles.  We are left to speculate to fill in the blanks.  For example, let's take a look at Galligan's father and the use of racist words  We'll first look at same things that were written in the article that we can both agree on, and then I'll get to some speculation.  Here are the facts presented in the article that I think we can both agree on.

1. Galligan's father is white.
2. Galligan's father would go to family gatherings where the N-word was used black relatives
3. Galligan's father used the N-word at one of these gatherings
4. Galligan took his father aside (with his sister) to explain why it was wrong

Now, I think reading the article we can both agree this happened.  This, is where I start to speculate.

Now, the first thing I have to wonder, is if Galligan's father is a racist.  Sure, it's possible, but if he has had children with a black woman (I admit, it doesn't say they are married but I imagine they are) and goes to functions with the family of his wife, I'm going to assume he isn't.  So, what would prompt him to use the N-word?  He could have been drunk, though there was no mention of that in the article.  It could have been that he was double-dog-dared by zany uncle Robert, though there was also no mention of that.  I can't imagine that he didn't know what the word meant on at least some level.  See, I have another theory.

He was comfortable, and didn't think it would offend anybody. 

See, the N-word is interesting in that on one hand, it's one of the most offensive words one can use.  Yet, on the other hand, it is still used in black culture.  It, and the N-word variant that ends with an "a", is used in movies, in music, and as we know by the example given by Galligan himself, by black people.  This is where it can get a little confusing for people. 

My theory is that Galligan's father used the N-word, because he thought it would be acceptable to use it in the company that he was with.  They were using it, after all, and it was ok (or at least Galligan doesn't mention taking any of them aside to explain why it's wrong), and certainly nobody there would think he is racist.  They've known him for years, likely like the man, probably consider him part of the family.  Maybe they weren't even offended.  What we do know is that later, Galligan took his father aside and explained to him why as a white person, it wasn't ok for him  to use that word.

Now, does Galligan think his father is a racist?  I doubt it.  Likely he simply thinks his father made a mistake and took the time to point this out and explain it to him.

Now, let's enter Groves.  When asked why she had why she had made the video, her response was:

“At the time, I didn’t understand the severity of the word, or the history and context behind it because I was so young,” she said in a recent interview, adding that the slur was in “all the songs we listened to, and I’m not using that as an excuse.”

Now, she could be lying.  It's a possibility.  We're left to speculate on that.  However, I'm inclined to give her the benefit of that doubt, for a few reasons.  The first is that, according to the article, she was supporting BLM, encouraging people to support it as well.  The second reason is that, once again stated in the article, she had already apologized to a black friend about the incident before it was reposted, and that this black friend defended her online. 

Also, and I admit, I'm not entirely familiar with Snapchat, but it seems that the clip Groves placed was privately sent to a friend.  It wasn't shared with her permission (that we know of) to others or posted publicly.   

But here’s the thing. As Galligan’s story clearly indicates – over and over with multiple horrific examples – there was a serious, widespread problem at that school. And it was going to have to be dealt with eventually. The administration was part of the problem. He tried dealing with it internally, and just got rebuffed. So someone was going to have to pay the price of a hard lesson. If it wasn’t Groves we’re all pearl-clutching about, it might be the teacher who did the “Underground Railroad” lesson, and we’d be hearing a sob story about how they were such a good teacher, and how they made one mistake, and how they learned it was wrong so long ago and have never done it since, blah, blah, blah. Or someone else who did one of the many, many terrible things that Galligan endured and described, but who was goshdarnit really just a decent person on the inside.

A lesson needed to be taught, and all the avenues for that lesson being genial and peaceful were shut down, so someone was going to have to be the scapegoat. I’m sure Mimi Groves feels it’s so unfair that it’s her… and maybe it is, on a cosmic scale… but whoever eventually ended up being the face of the hard lesson being taught would have felt the same.

That school sounds like it was a nightmare. (And the university doesn’t sound much better, but that’s a whole other story.) I thought my high school was racist; that school puts it to shame. I can’t imagine how horrible it was/is for all the racialized students who went/go there. If Groves’s public humiliation, and her horrendous suffering of… not getting into the particular university she wanted… turns out to actually change the school, then I would say it was well worth it.

There was a serious, widespread problem at the school, that much we seem to both be able to agree on.  But, was nothing being done?  Once again, looking at the article :

A report commissioned last year by the school district documented a pattern of school leaders ignoring the widespread use of racial slurs by both students and teachers, fostering a “growing sense of despair” among students of color, some of whom faced disproportionate disciplinary measures compared with white students.

“It is shocking the extent to which students report the use of the N-word as the prevailing concern,” the report said. School system employees also had a “low level of racial consciousness and racial literacy,” while a lack of repercussions for hurtful language forced students into a “hostile learning environment,” it said.

In the wake of the report’s publication, the district in August released a plan to combat systemic racism. The move was followed by a formal apology in September for the district’s history of segregation.

So it seems that something was being done, and the knowledge that there was a problem.  Was it enough?  I suppose that is a matter of opinion, and it's very possible that Galligan didn't know this was going on, so for him, perhaps nothing at all was being done.  Now, had Galligan exhausted all means before he decided to take matters into his own hands?  Well, we know that he had approached the Principle as well as I believe other faculty, and didn't get any results.  We don't know if his parents got involved, but we'll say that for the sake of argument they did.  However, does that mean it's ok for Galligan, a victim, to create another victim out of his frustration about a lack of change?  I would say no.  I don't believe it is right to make Groves the target for the collective wrongs of others.

Galligan was drowning in that sea, while Groves was cheerfully adding more water.

Oh, is that what she wanted? Okay, forget everything I wrote above; I just lacked the ability to read the mind of Mimi Groves and foolishly based my conclusions on the things she said and did. But now that I know that this was all really just about her personal vendetta against Jimmy Galligan.

But, was she really adding more water?  Lets look at the things she said and did.  She posted a private video 4 years prior (perhaps it was on school grounds, perhaps not, it doesn't say), that she sent to a friend.  This friend then made it public, not Groves.  Groves did not send it to Galligan, that was Galligan's friend.  As far as we know, Galligan had absolutely no idea this video existed.  Prior to Galligan releasing the video, Groves seems to have realized what she did was wrong, and had already apologized at least to her friend about it, as well as seeming to support the Black Lives Matter cause.  If anything, it seems that before Galligan decided that he would use Groves as an example, she might just very well have already learned her mistake and was actually taking away the water Galligan was drowning in, or at the very least, no longer adding any more.

[Saria]

The National Review is an American conservative 'news' pamphlet that heavily hews along the Republican Party ethos. I'm not surprised that they take a more subjective editorial stance on their articles for things like this. They've gone on record as repeatedly denying climate change for example.

They're not as far gone as some other Republicans who mindlessly back Trump on everything, but that's a really low bar to clear. I wouldn't find them trustworthy in general in comparison to non-right wing content.

Hm, interesting. I looked up National Review, and it appears to be a legit magazine with a lot of history. I thought it was like the American version of The Post Millenial.

I was going by the articles visible when I read the Schorr piece (and the Schorr piece itself, which was rancid) – there was bullshit about “wokespeak” and one that claimed Obama was funding al-Qaeda. So if that is what passes for respectable conservatism in the US… well, now all those jag-offs in the Congress and the Senate who were supporting the insurrection’s conspiracy theories make a lot more sense.

[Saria]

That said, when it comes to Galligan...If I understand correctly, he admitted that he specifically waited with drawing the attention to Groves' video until she was accepted into college. Honestly speaking, I don't see any other explanation for such a wait than an intent to cause Groves' trouble with her college.

All that can be true, and it can still be true that there is no “vindictiveness” involved. It is possible to target a specific person, without that targeting being “personal”. It’s even possible to intentionally cause harm to a person without that being “personal”, let alone “vindictive”.

For example, imagine that there is a situation where petty theft is rampant, and one person (A) wants to stop it. But though they see many, many instances of theft, they never quite get evidence that will stand up in court. Aha, but then, one day, a person (B) nicks something – something really small and cheap and trivial – and they make the stupid mistake of leaving evidence. Now, person A could confront B right then and there, get them to put the stolen item back, and then go on their way. But A doesn’t want to stop a thief… they want to put a stop to all the thievery going on (so far as is possible). So rather than confronting B immediately, they wait until B has gone through the checkout… passed the detectors (which would go off if the item were merely mistakenly pocketed)… and walked out of the store… and then A jumps out and arrests B. By publicly arresting B, A has sent notice to everyone doing the stealing. A has made an example of B.

Now, would you say that A’s actions were “personal” in any sense? Would you say A was being “vindictive”? I can’t see how either of those things are true. There is no reason to assume A has any interest whatsoever in B specifically… other than the fact that A happens to have evidence for that one particular person. A doesn’t need to know B, or like or dislike them at all. A doesn’t need to care whether B will actually go to jail or whether B is rich and well-connected enough that they’ll walk. To put it simply: A doesn’t need to give a single shit about B for the above story to work. In fact, A’s choice to not personally correct B actually lends credence to the claim that their motivation wasn’t personal; rather than tackling B directly, they chose to “depersonalize” B, and focus instead on using B as a means to fix the broader problem. It is certainly specious to assume that A is seeking vengeance against B, or has some kind of vendetta.

If you were to insert the notion that A’s actions were “personal” against B, or that A had some kind of vendetta against B… that would be completely unjustified by the facts as given. And not just unjustified, but given the explicitly stated motivation of A, fabricating motivations of personal interest – and especially of vindictiveness – is not only incorrect, but false in the sense of being an outright lie.

The scenario I’ve described above a lot like the one involving Galligan and Groves, and that’s crystal clear from the context we’ve been given. It’s clearly explained that the environment at that school was riddled with racism, with students (and teachers!!!) throwing the n-word around like it was going out of style. Everything we are told about Galligan jibes with the idea of him seeing himself as some sort of fighter-for-justice, trying everything he could to make the situation better. Nothing we are told about him or what he did, or even his own comments, suggest he cares even in the slightest about what happens to Groves. That’s not “personal”. That’s literally the opposite of personal.

To say that Galligan’s actions seem “personal” – never mind “vindictive” – is to fabricate motivations for Galligan that are not only not warranted by the facts, but that actually contradict the facts.

(I haven’t given my own opinions of the motivations outside of what is explicitly stated in the articles, because while everyone else seems to have no problem inventing motives, I don’t like to do so. However, if I were to speculate on motivation, I’d say that I clock Galligan as a really cold-hearted motherfucker. I don’t see any sort of “personal” or “vindictive” slant to his actions. Quite the contrary, I see him as not having a single fuck to give about Groves. He has his war – his fight against racism at his school – and she was just collateral damage in a perfectly executed attack. Indeed, he seems single-minded in his war; he even casually throws his dad under the bus in the national press… twice. Note I said “collateral damage” and not “innocent victim”… because she was not innocent, by any measure. He used her, not because he had some personal interest in her, but because she was dumb enough to record herself using a slur. In any case, I don’t see him weeping about Groves’s “suffering”… but I also don’t see him celebrating it. His comment about her being taught a lesson doesn’t strike me as being glad she’s suffered, so much as it strikes me as a cold-hearted dismissal of her fate; I note his wording: he said he taught her a lesson… he doesn’t say she learned anything… which sure sounds like he doesn’t even care either way.)

Considering how social media work today, it was rather obvious that drawing the attention to the video would cause a lot of anger and that it would put pressure on the school that Groves was admitted to. So... yeah, I am inclined to think that Galligan's intent was for Groves to have her college admission cancelled.

I think that’s an assumption too far. Galligan had no way of knowing that the university would cancel her admission. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to assume that, yeah, it would cause Groves problems, but she could make the case that it was years ago, she was young and stupid, she’s learned and grown, and oh look now she supports causes like Black Lives Matter.

(Here’s where I admit that I’m actually surprised her enrolment got rescinded (well… sorta – I mean it sounds like she was only there on an athletics ticket, and the university apparently had its own racism problems going on)… and that I think that in itself is evidence that there’s more going on here than a single slur in a single video oh so many years ago. But more on that later.)

No doubt Galligan knew he was aiming a firestorm at Groves. But there’s no way he could know that that firestorm would actually lead to real consequences. It’s entirely likely that the only result could have been a massive social media shaming, followed by Groves deleting her social media presence and skittering off to hide with her tail between her legs… but the university could have stayed above it all, and even spun it as a good thing: “We see no need to ruin a promising young woman’s life over a youthful mistake. She has already acknowledged her error, and apologized for it, and has since demonstrated that that is not the person she is any more. This is a learning institution, and we would rather welcome Miss Groves to a place where she can learn more about why that word is inappropriate, than discard her and all her potential because she was once imperfect as a person.”

I mean, it sounds like Galligan at least knew Groves was applying to a college. And it’s possible he knew she was applying to that specific one. But it seems like a stretch to assume her admission was all that tenuous. How would he know whether she scraped in – and thus her extra-curricular behaviour would be an issue – or whether she was already guaranteed a slot?

But okay, let’s assume that Galligan knew for a fact – or at least was reasonably sure – that Groves would end up dumped from the university.

The first question about that I have for you is: Even if we do assume that, which, okay, is not an entirely unreasonable assumption… why do you then need to add the further assumption that Galligan cares?

Why do you – why does anyone – think Galligan gives a shit about what happens to Groves? I see nothing in his history, his actions, or his words that gives any indication that he either wanted Groves to be kicked out of, or that he’s happy about it. So why assume that?

Yes, he says he’s happy he “taught her a lesson”, but that doesn’t mean he’s happy she got booted from her college. He could be equally happy he taught a lesson if she’d made a really decent public apology.

The second question is: Even if we assume Galligan had some way of knowing for sure she’d have her admission rescinded… why is that his fault?

I mean, are we saying that the University of Tennessee has no agency over its admissions? Are we saying that it’s a brainless machine that can be manipulated… by a fucking high-school kid?!? Are we saying that Twitter mobs control the university’s admissions? Are we saying the university had no possible choice, upon learning that one of its enrollees had said a slur four years ago, when she was 15, but to dump her?

Come on.

From where I’m sitting, I’m seeing a tired old pattern repeat itself. Once again, the person who calls out the injustice is being demonized, while the people propagating the injustice, and all the systems maintaining it, are being excused.

I agree that the examples of what was happening in that school sound abysmal (that "Underground Railroad" thing... what the actual f*ck???). That said, you cannot just lump it all together, choose one person as a scapegoat and say that her being treated harshly is some sort of justice for every awful racist thing everyone in the school did.

Okay, two things here.

First, I did not say that Groves is being held accountable for every problem at that school. I admit that my wording was unclear, and I probably should have spelled this out clearly. I just assumed it was clear what I was talking about and… well, of course, that’s exactly the way to unclear writing.

When I talked about the serious, widespread problem at the school, I wasn’t talking about the problems of the administration; when I said the administration were part of the problem, I meant just that: they weren’t the problem, the problem was something else, and they were just an additional factor – they didn’t help things. I mentioned the “Underground Railroad” teacher just because there were no other specific student examples mentioned, which added to the confusion; I probably should have used a “go pick cotton” student as an example instead.

Because, you see, I don’t think Mimi Groves has anything to do with the problems with the administration. A student – or even the entire student body – tossing around slurs has nothing to do with whether the administration is good or bad. This administration was bad because it wasn’t doing anything, and thus adding to the problem… but that’s beside the point.

The serious, widespread problem I was talking about was that the students are apparently a steaming cesspool of racial intolerance. (Note that in the original article, it wasn’t Galligan who brought up the “Underground Railroad” thing, it was another student… and she said independently what a rotten environment it was with the racism of the other students.) I don’t even see how Groves losing her college slot would even have any impact on the administration’s latent racism… but you know who it would shake up? That’s right: The students who are currently throwing the n-word around.

That is the problem that Groves has become the figurehead for: not the racism of institutions, but rather the racism of people, and specifically, her fellow students.

And that brings us to the second thing: What Groves is being called out for is EXACTLY the problem.

Groves is not being called out for using a slur because the administration is evil. That’s nonsense. She’s being called out for using a slur because the students at that school were cavalier about using that slur and, oh, look, she did just that.

And that’s why your objection doesn’t really hold water.

“People should be punished for things they are responsible for.” Yes. Absolutely. So who was responsible for Mimi Groves using a slur?

“You cannot just turn somebody into a scapegoat and punish her for every wrong that happened in a given enviroment.” No, but you know what we can punish her for? What she did.

And, you know what else? You know what one of the purposes of punishment in general is? To show a population that there will be consequences if they do the same thing. So, yes, you can turn someone who has committed an offence – which is not a scapegoat (a scapegoat is literally a goat punished for the sins of people, not for its own sins, and even in common usage, a scapegoat is taking the punishment for others) – into an example, using them to illustrate that an act is wrong and will have consequences.

“Especially if what this person did was a minor thing compared to other problems in that school...” What she did is not a “minor problem compared to other problems”. It is the problem. The problem is students casually throwing around the n-word and other racist bullshit (like the cotton-picking thing). What did Mimi Groves do? She casually threw around the n-word.

Oh, yes, the school has massive systemic problems, sure. But we can target one problem without targeting all problems: we can target the problem of the students being casually racist without dealing with the massive set of problems with the administration at Jim Crow High or Grand Wizard High or whatever it’s called.

“Seriously, I can't see how anyone can consider this as something in the same category as the racially-motivated abuse of children by a school employee!” It’s not. But you know what a student casually using a slur is in the same category as? Students casually using slurs.

“It'd be as saying that an employee of company using a sexist slur in a private conversation after work is the same as sexual molestation of female employees by a high-level manager of said company... Sorry, no. It's not.” Of course it’s not. But you know what it is the same as? It’s the same as all the other employees using sexist slurs in private conversations after work. (…that somehow make their way back to the workplace; don’t forget that factor. You can use all the slurs you want in private, sure, but if those slurs do somehow make it back to the workplace, whether you intended them to or not, you still have to answer for them. Please, please, please tell me that you don’t seriously believe that if a person uses nasty, sexist, misogynistic slurs after hours and somehow a video of them doing that gets shared around the workplace, that it would be acceptable to tell the women who work there – the ones made to feel uncomfortable, dehumanized, and unsafe on hearing those slurs: “Sorry, but he said those things off-hours. Nothing I can do. Suck it up and deal.” At the very least I’d hope that motherfucker would be put on notice, forced to make an apology, monitored whenever dealing with women, and required to attend some kind of remedial training.)

It'd be a different story if we knew that Groves is using such language on a daily basis, that she has been observed behaving in a racist way regularly etc. In other words, if it was known that she was a racist.

Okay, I really shouldn’t have be explaining this – it should be common knowledge by now, but clearly it’s not. I really don’t want to have to be explaining this but… well, here goes.

There is no such thing as a racist.

Yes, I said that. No typo. I will even repeat it: There is no such thing as a racist.

“A racist” is an incoherent concept. What do you even think a racist is? I mean, sure maybe it might make sense to apply the term to the head of the KKK, or some other extreme case. But that’s not something you’ll find often in reality.

What you’ll find, instead, in reality, are cases like – for example – a person who has built parks and hospitals in predominantly-black neighbourhoods, set up college funds for black kids, and who routinely speaks out against police violence against black people… yet when they’re hiring, they won’t hire a black person because “they tend to be lazy”.

Is that person “a racist”?

The incoherent concept of “a racist” is why discussions about racism so often go nowhere:

• Me: “You just said the n-word. That was racist.”
• Them: “I’m not a racist!”
• Me: “I didn’t call you a racist. I said what you did was racist.”
• Them: “I’m not a racist! I have always spoken out against racism! Racism is bad!”
• Me: “I didn’t say you were a racist. I said what you did was racist.”
• Them: “I can’t be a racist! I have a black friend! So there!”
• Me: “I didn’t call you― you know what? Fuck it. Fine. You a racist.”

… and, then, of course, I become the bad person – the “vindictive” one who’s made this “personal” – while the person who threw out the slur becomes the victim. The story repeats again, and again, and again….

That’s the problem with claiming someone is “a racist” or not. Everyone is a mass of contradictions, so if you even try to claim someone is “a racist”, they will have a smorgasbord of “evidence” that they’re not… such as the classic “I have a black friend”… which even Mimi Groves was ignorant enough to use! In 2020!

Well you know what? Adolf Motherfucking Hitler had Jewish friends. Several actually. So… what now? You gonna argue that Hitler wasn’t an antisemite? Does that make the absurdity of it all clear enough?

And I have bad news for you, whoever “you” – the person reading this – happen to be. You have racist beliefs and prejudices, too. Yes, you do. So does Mimi Groves. So does Jimmy Galligan. So does Dan Levin. So does… well, I mean, with Isaac Schorr it’s kinda obvious.

We all have ingrained racist beliefs and prejudices. You do. I do. Everyone does. Denying that is denying reality. We all grew up in a culture that is teeming with racism. It’s in our movies. It’s in our music. It’s in all the little tics and habits and microaggressions we witness. It’s in the jokes and ideas we all share. (You’ve laughed at a racist joke. Yes, I know you have.) So is everyone “a racist”? No, don’t be absurd.

There is no such thing as a racist.

Racist is not something you are.

Racist is something you do.

Everyone has racist beliefs and prejudices burned into their psyche. That’s simply undeniable, and unavoidable. That’s reality. But while we’ve all been raised in a racist cultural soup, that doesn’t mean we need to surrender to the racist shit we’ve been ingrained with. We can rise above it, we can recognize those implicit biases, and we can struggle to overcome them, and be better. So it makes no sense to speculate over whether anyone is “a racist”. Instead, we have to talk about whether what someone did is racist.

(Note that not all anti-racist writers frame this the same way I do. I say everyone has racist beliefs, but there’s no such thing as “a racist”. Other writers (Ibram X. Kendi pops into my mind) say everyone has racist beliefs and thus everyone is a racist, and there’s no such thing as “not-a-racist”. It’s a different way of expressing the same idea, that it is incoherent to talk about racism in terms of the character of individuals.)

So I’m not going to engage in bullshit about whether Groves is “a racist”. (Weeeellllll… I will, in a bit. But only for shits and giggles.) I don’t care that she supports BLM. I don’t care that she has a black friend, not even if it’s one who likes enough to publicly go to bat for her.

(In this context) I care about exactly one thing, and one thing only. Did Mimi Groves do something racist?

Why, yes. Yes, she did. Does anyone want to dispute that? No? Then we’re done here. Mimi Groves did something racist. For that racist deed, she is facing consequences. That’s it. Don’t bother wasting my time telling me about her black friends or pro-BLM Insta posts. Don’t bother wasting my time with speculation about how she never did another racism any other time in her sweet little life. She did a racism; she’s facing the consequences for that. We done here.

Okay, sure, we can discuss whether the consequences fit the crime (they do). But don’t waste my time trying to convince me there’s no crime. Or that she’s not “a criminal” because gee willikers, she only did the one crime, just that one time, and it wasn’t that big a deal compared to other people’s crimes, and she’s done good stuff sometimes, blah, blah, blah.

It'd be a different story if we knew that Groves is using such language on a daily basis, that she has been observed behaving in a racist way regularly etc. In other words, if it was known that she was a racist. But we don't have any indications of that.

Okay, this is an aside. It’s not part of the main points I want to make. I wouldn’t even bring this up at all… except….

Maybe it’s just that I’ve been in the “fighting racism” business too long, so I’m seeing things in ways that “normies” don’t… but I admit that I’ve been flabbergasted by the claims that there’s no evidence that Groves was ever racist other than that one video. I mean, I raised the possibility, sure… but I thought it was obvious I was being facetious.

Because when I look at everything revealed in the articles, I gotta say, if you seriously believe Mimi Groves never, ever used the n-word or otherwise said or did anything racist other than in that one video… well, then, I have a bridge to sell ya.

Admittedly, all the evidence is circumstantial… but there is a lot of it. So much so that I, not a gambler by any stretch, would cheerfully place big money on a bet that she’s been plenty racist in her high school career.

I’ll share with you just some of the clues I picked up on.

One of my friends loves to quote this particular Sherlock Holmes story. I don’t know the name of the story, but I’ve heard the anecdote so many times I can repeat the exchange. The background is that Holmes is talking to someone about some crime that has taken place, and explaining the clues he’s discovered:

• Person: Is there anything else you wish to draw my attention to?
• Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog barking in the night.
• Person: The dog did not bark during the night.
• Holmes: That is the curious incident.

The implication here is that what appeared to be a random crime may have actually been an inside job, because the dog would bark at strangers, but not at residents of the home. (At least that’s the implication I get; I haven’t read the story.)

Let’s recap. Mimi Groves makes a video where she drops the n-bomb. At some point this video becomes public, and it’s being passed around the school. To quote the NYT: “… did not cause much of a stir.”

Do you hear any barking?

In fact, the video is apparently passed around for years, including among black kids (obviously, because Galligan got it), many of whom were undoubtedly irritated by it.

Do you hear any barking?

Mimi Groves herself apparently even forgot about the video, until she was so rudely reminded of it. If we imagine Groves to be a person who never used racist language or did racist things, do you not think that there would be a bit more of a stir when a video of her dropping the n-word was making the rounds… for years? Instead, everyone just seems to have… accepted it. They saw a video of Groves using the slur… and just shrugged and moved on, none of them thinking anything about the video was shocking enough to comment on themselves, or even to speak to Groves about.

Where are all the people saying Groves never (usually) does anything racist? Not only are there no friends making that claim, even she doesn’t make it!

Not a single dog barked. Curious, hm?

That’s, of course, not the only clue.

Groves’s story isn’t the first story I’ve heard about someone whose racist (or other bigoted) bullshit was discovered by a US college during the admissions process, so I know a bit about what happens next. The college will, of course, ask the applicant if they still hold those beliefs (the applicant will sincerely insist they don’t). They will ask if the applicant regrets using the slur (the applicant will sincerely insist they do, and they’ve learned their lesson, really and truly).

And then they’ll ask the killer question, the one they really want the answer to:

“Is it possible that other, similar recordings of you doing racist things will turn up?”

Now, most of the time, the applicant will fall all over themselves insisting that, no, nothing else will ever turn up – this was a one-time mistake, a singular lapse in judgment – and the college will not only accept that… they will quote that claim in their justification for accepting the student. They will say: “The student has promised this was a one-time lapse.” They’re covering their ass, because if another video comes out, the university can claim, “oh, the applicant lied to us”, and that’s that: a clean and easy break for the college – people will fall over themselves to defend a slur (not a good thing, but reality)… but a lie’s a lie.

The fact that Groves was dumped so unceremoniously might simply be due to the University of Tennessee being spineless… but as I said earlier, there are a thousand ways they could still accept Groves and even spin that into good press for themselves. That they didn’t do that strongly hints to me that Groves catastrophically bungled her post-scandal interview. Granted, Groves doesn’t seem to be the brightest bulb on the tree, so there’s plenty of reason to assume she just didn’t make a good showing overall. But the thing is, most of the questions the college would ask are hard to screw up too badly… it’s that one killer question that will really get ya. If you have done racist shit on multiple occasions – or on the regular – there’s no good way to answer it. That’s why I wouldn’t be surprised if that was where Groves tripped up… which would explain why the college was so comfortable about just dumping her.

These are all just tidbits of circumstantial evidence, but they do add up quickly. Remember, multiple people have described that high school as a place where racist shit was bandied about frequently… and Mimi Groves sounds like one of the popular girls. If she never, ever did anything racist… that would make her stand out, hm? At least it would be something you’d see quotes in the article about: “Groves? Yeah, I saw that video of her saying the n-word. It was weird; I knew her for 4 years, and she never said or did anything racist even while everyone else was.”

I’ll be frank: when I look at the ultimate consequences of what happened to Groves, I obviously don’t see the same things you do. I don’t see an inevitable judgment lain down by the gods of cancel culture, a punishment whose form was decided the instant Galligan posted that video. I see a million ways Groves – and her family – could have handled the situation to make it, at worst, just embarrassing. To me, the reason it ended as badly as it did for Groves is not the universe being randomly cruel… it’s because Groves handled things so badly. Possibly she handled it badly because she and her entire family are all idiots… but… also possible, and, to my eye, much more likely, is that she didn’t handle it that badly, but rather handled it as well as she could given that her circumstances were so bad (that is, she knew there is a strong possibility of more evidence of her casual racism is out there)… but of course that wasn’t good enough.

Again, I don’t know for sure whether Groves did a lot of racism, or just that one thing. And I don’t really care.

But… if I were you, I really wouldn’t bet on this idea of this being the only racist thing she’s ever done.

One more thing I'd like to point out: she was 15 when making that video. So, not only was this video recorded 4 years ago, but it was recorded when she still was developing as a person. Teenage years are a time of intense personal growth and it's not really just to compare someone's action from mid-teens to who they are as a young adult. Personally speaking, I can tell you that many of my personal views took a 180-degrees turn between 15 y.o. and 19 y.o. So, it's perfectly possible for a Groves to use a racial slur at the age of 15 and be totally ashamed of it by the age of 19. Dragging out this video now and punishing her for it, after all this time and whatever development she went through, really does sound wrong. I mean, 15 year olds are usually treated differently than adults even by the justice system, when it comes to committing serious crimes! And here we are punishing a young woman for something *she once said* as a teen? With everybody just assuming this incident is representative of who she is as an adult..?

Alright, there’s two things here I want to point out as specious:

• her age; and
• the long time span between crime and punishment

Let’s start with the age thing.

The justice system handles young offenders differently because:

• it recognizes that youth are not always capable of understanding everything about a crime and its consequences (although, it does make exceptions where there is evidence that the youth was capable); and
• the consequences of punishment by the justice system are so severe that the risk of punishing an offender who isn’t really mentally competent outweighs the need for justice by punishment.

How does any of this possibly apply to Groves?

You’d have to argue that she was not capable of understanding – at 15, in the year 2016 – that using the n-word is not acceptable. Give me a break. So, what, are we to suppose her one black friend failed to point this out? Or that she somehow missed all those times her parents told her the word was wrong? Or that she never picked that message up from all the media, where the idea that white people should never use the n-word is so widespread, it’s even the subject of comedy? In cartoons?

https://youtu.be/7sN09bYZj3Y?t=8

(That clip above, by the way, is from the year 2000. But hey, maybe the message didn’t really sink in with the kids until 2017 or later, hm?)

Or you’d have to argue that she knew it’s not acceptable, but didn’t understand the consequences. Yeah, right. A teenager, on social media, in 2016, didn’t understand what the consequences of a video of her using a slur would be if the public knew about it? Puh-lease. I guarantee you she knew more about what a social media mob could do than her mother did. She was probably already using the term “cancelled”.

In fact, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but in the US – and especially in areas that are virulently racist, like Virginia – it’s quite common for high school students to set up “callout” sites where they post videos, images, and other such stuff of their classmates being racist. I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that Heritage High has such a site, somewhere. (I can’t find one, because they’re usually named “@BlackAt___” where “___” is the school name, but “Heritage” is too common. I also didn’t bother to look too hard. Actually, I just skimmed the NYT article again, and it says outright that there is an Insta callout page for that school district.) There are even people making spreadsheets on Google Docs racking up all the times their classmates did racist shit. Naturally, everyone’s furious about this… furious at the people exposing the racism, of course, because, that’s how it always works. But the point is, you can’t be a high school student in 2020 – or 2016 – and not know about call-out culture, and the consequences of being caught being racist.

But okay, let’s, for argument’s sake, say that she was so immature that in 2016, at age 15, she didn’t understand that she could lose her college slot for being caught saying the word. I mean… that’s a stretch, because the article explicitly points out that her parents explained all this stuff to her – that the word is racist and unacceptable, and that there would be consequences for careless Internet posting – and she was busting her ass to get noticed by the college because she knew how hard getting on the team was… but Groves doesn’t seem that bright, so it’s not entirely implausible.

That’s still irrelevant, though, because even if she didn’t understand the precise extent of the punishment she would receive… she still knew it was wrong. She still knew she would be “called-out” for it, if it got out to the wrong people that she’d done it. I’m willing to believe she was fool enough to think she’d get away with it because all her friends were racist and wouldn’t call her out for it – I’m willing to believe she was that simple-minded, sure. But she still knew it was wrong, and that she could be pilloried for it if she were caught by responsible adults.

And it’s further irrelevant because the punishment she received in 2020, at age 18, is not just about what she did in 2016, at age 15. What happened to her in 2020 is a consequence of what she did in 2016… and of how she handled it in 2020. There’s no indication anywhere that she made any effort to apologize for what she did… ideally before she was called out of it, but even after would have been acceptable. (Oh, pardon me, she apologized to her one black friend, and her black friend accepted it on behalf of black people everywhere, so everything should have been fixed! 🙄) There’s no indication of any personal growth at all. Do you see any? I see nothing but self-pity; I see her mouthing the words that she’s disgusted with her own behaviour… only to then explain that the reason for that is because it means people will misjudge her, not because her behaviour hurt others. I see very telling signs of a complete lack of any real understanding or growth in comments like her saying social media “twisted the truth”, and that when the university called her, rather than apologizing she “defended herself”. That doesn’t sound like contrition. That sounds like defensiveness.

And as for the “it was four years!!1!11!” argument… 🤦🏾‍♀️. What, exactly, is the statute of limitations for being called out on your racist behaviour? Is it just three years?

The argument that “she has changed; she’s not the same person at 15 that she is at 18” is rank bullshit. We all change. You’re not the same person you are at 30 that you were at 20. And you’ll be different again at 40. It doesn’t matter what the numbers are – you will always be a different person after a few years have passed. So… what… are we supposed to just give everyone a pass for crap they did 3 years ago? 10 years ago? 50 years ago?

I call bullshit on that. I say that if evidence comes out of something offensive you did in the past (and, of course, you knew at the time you did it that it was offensive), it doesn’t matter one iota how old you were when that happened, or how long a time has passed. What matters is that you can demonstrate that you have learned and grown past that behaviour.

And that is what Groves failed to do.

I don’t care that she was 15 when she said the n-word, because I know damn well – and you should, too – that she knew it was wrong at the time. Good grief, even she said so! She has to apologize at least for that… and then for not apologizing for it for 3 years, until she was caught… and then she has to show that she really understands – understands now, at 18, not at 15; the age of the sin is irrelevant at the time of contrition, because if you’re really sorry for something, it doesn’t matter if you did it yesterday or 50 years ago – why it was wrong, and why she is different now and that it will never happen again.

I see no indication that she’s done any of that. Do you?

What I see instead is the usual double standard. Pretty little Mimi isn’t being asked to apologize or atone for her racism. Instead the person who brought it to light is being asked to apologize and atone for his actions, because poor little Mimi has suffered (for her own behaviour).

Again, nope. Seriously, you cannot just say that what happened to Groves wasn't bad…

Let me stop you there. Because I thought I was crystal clear that nothing about what happened here “wasn’t bad”. I don’t want to go back and count how many times I said the whole situation sucks, but I’m damn sure it was more than once.

Yes, what happened to Groves was bad. Do I need to repeat that? Yes, what happened to Groves was bad.

Everything about this situation is bad.

But, two things:

• none of that was Jimmy Galligan’s fault; and
• the alternative – leaving the situation as it was – is far worse.

Let’s imagine a perfect world. Well, in that world, Jimmy Galligan wouldn’t have to go school in a racist shithole, so let’s imagine a slightly less-than-perfect world.

In that world, the school is a racist shithole, but our hero Jimmy steps up, goes to the people in charge, reports the problem, and… they act on it! (So, clearly we’re in the realm of fantasy now.) They call the students together in an assembly, explain why the slur is unacceptable, and then they monitor the situation, and students who use it face consequences.

Now, here’s the quiz:

• In this world, is Jimmy “vindictive” for reporting the situation to the administration? Is he a “monster”? A “sociopath”? (And I’ve seen him called far, far worse.)
• Suppose a student, let’s call her Mimi, used the slur, and got caught on video, and Jimmy reports it to the administration. Is this “personal” for Jimmy? “Vindictive”?
• Suppose that given the report above, the school administration actually did its fucking job, and laid down punishment on Mimi. Is that Jimmy’s fault? Should he, knowing that Mimi would be punished for using the slur she knew not to use and might be punished for using, be vilified for reporting her anyway?
• Suppose the administration decides to punish Mimi by kicking her off the cheer team. This should come as no surprise to Mimi; being on the team is a privilege, and being booted from such teams is a pretty bog-standard punishment for poor behaviour. Is this where it becomes Jimmy’s fault?
• Let’s go even further, and suppose that being booted from the team has dire, long-term consequences for Mimi – it means she loses her college scholarship and thus the college of her dreams, and the poor girl now has to settle for community college. So now it’s Jimmy’s fault… right?

See what I’m getting at?

No? Then let’s go further.

Let’s imagine a slightly less slightly-less-than-perfect world. In this world, the school is still a racist shithole… but now the administration does fuck-all about it. Even if you report racist behaviour – with evidence! – they do nothing. Even if you report racist THREATS (which, the NYT notes, Galligan actually did), the administration still does nothing. In this world, Jimmy is still a hero who is doing everything in his power to combat all the racism the student body is getting up to.

What I’d like you to do, with this scenario, is point out to me the exact point where Jimmy ceases to be a hero, and becomes a vindictive monster with a personal grudge.

So, again, here’s the scenario. Jimmy is going to a school where every day he is bathed in an endless stream of racist bullshit from his fellow students. He’s tired of it. He’s angry. He’s frustrated. He wants it to stop.

Checkpoint: Is Jimmy a monster yet?

Jimmy wants to do something to make things better, so that even if he will never be able to enjoy a racism-free high-school experience, maybe the next kid won’t have to endure years of degradation. But he’s powerless. Helpless. Hopeless. Nothing he does has any effect. He literally passes a genocidal threat on to the administration… not a peep. What is there for poor Jimmy to do, but give up in despair, unable to make any progress fixing the racist environment of the school?

Ah, but then, a video drops into his metaphorical lap. Concrete evidence of the cavalier way the slur is tossed about by his fellow students. And not just any student: the captain of the cheer team! A leader among the student body! A figurehead! Sure the video is a couple years old… but what does that matter? Does racism expire? Hardly.

What would you have Jimmy do next?

• Do nothing. Mimi’s such a sweet girl. And she has dreams! And they’re white girl dreams, which means they’re worth way more than black kid feelings. If he publicizes the video, people are going to think Mimi did something racist! I mean, she did, but we can’t have people knowing that, can we? No, it’s better to leave the situation as-is – to leave the school as a roiling, racist cesspool, and to inflict that on all the future black students – rather than have Mimi face any consequences. For that thing she literally, actually did.
• Use the video to create some kind of teaching moment for Mimi… and only Mimi. Because publicizing Mimi’s faux pas would be gauche. No, no, the genteel way to deal with this kind of thing is man-to-man… or, yanno, whatever the non-gendered version of that is. I’m sure Mimi will be absolutely thrilled to have a fellow student come up to her, criticize her behaviour, and then try to teach her how to be less racist. Oh yes, I’m sure Mimi won’t react badly to that at all. And when it totally works as planned, and Mimi happily accepts the teaching moment without objection or complaint and learns her lesson and now becomes super-not-racist… well, I mean, the rest of the school is still a racist shithole… but at least Jimmy didn’t embarrass Mimi!
• Release the video immediately, when there is little guarantee of it having any effect. Because waiting for it to have maximal effect would be… personal and vindictive, somehow. No, no, it’s much better to be polite and not do the most effective thing to stop the widespread racism. That’s what really matters most, after all: not doing something about the racist status quo, but rather, looking respectable in the eyes of the people who… think the racist status quo isn’t that bad.
• Hold on to the video until it will have maximal impact, and then release it. Because while it sucks for Mimi, she did do a racism. Whatever consequences she’ll have to face for it, that’s her problem. But the important thing is to do something about the racist environment at the school… something that will really make a difference. Doing it this way has the best chance of making things better for a lot of people. One person may suffer… but it would be for her own actions. It’s not an ideal situation… but it’s the best Jimmy can do with what little power he has.
• (… fill in your own alternative option here…)

What do you think Galligan should have done? I’m very serious – I want to hear a clear and concrete answer to what Galligan should have done. It’s one thing to say he was wrong to do what he did… it’s quite another to slip into his shoes and decide what to do in the same circumstances he was facing.

You know where I stand on this. I see no way that an ethical person can argue that it is wrong for Groves to face consequences for her own actions, or that Galligan is some kind of monster for making that happen… even if he weren’t doing so for even higher motives, like trying to end the suffering of all the racialized kids – present and future – at that school (and other schools!).

And let me say this again: this is not a “good” situation. This is a bad situation. But Galligan did not make this situation bad. Arguably Groves didn’t either… but she did do a racism. The people who made this situation bad are the people in power – the administration both of the high school and the university. Unfortunately, as is usual in the real world, the people in power are not the ones who suffer for creating a situation; as is usual, the kids do. Galligan did, for years. Now Groves is.

But this is also Galligan making the best of a bad situation. In a good situation, it wouldn’t be necessary for Galligan to take such extreme action. In a good situation, Groves would face some sort of consequences for her actions that would still serve as a lesson for the rest of the student body, without really making any long-term difference on Groves’s life (she could still join the cheer team!). If you know of some way Galligan could have managed that… if you know of something he could have done differently that would have had even a fraction of the impact toward doing something about the racism at that school while also leaving Groves unscathed… then please, do, share.

Sorry, but you cannot just write off Groves as a necessary scapegoat for all the social injustice POC suffered in the US.

Okay, but that’s not what I’m doing.

• Groves is not a “scapegoat”. She literally did the crime. It’s on video. She admits it. She is not being blamed for other people’s crimes. (Maybe you misunderstand the definition of “scapegoat”?)
• This has nothing to do with all the social injustice people of colour have suffered in the US. Little hyperbolic to claim that, don’t you think?
• This has nothing to do with the US at all. It is specifically about a particular situation at a particular school. And Groves is a particular student who did the particular bad thing creating the particular situation. I don’t see why you want to try to generalize it to every problem the whole world has ever faced.
• I absolutely can “write off” Groves as an example to the student body of what is not acceptable behaviour, and what the consequences of that behaviour might be. Because that’s how justice works. You do a crime, you face the consequences of that crime, you become an example to everyone else of why they shouldn’t also do the crime. This is why we make the consequences of offences public; to teach others what they shouldn’t do.

Also, if I understand American education system correctly, there's a huge difference between a prestigious college like the one Groves was admitted to and a community college. There is a reason why people fight so hard to get into such colleges. Being denied entry to such a school could have lifelong consequences for Groves - so you cannot write it off as "She'll be alright". Come on.

I absolutely can write it off like that, and maybe some more context may make it clearer why.

The reason Groves wanted to get into that particular university has nothing to do with academics, or the school’s reputation. The reason she wanted it was because that university had (has?) the number one cheerleading team in the nation. She wanted to get on the team.

I obviously don’t know the exact details of how she was eventually bounced, but as I understand it, what happened was she first got bounced from the team… and then from the university. That would make sense, because getting a spot on the team is a highly prestigious privilege – something that can easily be lost from even a minor fuck-up like being caught using the n-word in a video. And then, once off the team, there probably wasn’t much left to justify her enrolment – she probably wasn’t really there because of her academic performance. (For context, it’s quite common for American colleges to admit sub-par students who happen to be good athletes. There have been many scandals where sports-star students have been discovered to be borderline illiterate. I doubt Groves was that stupid. But everything written about her seems to be cheer team cheer team cheer team, so I seriously doubt she was a model academic student.)

So yeah, I’ll say it straight: the sum total of fucks I have to give about Groves not being able to be on the UofT cheer team is approximately negative zero. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Her spot will instead go to an equally-talented cheerleader who doesn’t use racist slurs (or is at least smart enough to not record herself using them). I’m cool with that. It’s not like now there will be a shortage of cheerleaders in the world, and now the ones we have will be of slightly better quality – at least in the “doesn’t use slurs” way.

And Groves is still going to college, and no, it doesn’t really make a lick of difference that her community college is not as prestigious as UofT, because the prestige of a school only matters when the job is also prestigious. Seriously, I don’t believe for a second that Groves would ever in her life be applying for the kind of job where it would actually make a difference which college she went to (rather than that she went to college). I’m an engineer who’s done work for the Canadian Space Agency, the Department of National Defence, and more, and I’ve never applied for a job that cared which university I went to. The only jobs I’ve ever heard of where that matters are, like, academic positions, like professors and stuff. Professor Groves? Pfft.

And don’t forget… Groves is not some poor kid. Her parents are goddamn rich. Money comes with connections that gets even useless kids cushy, well-paying jobs.

So I say again: She’ll be alright. She’ll have a lot fewer trophies, I suppose, but other than that, there probably won’t be any noticeable impact on her career path. Certainly not a big enough impact that I’d lose any sleep over it.

And here you're being just mean, honestly. What you say is something akin to saying that having your career ruined due to false accusations of corruption isn't a problem, because the ruined person can write a book and make money on it. Seriously?

Wait… hold on… false accusations of corruption?

Do you think the accusation that Mimi Groves used a racist slur is false? That video is some kind of deepfake or something?

Seriously?

Let me just assume that was some kind brain fart, and you do understand that Groves did actually do what she’s accused of. So what you actually meant was more like: “It is akin to saying that having your career ruined due to actually doing corruption and being publicly caught at it isn’t a problem, because the ruined person can write a book and make money on it.”

Yeah. Sure. What I’m saying is akin to that. I’m really not going to shed any tears at all for a criminal who actually did a crime and faced consequences for it… but then went on to have a good life anyway. Yup. Not gonna weep at all over that. Seriously. What a cold-hearted bitch I am to have no concerns about someone facing no unwarranted consequences for their misdeeds, and actually making out quite well from it instead.

Again, you shouldn't punish someone just because it's "handy" and you want to teach a lesson a group of people. Who might be doing much worse things than then person you're actually going after.

Here it is again: Groves is not being punished instead of others, or for sins “much worse” than what she did. She is being punished for what she did, and precisely for what she did. And yes, you absolutely can and should punish someone who’s made themselves a handy case for being an example.

I can’t even fathom why you’d think otherwise. Seriously, if you have a population with a rampant problem of people leaving dog shits on the sidewalk, and then one day someone carelessly leaves you with tangible evidence of them doing it, how can you possibly say you shouldn’t punish that person, and use them as a handy example to the rest of the offenders to illustrate that it won’t be tolerated, and will be punished? How can you possibly say, “well, it will hurt the offender if their crime becomes known, so you shouldn’t publicize it”?

That’s all just nonsense. And it would be bad enough if it were all just apologetics to protect little baby Becky from… the consequences of her own actions. But no, this is going much further, because it’s also punishing the real victim – the kid who had to endure casual racism EXACTLY LIKE MIMI’S for years, and who desperately tried every “proper” avenue to fix things only to be repeatedly rebuffed, and so finally used the only power he had available to make some kind of change.

And now he’s a villain. A monster. A sociopath. All for the crime of being too uppity, and daring to sully the reputation of a sweet little white girl…

… who uses racist slurs.

Yup. This is how the story always goes.

[Saria]

This combined with the fact that he held unto the video until it could do the most damage before releasing it, suggests to me that it was done in a more vindictive way.

Whether you realize or not, your view of the situation is being tainted by your prejudged conclusions. For example, you say he held on to the video “until it could do the most damage”. That is your opinion colouring the facts, because you could just as easily say he held onto the video “until it could do the most good”.

It’s interesting that you only seem to care about the harm done to Groves, and not all the many, many students who were being victimized for years by the casual racism of Groves and her friends. I’ve already suggested that’s something you should reflect on.

He taught somebody a lesson.  See, this comment seems personal, to me.

Does it? It seems the complete opposite of “personal” to me. “Personal” would be caring about what they learned from the lesson, how the lesson has made them a better person, how they are using the lesson to pass on the same wisdom to others. “I taught them a lesson” sounds more like you just showed them something then walked away, and you don’t really give a fuck about whether they actually learned anything, or what that lesson did to them. “I taught them a lesson” is the same thing people say after kicking the shit out of a random stranger, after all.

See, here's the thing.  You're right that we don't know a whole lot more then what is posted in the articles.  We are left to speculate to fill in the blanks.  For example, let's take a look at Galligan's father and the use of racist words

… why?

It’s one thing to fill in the blanks that are needed for the story to make sense… and there are very few of those in this case. It’s another to fill in the blanks for the larger environment, so you can understand the context the story happened in. But what’s the point of filling in the blanks of tangential shit that has no relevance to the story whatsoever?

Now, the first thing I have to wonder, is if Galligan's father is a racist.

🤦🏾‍♀️

Yeah, you go wonder about that. Knock yourself out.

Now, she could be lying.  It's a possibility.  We're left to speculate on that.

🤣 Riiiight, let’s “speculate” on that. A teenager at an upper-class high school…

… which the same fucking year that Groves dropped the slur was the subject of a scandal that made international news because a teacher dropped the same slur in class and was reported by a student…

… in a traditionally very racist area…

… the district’s seat is in a town called Leesburg for fuck’s sake…

… had no earthly idea that using the n-word was wrong.

Yeah. Sure. Seems legit. 🥴

And suuuuure, it makes perfect sense that she supported BLM but had no clue that the word was bad. Uh huh. Completely logical!

And absolutely, of course she would apologize for using a word that she had no idea was unacceptable. Because that’s what people do all the time! They apologize for things they didn’t know were wrong!

You just keep digging, friend! I’m sure you’ll find gold somewhere in that cess pit.

Also, and I admit, I'm not entirely familiar with Snapchat, but it seems that the clip Groves placed was privately sent to a friend.  It wasn't shared with her permission (that we know of) to others or posted publicly.

Oh! Holy shit, that’s right! She only did the racism within her own circle of friends; she didn’t scream it publicly at random people of colour. Well, duh, now I feel like such a fool. It’s not racist if you say it privately among your friends! Well that changes everything! Of course nobody should ever be held accountable for their shitty behaviour if they only did it when they thought their friends would be the only witnesses! (/sarcasm)

Honestly, your rationalizations are amazing. You seriously believe that nobody should be held accountable for the shitty things they did within their private circle of friends? You don’t think someone should be called out for saying racist things so long as they keep it private among their friends… who are all probably also nasty little racist shits, given the piles of evidence that racism was rampant at that school? Not even when the evidence of those shitty things becomes public… and remember, that video had been passed around for three years BEFORE Galligan got it?

You think that a valid defence for being caught saying something racist is “well, I didn’t intend for anyone who would be mad at me for saying it to hear it”? 🤨

Look, I don’t care if Groves thought that the only people who would hear her say the slur was her little gang of KKK-fanboy buddies. Once the video became public, and started being passed around, that stopped mattering. The moment the video became public, Groves should have been making it her life’s mission to apologize for it, make it clear it was just a one-time fuck-up, and that she would never make the mistake again.

Oh, wait, she apologized to her one black friend for it. Well, that fixes everything. Because that’s how you show you really understand that your actions have hurt a whole community of people: you just apologize to one person, your friend, and then just forget about the whole thing. 🙄

There was a serious, widespread problem at the school, that much we seem to both be able to agree on.  But, was nothing being done?

Oh, this should be good….

So it seems that something was being done, and the knowledge that there was a problem.  Was it enough?  I suppose that is a matter of opinion, and it's very possible that Galligan didn't know this was going on, so for him, perhaps nothing at all was being done.

“Something was being done.” 🤣 Yup. Yes, indeed. The district was told that its schools were dumpster fires of racism, so it DID something! It… commissioned a report to… to tell it… that its schools were dumpster fires of racism.

Yup. Did something. ⚡ ACTION!!! 🎸

I mean… didn’t actually do anything… didn’t actually fix anything.

But they did do something! 👏🎉

You don’t need to speculate on whether Galligan knew all that… action of… getting a report done up…. You don’t need to speculate on whether Galligan knew anything was being done. Just look at the dates in the report. All of the proposed… proposed… dates of when they will start… start… taking action (and I use that word very loosely here, because most of the “action” is just “creating plans”)… all the dates are late 2020 – like October and so on. In other words, all the “action” the school was planning to think of organizing a strategy for considering to maybe do some time… all of it happened (“happened”) months AFTER Galligan released the video.

However, does that mean it's ok for Galligan, a victim, to create another victim out of his frustration about a lack of change?  I would say no.  I don't believe it is right to make Groves the target for the collective wrongs of others.

Okay, why do you people keep saying that? Groves is a “scapegoat”; Groves is being punished for the wrongs of “others”; Groves is a “victim”…

Fuck all that noise. Groves is NOT being punished for what others did.

Groves is facing the consequences for what… she… LITERALLY… did. And for what she had never properly apologized or atoned for (no, I’m not impressed that she apologized to her one black friend), and for what she has never demonstrated any sort of remorse for (the only pity she shows in the article is for herself), nor any real understanding of why it was wrong or why it was so hurtful.

The fact that her comeuppance can serve as a lesson to her cronies and all the other little racist shits at her school in future years does NOT mean that she is being punished for their sins. That’s absurd. So why are you all saying it?

(I mean, I suppose that’s mostly a rhetorical question. Pretending Groves didn’t actually do anything wrong, or that she’s being unjustly punished for the crimes of others is really just par for the course. Anything to turn the white girl who said the n-word into an innocent victim, while turning the black anti-racist champion who brought her racism to light into a savage thug.)

Oh, is that what she wanted? Okay, forget everything I wrote above; I just lacked the ability to read the mind of Mimi Groves and foolishly based my conclusions on the things she said and did.

Apparently not, because in the very next sentence you imagine she has a personal vendetta.

But, was she really adding more water?  Lets look at the things she said and did.

I know it’s crazy to hope this, but is any part of looking at “the things she said and did” going to include the whole n-word thing? You know, what she literally said and did?

Nah, probably not.

Ugh, okay, here we go…

“She posted a private video 4 years prior (perhaps it was on school grounds, perhaps not, it doesn't say)…”. It was in her car. She was driving at the time. Not on school grounds. But why does that matter? Is it okay to use slurs off-campus?

“This friend then made it public, not Groves.” 🤷🏾‍♀️ So? I don’t know how you think people work, but when someone does something they know is wrong, it’s usually someone else who makes it public. Having your misdeeds revealed by others doesn’t make you “more innocent”. That’s just ridiculous.

“Groves did not send it to Galligan, that was Galligan's friend.” Again, 🤷🏾‍♀️ so? I still don’t know how you think people work, but when someone does something they know is wrong, it’s usually not them who passes information about that misdeed onto someone likely to do something about it. What, you think being snitched on makes you innocent? Your idea of justice is very, very weird.

“As far as we know, Galligan had absolutely no idea this video existed.” 🤨 Yeah, that’s how reality usually works: you don’t know something exists until someone actually tells you about it.

“Prior to Galligan releasing the video, Groves seems to have realized what she did was wrong, and had already apologized at least to her friend about it, as well as seeming to support the Black Lives Matter cause.” First off, Groves certainly knew what she was doing was wrong when she did it… she just didn’t care. It is absolutely ridiculous to claim otherwise. You can’t seriously believe that if you had a time machine and went back to 2014 and asked 14 year-old Mimi Groves about the n-word, that she would have had no idea that it was a word she shouldn’t say. For actual fuck’s sake, man, she herself said that her own parents drilled it into her that it wasn’t appropriate!

Second, who gives a shit that she apologized only to her friend? She didn’t make any effort to apologize generally; she could easily have recorded another video apologizing. She did nothing until after she realized she was going to face consequences… and then still did nothing except try to run from it all.

Third, you can’t seriously be so fucking naïve as to think that it is impossible for someone to do one good thing while still being a horrendous person. There is nothing bizarre about Groves putting on a public show of caring about BLM – given that she was competing for a spot on a prestigious cheer team – while still tossing the n-word around among her clique.

Nor is it bizarre for a person to have the kind of mental disconnect where they say they denounce racism while also complaining about how there are just too many darn brown people around these days. That’s actually very common. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover that Groves thinks of herself as an anti-racist hero… while simultaneously bandying the n-word around with her friends. That’s how humans work. Doesn’t make the bandying of the n-word any less racist.

“If anything, it seems that before Galligan decided that he would use Groves as an example, she might just very well have already learned her mistake and was actually taking away the water Galligan was drowning in, or at the very least, no longer adding any more.” Ha ha, yeah, that analogy kinda got away from ya there at the end, didn’t it.

Okay, okay, I’ll actually engage with this.

Even if it were plausible that Groves had actually become the least racist person in America, and was now in fact a champion of racial equality and justice on par with the greatest names in the civil rights movement… even if all that were true, I don’t know how you can figure that means she was suddenly making life better for Galligan if Galligan had no fucking clue about Groves’s new direction – and clearly he didn’t, because he thought he was still teaching her a lesson when he released the video. She obviously never apologized to Galligan for the video, nor even made a general apology that he knew about (she only apologized to her one black friend, remember?).

So even if we entertain this frankly ridonkulous idea that she really felt sorry for what she did, it’s still a fact that she did literally fuck-all to atone for it. Ever. Even after the public found out about it.

So she did add water, and no, she never took it away.

And even if she never added any more… she still added water, and then never took any action whatsoever (yeah, yeah, yeah, other than allegedly privately apologizing to her… one… black… friend) to undo what she did.

So all your apologetics are for naught. You seriously want to base your conclusions on what the people here actually said and did? Then why are you making up ridiculous bullshit, like that Groves didn’t understand that using the n-word was bad? Good grief, man, Groves herself calls bullshit on your attempt to whitewash her culpability (when she explains that her parents did, in fact, teach her that slurs were bad)! That’s how ridiculous your attempts are.

You want to talk about what Groves actually said and did? She actually said the n-word, and she actually did fuck-all to apologize and atone for it. That’s what she said and did. Funny how you missed that when looking at the things she said and did, hm?

[Skynet]

I admit to feeling a bit conflicted on this. On the one hand, a lot of people do stupid stuff, especially when young, and actions and behaviors years ago may not have reflection on who they are today. But I feel that people are focusing on the individual teens involved and ignoring the broader environment that made things get so bad. It was inevitable that Galligan or someone like him would lash out in such a way; such is bound to happen when bullying goes unaddressed for years and feel that they can't rely on the adults to fix things.

I think that this is a good video on the subject here.

[Cosmo_ac]

Saria, while I don't agree with you about everything, I think you've made some very well reasoned arguments, and given me some food for thought.  Thank you for the discussion.

[RedRose]

I followed from very very far.

It's both.

It's the problem of feeling one can say everything online.

It's the problem of what we call in French "le droit à l'oubli" (the right to be forgotten after a time).

It's the problem that kids hopefully mature.

It's the problem of "until when" you can be punished, legally. I never used to agree there was a time, and now I think for NON HEINOUS stuff there might be.

Apt pupil discusses it, way before, mentioning what would happen should the kid be found out in hs, college or at work already. The consequences wouldn't be the same but his act remains the same?

It matters also what's the intent, justice or retribution, revenge or setting things right.

It's a lesson for all our kids, don't say crap online. It may catch up with you and I feel like it does more and more.