Oh my god! I finally watched the video clips and that is what people are upset and offended by?

Anybody who's ever been in a college or professional football lockerroom can tell you that 90% of the guys slept through that film. The guy got across a lot of good points, and his serious moments far outweighed the bad jokes and sexual innuendoes. They poked fun at themselves, as well as the stereotypes. And I think even if Reynolds had gone to a black neighborhood and did a similar interview as with the Chinese man and made jokes referencing the sack guy chasing down a QB like he's fried chicken and watermelon would have been the same lame humor and not offended the players.

The purpose of the tape is to try to get to the players before they do or say something stupid and he has to be the fix-it guy. He gets a serious point across and then goes for the lame joke, in a bad attempt at trying to hold the players attention. I could understand getting offended if all he did was go for the weak stereotype and bad joke, but he always started with a good point.

My last point is that those were probably the most critical 8 segments. Even the "offensive" parts in those segments were brief. Put them together with the rest of the 30-45 minute tape and you got one big snoozefest...even worse than Return of the Sith.

Well boo f**king hoo. Everyone's so damn sensitive. As a gay Asian male, I wasn't the least bit offended. I thought some of it was funny and others were just plain silly, if not down right stupid.

This outcry from the pc police really doesn't surprise me at all. It's typical how the overly sensitive people tend to expend so much energy on useless topics such as this.

I bet the same outspoken pc folks on this site who have season tickets also turn a blind eye /ear when they hear the fag comments and other anti-gay remarks that's echoed throughout the stands at 49er games.

Go take up a real cause because this topic is tired and it makes SF look like a bunch of pansies.

That was the entire tape. They split it into segments for bandwidth purposes or some such technical reason.

I'm surprised with the pro/con reaction to the tapes.

While I was certainly not offended by the tape, it seemed pointless. (I only watched the "Chink" segment. I call it such because it perpetuates a stereotype that isn't even current. That buck-toothed, grinning Asian man with a queue is a holdover from when, the 1950's? A more current East Asian stereotype is that we're straight-laced academic nerds, boring accountants and such...example, in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, Harold starts out as the hard-working nerd being set upon by the cool, white dudes... only to turn that stereotype on its head when we find out that Harold (and Kumar) are party animals. So why are the 49ers perpetuating this outdated myth to players in their 20's and 30's? It's like showing Little Black Sambo or hook-nosed Jews. But nobody would be offended at that, would they?)

In the video, the guy says, "Where's Jeff Tanaka when you need him?" And I was thinking, "Isn't Tanaka a Japanese name, and isn't he talking about a Chinese newspaper?" But I guess we're all the same. Asians will never be true Americans because we'll always be seen as foreigners. And this video only perpetuates this myth.

And while it may be funny in the most purile, sophmoric sense, what does this humour have to do with the message of the video? The message of the "Chink" section was that you should be careful of what you say to the media, and you should alert the 49ers media department if you see anything that is "factually inaccurate."

Now this may be time to insert some funny "inaccuracies." But why must they insert humour of the "Sum Yung Guy" variety? Goodness, get yourself a real comedy writer.

No doubt this is already fodder for Margaret Cho.

-------------------

And to compare this "training video" with SNL or a stand up comedian is clearly comparing apples and oranges.

I hope that the 49er organization will take up the offers by Helen Carroll of the NCLR, and others. Maybe then they'll prove their commitment to diversity and to one of the most diverse cities in America.

[ June 03, 2005, 08:17 AM: Message edited by: canmark ]

The OBVIOUS difference between this and what may be on some comedy show is that no one has to go to/watch any comedy show if they chose not to. But if your employer has a program everyone must attend then different standards do apply.
Humor is fine. Leonard Matlovich used humor when he taught race relations in the air force. A lot of his humor consisted of turning stereotypes upside down, i.e. spraying deodorant in a roomful of white recruits because "white people stink".
Now, it seems too many here express the view that as long as gay men are not the ones being hit that bigotry is just fine. If instead of topless porn actresses parodying lesbians, they had shown men molesting children, or a man "marrying" a 5 year old boy, as a representation of what gay men, excuse me, fags, are like, I bet Philly Fan and others would not be wailing about all these awful feminists who just don't want boys to be boys, even when they are supposedly grown men.
If someone wants to make a racist, lesbian-bashing porn video to entertain a bunch of smirking millionaires with 12-year-old brains, that is their Constitutional right. But please remember this was the mandated response to Garrison Hearst's comments about "faggots". Great reply, wasn't it? They manage to leave out insulting gay men and stick to Asians, lesbians, homeless people and prisoners. I guess some here would consider that progress?

You are so out of touch... Get real...

...So Reynolds put some work and thought into how to make his message memorable. Did he use good taste? No. But comedy is rarely in good taste. Today's comedy is often racially insensitive, homophobic and explicit. You think Dave Chappelle received a $50 million contract for telling knock-knock jokes?

Who do you think watches Dave Chappelle? Young men and women about the same age as the football players inside the 49ers locker room. Again, Reynolds was playing to his audience. His tape was never meant to be viewed by the public. There was absolutely no intent to offend. I'm making an assumption, but I don't think there was one member of the 49ers who was offended by the video. Some of the players participated in the making of it.

Locker rooms are not politically correct, especially when the media are not around. The lack of rules and common decency are part of what makes the locker room a special place, a great escape, an amusement park.

That sums this up perfectly. Move on, and quit trying to pretend this was offensive towards the masses. Quit twisting the story to meet your personal ranting needs. Open your eyes to reality.
49ers tape shouldn't be such a big story

amen! Whitlock couldn't have said it much better than that!

Penis is BAD. Very bad, they should all be chopped off and we should all hold hands and watch the WNBA!

Obviously the diversity workshop was a miserable failure. I'm thinking now that the whole thing, and not just the tape, was probably a joke to them -- including Reynolds, who put it together. And for that matter, I still can't figure out why on earth a team would have such a workshop put together by a PR guy. A PR guy is nothing but a SHILL for his employer. He's totally unqualified for such an assignment. He has no teaching skills.

[ June 04, 2005, 11:33 AM: Message edited by: Joe in Philly ]

This video is just another small part of the ongoing conspiracy by the Evil White Man to keep the masses in check. As a part of the Evil White Mans Conspiracy I personally endorse this tape and I believe with this tape ( we meant for it to be released to the public ) all non White Men will be turned into gay or lesbian Chinese homeless persons. This conversion will make them angry, make them curse, they may take their cloths off but they will continue to pay their taxes.
Watch out the Conspiracy is coming to your town next.

The most interesting segment is segment 7 where he talks being responsible for your actions. "What you do or say is not only a reflection on you, but also on the 49ers" Uh...hello?

It is rather mind numbing that a professional organization would put out such a "Diversity/ training video". The most appaling thing is the video doesn't even look like it's professinaly done. The video looks like a cheap result of a class assignment put out by "the jock group" from a local High School Audio/Visual class. WTF?

Being Asian, the racial thing really didn't bother me. The whole skit reminded me of a comedian from Hawaii who's enitre act picks on the racial ethnicity of the people of Hawaii. Excpet the comedian stuff is funnier. This one was just lame. I can't imagine my company doing something like this. Just a poor call by the niners.

I know the training videos at my work are very generic and boring and totally forgettable. At least his one you remember. Problem is, the talk is about the content of the video and not the concepts...which were....what?

So if I had to grade the video for what it's intent was, this one would fail. Because instead of remembering the points of the video, all you remember is, the PR guy is mocking the mayor, a china man, kissing lesbians, flaming gays, wasn't that so & so playing the homeless man, look it's what's his name playing the prisoner and above all else, hooters, hooters, hooters.

Award-winning columnist Joan Ryan of the San Francisco Chronicle had a great take on the now infamous "diversity training" video today.

Among other things, she writes:

"The video does matter.

How organizations operate behind closed doors is more telling of their values than how they operate when people are watching. When that organization happens to be a beloved sports team that bears the name of your city, its values take on special significance.

At a time when, in public, teams are raising money for AIDS research and sponsoring sports clinics for girls, it seems surprising that so many athletes continue to behave as if the rules of polite society don't apply to them. So many, even today, seem to believe they have special license to denigrate women and gays, to live outside the lines.

Now we know, at least in part, why. The video provides a glimpse of how NFL franchises -- or at least this NFL franchise -- feed that mind-set. The 49ers front office, the folks responsible for setting the standards of the organization, sent two clear messages to the players through the video.

One: It's OK to say racist and sexist and homophobic things at the office. Of course, they shouldn't say such things in public. But among themselves? No problem. And two: The players are too simple and crude to be treated as adult professionals. It's a little ironic that as players laughed at the stereotypes of Chinese people and gays on the screen, they were themselves being crudely stereotyped by their own bosses: the big, stupid football players who need naked girls and foul language to understand a concept.

What the nation now knows, and what we now know if we did not already, is that the 49ers are a team that is rotting. It has lost its way, on and off the field. That a team executive would think this was acceptable -- even just for internal use -- speaks volumes about the culture inside team headquarters. An organization that for years represented excellence and even grace now has become a laughingstock."

The full text of her well-written column is here .

Bingo! I can't believe all the apologists saying this was OK because it wasn't meant to be shown publicly. This makes it worse because it really reveals the mentality. This was more of a minstrel show and not a diversity session.

Love that Joan. She's a GATOR, btw. :cool:

An editor from PlanetOut.com has an article at ESPN.com in which he defends Kirk Reynolds, if not the videotape. The writer is the same one who profiled 49ers trainer Lindsy McLean for ESPN the Magazine. This article references the story of McLean's being harassed...

The fallout from the video is also the subject of Outside The Lines at 12:40 am ET.

Joe, thanks for posting that link. You beat me to it.

I was glad to see the Ryan column. Interesting that two players have objected; so much for the video being appropriate for its audience. She is absolutely right about closed doors. I was reminded of the Watergate tapes and how what really sunk Nixon was not the "smoking gun" but the whole country & world seeing the real Nixon: foul-mouthed, virulently anti-Semitic, paranoid, determined to get revenge on everyone who crossed or even just disagreed with him.

The same issue also ran a column by Patti Poblete, a generally conservative columnist, on how Asian-Americans are repeatedly accused of just "not getting it" about so-called "humor" at their expense.

No, it's not the world's most important issue. I am concerned it's more discussed here than the California legislature, with 10 Democrats and all Republicans, decided we must continue to be second class citizens. But it is a public issue.

Guess what? There's ANOTHER tape!

found the link to the tape on the KRON website

http://www.kron.com/global/Story.asp?s=3445082

why this is even a story is beyond me....yawn.

Given the 49ers history of insensitivity, I don't think any of us should be surprised another tape showed up. I'm guessing we might hear of a lot more behind-the-scenes things that have gone on for years.

Cyd and Outsports were mentioned in a Wall Street Journal bit on the 49er's tape scandal. (scroll down to the bottom)