I was reading the NYTs Candidate interviews and this popped up.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...interview.html
(formatting my fault)
Aisha Harris: Back in September, you actually spoke out on behalf of the comedian Shane Gillis, who had been hired on “SNL” and then was quickly fired after some racist comments were stirred up that he had made in the past on one of his podcasts. And you said you didn’t want to be judged for something you had done 25 years ago.
Mr. Gillis was hired by “Saturday Night Live” last September, then dropped days later after clips surfaced showing him using slurs and language offensive toward Asian and L.G.B.T.Q. people, including one specifically about Mr. Yang. Mr. Yang later said the comedian should have had the chance to keep his job and explained: “As a society, we have become unduly punitive and vindictive about people making statements that some find offensive or distasteful.”
But Gillis’s comments were maybe a year ago. So I’m curious as to, in your mind, how long of a period of time should it be before someone faces some sort of consequences for something they’ve done in the past?
So when I heard that Shane Gillis had called me “Jew chink” — I think was the slur — my reaction was the same reaction anyone would have, which was like, who the heck is this guy, and he sounds like a total jackass. Well, my wife actually had heard about it independently and was also like, “Who the heck is this guy?” And so then I sat down and started to figure out who Shane Gillis was, what he did for a living, and then I sat down and watched some of his comedy to try and get some context.
After watching his comedy, I felt that he wasn’t a malignant racist and that his slur toward me was just very, very bad comedy run amok. Which did not strike me as a fireable offense, and I realized that if I was the individual who was actually directly slurred, and I did not feel that he should lose his job over it, then I should probably share that sentiment with other people.
Particularly because I think we’ve become unduly vindictive and punitive toward statements that people find objectionable. A friend of mine said something, he said, “If the online universe descends on someone, and they lose their job, the online universe moves on a week later, but that person still does not have a job a week later.” That the impact on the individual lasts much, much longer than the rancor. So I shared this.