The fanatical urge to purge and punish wrong-think is claiming scalps across the country, and one of its latest victims is a blue collar, Mexican-American worker in Southern California. Via San Diego's NBC affiliate, this is yet another installment of weaponized political correctness harming innocent people -- as the practitioners of paranoid, irrational cancel culture run roughshod over any semblance of common sense, logic, or grace. Everything about this is cartoonishly insane:
Man fired after being accused of making “white supremacist” hand gesture. He says he was cracking his knuckles & had no idea the gesture even existed. He’s Mexican-American.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) June 17, 2020
“I don’t know how long it's going to take me to get over this:”https://t.co/hrgeI3e386
It all started about two weeks ago near a Black Lives Matter rally in Poway when Emmanuel Cafferty, a San Diego Gas and Electric employee, encountered a stranger on the roadway. The stranger followed Cafferty and took a picture of him as his arm hung out the window of his company truck. The picture made the rounds on Twitter accompanied by a claim Cafferty was making a "white power" hand gesture made popular by white supremacists groups. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the gesture -- made by forming a circle with the thumb and index finger, and extending and separating the other three fingers -- has been used in recent years by white supremacists to form the letters W and P, but has also long been used as a sign signifying "OK" or approval. Therefore it shouldn't be assumed to be a white supremacy symbol unless there is other evidence to support those claims, according to the ADL. Cafferty claims he was just cracking his knuckles. Soon after the encounter, a supervisor of Cafferty's told him he was suspended and that further action may be taken after an investigation. A few days later, he says he was fired.
"The man told NBC 7’s Priya Sridhar he was charged, tried and convicted on social media, and said his employer jumped to conclusions."To recap, Cafferty was driving "near" a BLM rally, with his arm hanging out the window of his truck. His hand appeared to be making an "ok" sign, which in rare circumstances is used as a white power symbol (similar idiotic 'controversies' have bubbled up in the last few years). A random motorist took a photo of this "gesture" and reported it to Cafferty's company. Cafferty was suspended, then fired. Cafferty says he was absent-mindedly cracking his knuckles, and that he had no clue that the supposed gesture even existed in any problematic context:
Cafferty maintains he was unaware of the hand gesture until the whole controversy started. "When my supervisor said that I was being accused of doing a white supremacist gesture, that was baffling," Cafferty told NBC 7 on Monday. "I don’t know how long it's going to take me to get over this, but to lose your dream job for playing with your fingers, that’s a hard pill to swallow," Cafferty said. Cafferty is Mexican American and says he comes from a diverse family of all races. He says he's proud of SDG&E for taking any allegations of racism seriously, but he wants his job back.
The company, SD G&E, insists they took appropriate action, given the "high standard" they apply to employees, whom they expect "to live up to our values every day." If they have any proof whatsoever that this...person of color is a...white supremacist, the company should produce it. Otherwise, this very much looks like a panicked, ridiculous, baseless firing, and Cafferty should consider pursuing legal options. All the man wants is his job back. Even the woke snitch who ruined his life doesn't think Cafferty should have been stripped of his employment: "NBC 7 spoke to the man who originally posted the picture on Twitter. He has since deleted his account and said he may have gotten 'spun up' about the interaction and misinterpreted it. He says he never intended for Cafferty to lose his job."
Maybe this person should have thought about the potential consequences of his actions before getting "spun up" and wrecking a stranger's livelihood. And absent additional context or evidence, what's SD G&E's excuse? Meanwhile, while people like Cafferty are tossed out on their ears, prominent members of our celebrity class have been celebrating the stylings of uber-bigot Louis Farrakhan, apparently without repercussion:
In the past 24 hours, Jameela Jamil, Chelsea Handler & Jessica Chastain have shared on Instagram a video of vicious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan discussing racism.
— John-Paul Pagano (@johnpaulpagano) June 16, 2020
They say: "Extraordinary." "Powerful." They have over 10M followers. @jameelajamil @chelseahandler @jes_chastain pic.twitter.com/xfdr4aKRch
Handler’s post was accompanied by the caption “I learned a lot from watching this powerful video” and has been viewed more than 1.8 million times. It was shared by the Oscar-nominated actress Jessica Chastain to her 3.2 million Instagram followers via her Instagram story, as well as the actress/influencer Jameela Jamil to her 3 million followers. Handler’s clip also garnered likes from fellow celebs Jennifer Aniston, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Jennifer Garner, and received laudatory comments from the actor Sean Hayes and actress Lisa Rinna. After receiving backlash in the comments Handler posted a disclaimer of sorts, “Another thing: perhaps Farrakhan’s anti-Semitic views took form during his own oppression. We know now that oppression of one race leads to an oppression of all races.” Huh? (Chastain and Jamil have since deleted the videos; Handler has not.)
Farrakhan is, for the record, a raging anti-Semite... In a 1984 speech broadcast over Chicago radio, he called Hitler “a very great man”; during a 1985 speech at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, he proclaimed of Jews, “And don’t you forget, when it’s God who puts you in the ovens, it’s forever!”; in a 2006 speech, he exclaimed, “These false Jews promote the filth of Hollywood that is seeding the American people and the people of the world, and bringing you down in moral strength… It’s the wicked Jews, the false Jews, that are promoting lesbianism, homosexuality. It’s the wicked Jews, false Jews, that make it a crime for you to preach the word of God, then they call you homophobic!” In 2018, at a speech at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, he accused Jews of inventing anal sex and promoting pedophilia. And just last year, after being banned by Facebook for hate speech, he claimed he didn’t hate Jews—then in the very next breath called them “Satanic.”
In addition to being a disgusting Jew-hater, he is also a flaming homophobe and misogynist. But his vileness too often gets a pass because of his ties to the 'correct' political party -- which have been covered up. I'm not calling for Handler (who evidently thinks the Jews might be responsible for Farrakhan's hatred) to be canceled, nor any of the buffoons who applauded her moral idiocy. But it's certainly instructive to watch how the mob operates and which targets it selects for seek-and-destroy missions. Also, nobody with even a half-functioning brain or partially-attuned moral compass should ever take any of these celebrities' views seriously again.
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