Quote:
Originally Posted by GullFoss
Don Cherry is a good guy (and a blow hard, loud mouth). He's not politically correct. He mispeaks. It happens. He didn't mean it the way it came out. It came out the way it did, he and he should have been able to go on the air and clarify his words.
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He didn’t mean it the way it came out? Or, he didn’t mean for it to come out that way?
There is an important difference here, and given Cherry’s past remarks and frequent xenophobic tirades, I imagine it was more likely the latter. He slipped, and said something poorly. He probably said it because in the heat of the moment he allowed his emotions to get the better of him.
But he was also given the chance to correct himself, to apologize, and when this controversy first broke his first response was that he meant every word, and he would not apologize for it. If he was being misunderstood or taken out of context, then why did he not take the first opportunity to correct the record? Was he misunderstood by his poor choice of words? Or did he mistakenly speak his mind?
It is not a disgrace that Cherry was fired. He is a public figure with a national platform, and a history of bigoted rhetoric. He refused to change, and suffered the consequences.
I am sure that one day he will get the recognition he deserves for his contributions to hockey and to Canada. But he lost the chance to go out on his own terms when he intransigently refused to acknowledge his error last weekend.
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