Celebrate Phil Griffin Day! - Award for Excellence in Corporate Dithering on HATE SPEECH

MSNBC President Phil Griffin at 212-664-4444.

AAAAH. Happy International Women's Day! What a wonderful  time to honor a great figure in women's history. Therefore, logic demands that we pause on International Women's Day to honor  the President of MSNBC, Phil Griffin. Now I don't think Phil is a woman, but that in no way precludes him from being historic this month. Phil has managed to engage in a historic act. Phil may be the first executive in history to need almost A WEEK  to decide whether joking about the systematic rape of Black women is "inappropriate." In fact, Phil is currently breaking all previous corporate records for issuing an response when someone using HIS CORPORATION'S BRAND chooses to engage in both gender-based and race-based hate speech! The "someone" in question is MSNBC contributor and "journalist" Toure. The  hate speech in question are these tweets he made about the systematic rape and torture of Black women during slavery. He then blamed those tweets on his "cousin" taking over his blackberry while he was at "yoga."  In the real world this is known as lying.  At MSNBC, this must be known as creative license. He later admitted that there was no "cousin" and that he had typed almost a dozen tweets of HATE because he was angry.   All of this occurred on a Twitter account associated with MSNBC via the bio section. Even if MSNBC doesn't care about the whole joking about slavery and rape thingy, surely an organization that purportedly provides "news" would be concerned about their contributor:

• LYING- by saying his cousin typed the tweets while he was at yoga.
• COVERUP - by erasing the tweets where he confesses to writing the offending tweets

Now a week ago, I PERSONALLY called MSNBC and managed to get past the receptionist phone screener's path to VOICE MAIL HELL and spoke to a real live human being in Mr. Griffin's office. I read this woman what MSNBC contributor and Twitter Addict Toure said about the rape and torture of Black women during history. She assured me she would be forwarding this information to "the appropriate person ." Having seen no public statement and reviewed Toure's Twitter page, MSNBC is still emblazoned in his bio. Which would indicate to me my message ended up in File 13. So I called back a second day to ask the same woman in Mr. Griffin's office what she had done about the previous message. She then asked for a phone number and an email address. Which I gave her. Now we're a week in and NO EMAIL and no phone message. Last Friday, my readers finally broke out of their post-Christmas malaise and started calling too, apparently now, MSNBC has perfected their VOICEMAIL HELL phone distribution system and are routing all Toure-related calls to voicemail. No problems, you're going to call 212-664-4444 anyway. Every time one of you calls and MSNBC fails to make a public response to this insanity, is an indictment of MSNBC's management. They should have dealt with this on March 1st when this happened. Its not like they were unaware that they had a contributor engaging in hate speech on a Twitter account he was connecting with them. Its been all over the internet, and I did call to inform them about the incident. So plausible deniability is no longer an option. Even if they didn't "realize" that Toure's tweets were hate speech, surely after receiving all of these calls, they would have the common sense to convene a group of all 3 Black MSNBC employees and conduct a focus group. So the only explanation for this massive delay in responding is that they think this thing is going to go away. Today is your day to let them no...um no its not. Objections not Raised are WAIVED! Some have argued that we should just ignore this because Toure is a dysfunctional nobody.  Others have pondered whether they should be doing other things with their "energies" other than "focussing" on Toure and his hateful words. My response is that's complete and total @$#*^&%(*@&$.  These excuses are nothing more that justifications to be apathetic. This phone call takes 120 seconds, maybe 3 minutes and 30 seconds max. Most of you have cell phone plans with either unlimited minutes or anytime minutes so the call costs you less than a cup of coffee. Secondly it takes you longer to make up your mind at Starbucks, than it takes to make a call to say "I Object!" and then go on your merry little way.  You are not so emotionally fragile that a 2 minute phone call will ruin your entire day are cause you to lose focus  of important tasks. Sorry not buying it. You're dithering. Just call and get it over with already. If you won't object to this, what will you object to? This is LOW HANGING fruit. This is not complicated. MSNBC hasn't hesitated to chasten other employees you get out of pocket on Twitter. They didn't take this long to decide to give Don Imus the boot. So what explains this delay??? I don't know, but their silence is deafening. So on today, celebrate Phil Griffin Day by calling him ( or the now designated voicemail) at 212-664-4444 and asking him: What's the delay?  Remind him that MSNBC was QUICK to issue a response to David Shuster's Twitter Antics. Why is this one taking forever? Remind them of the irony that they haven't yet made a decision on whether or how to publicly address Toure's hate speech, but they managed to reach a decision to send all calls related to the matter to VOICE MAIL HELL. Monday Mocking Extravaganza! Oh yes, and you can now consider every Monday until they respond Phil Griffin Monday here on WAOD. I'll just take a few minutes every Saturday to figure out a new way to mock him for dithering. Eventually this story will take root and get wings and they'll not only look bad for enabling Toure, but for taking so long to figure out how to respond. To the intern they've assign to monitor this matter, you may be  wondering if this thing is going away... that would be no. Phil Griffin, we salute you! NOT! PS. This blog does not do "boycotts."  That tool is typically effective for the very powerful and the extremely powerless. I don't fall into either one of those categories.   Those calling for boycotts in the comments section at this stage in the game need to expand your activism options.  There are a wide range of strategic options available to you, including PUBLIC SHAMING and MOCKING that can be far more damaging than empty threats of boycotts. PPS. How do y'all like my peacock, I modeled it myself.  I'm currently converting my Cornel West model into a Toure model. I thought I would have to mothball the Cornel West model when Tavis went and canceled the SOTBU. Yes, if this thing goes into week three, there will be both a Toure and Phil Griffin Model. PREVIOUS POSTS! Toure Scrubs His Twitter Page? Why? – Jayson Blair Revisited. The Ghost of Jayson Blair: Toure, His “cousin”, and David Shuster – MSNBC’s DOUBLE STANDARD

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The Ghost of Jayson Blair: Toure, His "cousin", and David Shuster - MSNBC's DOUBLE STANDARD

First of all, who or what is a Tourex? Apparently I've been living under a rock and missed an incident on Twitter where a demon spirit took control of MSNBC's Toure's Twitter account and made the kinds of statements one might expect from a BET employee or independent contractor. And you would think MSNBC would have learned from Don Imus. We know that Mr. X-Ray is affiliated with MSNBC because his Twitter account proudly declares such an affiliation. And it was next to the MSNBC name that Toure's account posted the following in reference to the systematic rape and torture of Black women during slavery:

"Some [Black women and girl slaves] were cunning and brilliant enough to use their bodies to gain liberation thus fooling massa. Of course most were raped, we know that, but some were sharp enough to trade that good-good for status or liberation." Gawker

Well golly gee, if I had branded my Twitter account with a major news network's name, and had that published on that account, you would think I would do more than blame it on a mysterious "cousin". You would think MSNBC might care... seeing as how they are editing and regulating other MSNBC contributor's Twitter  accounts. Now compare this Twitter incident with one involving MSNBC's David Shuster.  When David Shuster got out of pocket on Twitter, the MSNBC brass were QUICK to put the Kabosh on that

It’s looking like MSNBC management has indeed forbidden reporter David Shuster from Tweeting, or so suggest illicit Tweets emanating from the embattled Twitter page in question. Recall that Shuster’s Twitter went dark for three weeks following the journalist’s apparently inappropriate @-reply to the felonious James O’Keefe, in which Shuster predicted that the prison-bound O’Keefe will indeed be sent to prison. Shuster’s silence was rumored to be the result of a mandatory Twitter embargo—a theory that was all but confirmed by the reappearance—and immediate deletion—of his sudden Tweets,

MSNBC even went so far as to issue a public statement calling Shuster's comments inappropriate.

“The comments were inappropriate,” an MSNBC spokesperson told Politico. “We have talked to David about them.” Mediaite.

But since Tourex's Twitter attack was on enslaved Black women... NO Biggie! If you will notice Al Sharpton, the high commissioner of Decency has been radio silent about this. So has R. Kelly's favorite publicist,  Tavis "Black Folks Need and Agenda" Smiley.  So has Al Roker, who was quite vocal about Don Imus. The list goes on, but you will be waiting until the Devil needs a heater before the Black Elite Establishment makes a demand that the diversity-challenged MSNBC makes some public statement about these ridiculous statements by one of interns. We know this, but I always think its important to remind you of the jelly-spined feckless leadership of people running around declaring themselves to be leaders. I would have ignored this other than the fact that if you will recall, I do believe it was this same Toure that wrote or manufactured a quote referring to First Lady Michelle Obama as a "Ghetto Girl" a quote he did not attribute to his "cousin," but to some imaginary anonymous Martha's Vineyard resident. Later after people became outraged at the statements his "cousin" made about enslaved Black women, the follwing appeared in his timeline.

"I like to be intellectually risque but never want to offend. I crossed that line. Am now redrawing it for myself.  Poorle expressed bizzarre ideas and brain farts are not what this space is supposed to be about. Will do better going forward. " Witches' Brew

If I was MSNBC I would be hiring some fact checkers because you may have a Jayson Blair-like problem on your hands. If his BLackberry was indeed hijacked by his "cousin" then what does that say about his judgement. If in fact there is no "cousin" then what does that say for X-Ray's character? It appears he outright lied. I'm not sure and that's MSNBC's problem seeing as how their network's name is on his twitter account. If you would like to celebrate Women's History Month, consider inquiring about why it appears that MSNBC appears to have a DOUBLE STANDARD when it comes to twitter accounts associated with its network. At the very least they ought to demand Toure remove their name from his Twitter account if it is easily hijacked by his "cousin." You can contact

MSNBC President Phil Griffin at 212-664-4444

(they are going to transfer you to viewer services HELL, but get creative with it.)

EMAIL: viewerservices@msnbc.com

If you are really feeling creative and motivated, you can ask Representative Sheila Jackson Lee and Maxine Waters  to send the letter, they already went after MSNBC this week for its lack of any ethnic diversity. Maybe she can ask the NBC President why MSNBC-related Twitter hijinks attacking White males are dealt with swiftly while MSNBC-related absurdities attacking victims of systematic rape and torture are ignored. #justsayin... Here are their office numbers. Do be polite, point out you appreciate their concern about MSNBC's diversity issues and express the fact that if they had the opportunity you would love for them to address the apparent double standard. It never hurts to ask- Why not make a federal case out of it... literally.

Shelia Jackson Lee- 202-225-3816. Maxine Waters -  (202) 225-2201

Good luck with that whole calling a congress member's office. Do report your adventures in the comments or via email. In all likelihood, MSNBC has no clue about Toure's Twitter hijinks.  Help celebrate Women's History Month by sharing Toure's Twitter " history" related to Black women.

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