Pro Wrestling Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan was fired by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) after transcripts of a racist rant surfaced online. The rant originated from one of the sex tapes - filmed without permission - which have been the subject of Hogan’s recent lawsuit with Gawker. Stefan Molyneux takes a look at this news story which raises significant questions about personal privacy and the mob mentality.
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| So mere weeks after America collectively solved the problem of racism by banishing the Confederate flag, it's been discovered that the real source of the racial tensions within America is... | |
| Hulk Hogan. | |
| Yes! | |
| Hulk Hogan! | |
| When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside! | |
| So strap on your crazy helmets and follow me through this chain of events. | |
| So, eight years ago, Hulk Hogan was secretly filmed having sex, without his permission or consent. | |
| The filming, not the sex. | |
| By his, I suppose, former friend, Bubba the Love Sponge, noted radio personality and, surprisingly, no relation to SpongeBob SquarePants. | |
| This sex tape was then leaked online by Gawker, under the guise of it being credible journalism and not trashy tabloid smut. | |
| What was Gorka's reason for this tape being mainstream news? | |
| Well, you see, Hulk Hogan had previously bragged about sex in interviews. | |
| Yes, somehow this makes it morally right to publish a video of someone recorded without his knowledge or permission. | |
| By the way, you know, Gorker, there's tons of revenge porn laws popping up all over the country right now. | |
| How is this any different? | |
| Because the person filmed was a guy dressed in red and yellow and whose physical performance is climaxed with six-foot-high leg drops? | |
| Needless to say, Hulk Hogan was pissed off, so he filed a $100 million lawsuit against Gorker, which has threatened to bankrupt the media company and black hole of moral-revolting nihilism. | |
| The lawsuit was about to head to trial, but get this, apparently the sex tape recorded again without Hogan's knowledge or consent also contained recordings of him saying the word which cannot be uttered by white people, or, given Hulk Hogan's taste for self-basting and radiation, orange people. | |
| He spoke regarding a man who was becoming involved in his daughter's musical... | |
| career, we'll say. | |
| I mean, I'd rather if she was going to fuck some nigger, I'd rather have her marry an eight-foot-tall nigger worth a hundred million dollars. | |
| Like a basketball player, he reportedly says. | |
| I guess we're all a little racist. | |
| Fucking niggers. | |
| Okay, Mr. | |
| Hogan, and I say this from the Relative Safety of Canada, please don't speak for everyone else, and that's actually not a little racist. | |
| Hogan. | |
| I mean, I don't have double standards. | |
| I mean, I am a racist to a point. | |
| Fucking niggers. | |
| But when it comes to nice people and shit and whatever. | |
| Okay, first of all, stop ripping off dialogue from Jane Austen novels. | |
| Secondly, racist to a point. | |
| Yeah, I guess like Hitler was anti-Semitic to a point. | |
| It's just quite a big point. | |
| Because of this, this story, which is only a story because Hulk Hogan was secretly filmed having sex without his permission, and the tape was leaked to and published by Gawker for the entire world to watch, which led to Hogan taking a stand and suing Gawker for this blatant disregard for human privacy and decency, Hogan just lost his job with World Wrestling Entertainment. | |
| He's gone, un-person, not even any merchandise. | |
| Hogan has issued the following public statement. | |
| Eight years ago I used offensive language during a conversation. | |
| It was unacceptable for me to have used this offensive language. | |
| There is no excuse for it, and I apologize for having done it. | |
| This is not who I am. | |
| I believe very strongly that every person in the world is important and should not be treated differently based on race, gender, orientation, religious beliefs, or otherwise. | |
| I am disappointed with myself that I use language that is offensive and inconsistent. | |
| With my own beliefs. | |
| Now, I know, I know, on the grand scale of human injustices, this story ranks pretty low. | |
| Given everything that's happening in the world today, but it's still revolting that somebody can be filmed having sex without their consent, and it can end up with them losing their job and being publicly shamed. | |
| It's also, frankly... | |
| Pretty precious of world wrestling entertainment to dump Hogan for these comments, given the long-standing portrayal of minorities in wrestling. | |
| Samoans, for instance, were all spear-carrying savages, occasional cannibals, and had extremely hard heads, which enabled them to ravage their opponents with head-butting. | |
| Hispanic wrestlers were given characters as bullfighters portrayed as naive children and even... | |
| One team was given a gimmick where they would ride down to the ring on riding lawnmowers. | |
| You get it? | |
| See, they're Mexicans. | |
| They've got to be landscapers on the side. | |
| Lord. | |
| Mexican wrestler Eddie Guerrero garnished his greatest career success by lying, cheating and stealing and riding around in a hydraulics boosted low rider. | |
| Yeah. | |
| I'm not sure. | |
| Many Asians were sneaky and evil, occasionally throwing salt into the eyes of their opponents, or again, being portrayed as naïve children. | |
| Many blacks were portrayed as mental simpletons, including Kamala, who tried to pin his opponents upside down because, you know, black people are stupid or something. | |
| A white wrestler was repackaged as Akeem, the African Dream, a man from deepest, darkest Africa, dressed in a dashiki, and he spoke in jive while moving his forearms through the air like a 70s movie pimp. | |
| WrestleMania VI even featured rowdy Roddy Piper, taking blackface one step further by painting half of his body black for his battle. | |
| With Bad News Brown, a black wrestler whose finishing move was called the Ghetto Blaster. | |
| WWE previously had a black militant gang called the Nation of Domination, patented after the Nation of Islam. | |
| A tag team of black wrestlers called Crime Time were introduced through a series of videos showing them enacting slapstick black-on-white violence. | |
| Michael P.S. Hayes, known from his in-ring days, ringleader of the fabulous Freebirds, a Confederate flag-wearing Southern three-person team, is still with WWE in a high-ranking position, despite reportedly being suspended by WWE in 2008 for telling black wrestler Mark Henry, I'm more of a nigger than you are. | |
| There are near endless examples of racist characters and stereotypes within professional wrestling's history which broadcast on television worldwide. | |
| Did anyone really care? | |
| Ah, you see, but Hulk Hogan makes some racist comments privately while being secretly recorded and then is publicly shamed through the release of a sex tape and we just pile on the guy. | |
| All right. | |
| Switching gears, I want to make a minor prediction. | |
| I'm going to put on my evil mainstream media hat. | |
| Oh, wait, where did my soul go? | |
| It doesn't matter. | |
| And see if I can spin this into a political attack. | |
| You see, for his now infamous Arizona speech, Donald Trump was introduced to Hulk Hogan's theme song, Real American. | |
| There are also photos of Hulk Hogan and Donald Trump together at the same time, proving that they're not the same person. | |
| See, Hulk Hogan has made racist comments privately. | |
| Donald Trump talks about illegal immigration publicly. | |
| Obviously, this means Donald Trump is an evil racist who must withdraw his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. | |
| We'll see if they go there, but these days, nothing would surprise me. | |
| Publicly, Donald Trump has been portrayed as a racist. | |
| Donald Trump is a member of the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 2013. | |
| To be consistent, are they going to denounce Trump and remove all mentions of him from their website like they've done to Hogan? | |
| That, my friends, remains to be seen. | |
| But, here's the real issue. | |
| Here's where we stop being spectators and start to become truly engaged in this discourse. | |
| Look, freedom of speech has to be protected by privacy. | |
| Look, picture this. | |
| You're at home and you're masturbating. | |
| Perhaps to this very video. | |
| And somehow it's being broadcast to your place of work. | |
| Imagine that violation. | |
| You see, because everyone is the NSA now. | |
| Everyone's got recording devices in their pocket. | |
| Let's take another example. | |
| Let's say you have a fight with your wife and you sit down with your friend and you vent your frustrations about your wife to him. | |
| But he's been recording it and then he posts your rant on the internet and your wife divorces you and then you get fired. | |
| This guy was Hulk Hogan's friend. | |
| Look, think back to everything you've ever said over the past ten years. | |
| What could conceivably be snipped out and broadcast that might make you look bad? | |
| I can think that some things really can. | |
| Someone might have recorded you. | |
| It might be coming out tomorrow. | |
| Where will your outrage and joining the lynch mob be then? | |
| Look, Hulk Hogan might be a racist. | |
| He might have had a really bad day. | |
| He seems to actually have more against poor people than black people and short people than tall people. | |
| He has also, to be fair, taken a large number of significant shots to the head, which, as I mentioned, apparently turns you orange. | |
| So, let me ask you this fundamental, basic and essential question. | |
| Can you be both free and paranoid at the same time? | |
| And I suggest this. | |
| Something obtained without permission, no matter how salacious, must be ignored. | |
| I don't care how damning it seems. | |
| I don't care how tempting it is to join the mob. | |
| I don't care how much of Jennifer Lawrence's hoo-hoo is in full view. | |
| Turn away. | |
| Refuse the mob. | |
| Respect privacy because you could well be next. | |
| It all comes down to this. | |
| I've said stuff I regret. | |
| You've said stuff you regret. | |
| You know you have. | |
| When you pick up a rock to hurl it at a 61-year-old man, remember the ancient words of wisdom. | |
| Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. | |
| You know what to do. |