Leominster mayor Dean Mazzarella, stating that John Perrault’s comment was proof that he’s unfit to serve as a police officer, today affirmed police chief Robert Healey’s recommendation that Perrault be fired.
In a letter to Perrault, Mazzarella wrote “”Your actions are so egregious that severe discipline is warranted.” Okay, fine, fire a guy for calling somebody a Monday… but “so egregious”? Seriously?? Leave some room to describe the use of the major-league racial epithets, okay?
July 25, 2012:
At a disciplinary hearing today, Leominster police chief Robert Healey recommended that police officer John Perrault, who called ballplayer Carl Crawford “Monday” at a minor league baseball game earlier this month, be fired. “Monday” is apparently an anti-black ethnic slur.
Healey said that Perrault had made two other “repugnant comments” in the past (without elaborating), though Perrault’s attorney countered that there had never been any complaints filed against him. Healey also said that Perrault had in the past “repeatedly violated department standards,” also without elaboration, which suggests that there’s something more personal at play here, and Perrault calling Carl Crawford “Monday” might have just been a good excuse to get him off the force.
The mayor (who, remember, apologized to Crawford for Perrault’s comment) has 48 hours to sign off on Healey’s recommendation
Earlier:
Leominster, Massachusetts police officer John Perrault has been suspended, and could face dismissal at his disciplinary hearing July 25, for “conduct unbecoming an officer” at a July 5 Portland Sea Dogs minor league baseball game in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Perrault (who is white, and was off duty and out of uniform) shouted a racial epithet at outfielder Carl Crawford (who is black, and a Boston Red Sox player working his way back to the majors after a wrist injury).
The racial epithet in question was not The Racial Epithet That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Perrault called Crawford “Monday.” Which apparently is a racial slur related to the fact that people don’t like Mondays. Or something like that.
It’s very likely that Perrault and Crawford were the only two people in Hadlock Field that day who were aware that “Monday” is a racial slur.
Crawford complained to the management of the Sea Dogs, who apologized to him. The Leominster mayor and police chief also apologized to Crawford.
© 2012 by Bill Bickel unless otherwise noted.
I know that I’m not cognizant of current slang terms, but “Monday”? Still, I expect a police officer to know more about these things than me, and if “Monday” is indeed a racial epithet, then he should be suspended.
He may have been off-duty at the time, but he is still expected to act as if he was in uniform – like, intervening if a crime occurs in front of him while off-duty. Acting as a first responder if a crash occurs.
His responsibility to act as a first responder has nothing to do with “acting as if he was in uniform”.
Are you saying that police should be held to less of a standard than typical office workers? I’d say it should be the other way around. And office workers these days have their off-hours behavior tracked in all kinds of ways.
Are you saying that an office worker could get fired for calling someone a “Monday”?
From Urban Dictionary (I make no claims about the accuracy of this info):
“Monday:
Code word for ‘N*****” that people can say in front of blacks and not get their ass kicked.
Monday is used as a substitute for n***** because nobody likes mondays.
From one of Russell Peter’s comedy routines.”
Russell Peter – comedy def jam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOpCfIRA9MY
“Mondays” as racial slur is at 5:11.
I went with the middle answer until I read Dan W’s response. Now I am not so sure.
I suppose it depends on how wide spread the usage is. But since he went out of his way to use Monday as an epithet, it is apparently has seen some use.
Yeah, he was being plausibly deniable and passive-aggressive *and* cowardly on top of being racist.
There is a former major league player named Rick Monday. I hope his name doesn’t offend anyone.
O My Gosh.
Jennifer G.
I looked at “Monday” and figured the closest word that you could mis-hear for it would be “monkey.” This qualifies because there is a racist belief called “polygenesis” which holds that white people were created by God while other races evolved after the Darwinian model. It was an unsavory late 19th century solution to the creation/evolution controversy. I guess another name for it would be “racial exceptionalism.”
That conveniently explains where Cain’s wife came from. However, it’s in conflict with the traditional belief that Noah’s son Ham was the father of all the black people, Noah’s son Shem was the father of all the Semitic people, and I forget where white people come from.
Maybe you could yell “Hamite!” and someone and be equally racist?
Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the … well … you-know-whats.
In the immortal words of Governor William J. Le Petomane, “Have you gone berserk? Can’t you see that man is a ni? ”
For all practical purposes, he DID call him a ni. I want to change my vote from #2 to #1.
I’m not sure I agree: We’ve decided, as a society, to assign to one specific word mystical powers, to consider that word and only that word so taboo that we’re not even allowed to name it when discussing it. But does a stand-in for the word hold that same power?
There are religions in which the Name of God must never be spoken, so instead people say Jehovah or Our Lord or The Name. But in our minds, we translate that to “God.” We’re not fooling anybody, just not using that one word.
And of course the kids at Hogwarts are perfectly safe referring to He Who Must Not Be Named.
Nobody’s denying that Perrault spoke with racist intent, as long as both he and Crawford were agreed that “Monday” is racist (and what if Crawford weren’t aware of the word’s alternate meaning? Would it still be racist? If a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears…?) — but Perrault didn’t say The Word. He could have, but he didn’t.
My aunt didn’t like the word “Jew” used as a noun, because she’d heard people use it in a tone that sounded like they were saying “kike.” So does “Jew” become a racist word because it can be a stand-in for “kike”? Should we limit speech because of the context?
Sure, we all recognize racist speech when we hear it (thank you, Justice Black) — but do we want to start banning and punishing words based on perceived context and intonation? That way lies madness.
The name of the Hebrew god is “Yahweh”. The English generic word “god” is just that, a generic word that refers to any god.
“Jehovah” isn’t an attempt to avoid saying the word “God”, it’s a German mis-transliteration of the Hebrew “yod he vau he”, which is really pronounced more like “yah way”.
The issue in my opinion isn’t the word he used but the fact that a police officer displayed racist views by using a (apparently) racial epithet rather than a neutral one. He could have called him any number of insulting things and I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but I am very uncomfortable with a police officer (or any first responder – we had a similar incident down here recently with a fire fighter) expressing racist views, even off duty.
Let’s play a little Devil’s Advocate here: what if he’d called Crawford “shiftless and lazy,” which of course is a racist stereotype — and certainly makes more sense than “Monday,” which still sounds to me like something somebody just made up: should that be punished as a racial slur? How about just “lazy”?
Personally, I have zero respect for Carl Crawford at this point: Jackie Robinson, who must be turning over in his grave, was called far worse, constantly, including by fellow ballplayers. And Carl Crawford has to go crying to the management of the Portland Sea Dogs because somebody in the stands called him “Monday”?
I mean yeah, Perrault is a racist jerk; but seriously, this is professional sports, not kindergarten.
Though I’d have liked to be in the office when Crawford said “That guy called me a Monday.” “A what now?”