Mea Culpa re: Shemy
I want to apologize to the readership. When news of Shemy's hiring hit the message board on Wednesday, and a reader referenced liking a Steve Deace tweet, I reached out to a mutual who knew Shemy better to say he should take that down. Shemy called me. I congratulated him on the position, and after chatting I told him he should take down the Deace like, and anything else he doesn't want to be associated with. He also explained on that call what he was hired to do, which I shared on the MGoBoard thread.
That I didn't know there were hundreds of racist, insurrection, and anti-trans likes is no excuse. Like Michigan, I could have taken 20 seconds to look. Had I done so I might have advised Shemy to turn down the position, because that's the kind of stuff that sticks, and it would hurt Michigan. I don't think he would have listened because this job meant the world to him. But at least I wouldn't feel like I deceived you, nor acted in a way that could be interpreted as a cover-up.
Friedman’s 1976 Nobel was based on stuff about the Great Depression. This is all way out dated ways of thinking that most real economists don’t agree with today.
That isn't true. Ben Bernanke's biggest influence is likely Friedman. The only people I know of who have been correct about the lack of inflation after 2009 and then the inflation after 2020 were Friedman disciples. Robert Hetzel, Jeremy Siegel, Steve Hanke, and Lars Christenson come to mind.
Literally no actual economists take him seriously.
That is false. Milton Friedman is the most prominent economist of the second half of the 20th Century and thought highly of Sowell. He was a part of the Free to Choose series on PBS.
Here is John Cochrane who qualifies as serious and credentialed economist saying Sowell should get a Nobel Prize in Economics in 2021. https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/10/sowell-nobel.html and here is reiterating that in 2022 https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2022/10/sowell-nobel-redux.html
It's not a challenging point to understand. Specifically, according to polls done by Quinnipiac, CNN, UMASS Amherst, Washington Post/UMD, Economist/YouGov, 70% of Republicans think the election was a fraudulent. That's a statement of fact not my broad brush opinion of anything. I don't think someone holding that view is evidence of them being racist. It could be evidence of other things. I think when you lump those tweets with the actual racist ones (the one's most Republicans would also find disgusting) and say they're all evidence of racism (like it's a mainstream Republican thing to be racist) is politicizing the issue, painting with a broad brush and diluting the seriousness of racism. Just pointing out the blatant actual racist tweets would have been enough and the outcome would have been the same. It's the kind of bad faith nonsense that make everyone hate eachother. If you wanna say fuck me for wanting to be careful and precise about calling out racism then fine. I don't see what's wrong with parsing tweets and being precise. Platitudes and over generalizing is what's wrong with politics.
Exactly, you have an opinion. Others have a different opinion. Who cares. Your opinion is independent from the fact that Shapiro is pretty damn as mainstream as it gets. If you think all the people that have agreed with him are racist or evil or insert whatever adjective if you want, then again, I think you just make it harder to point out actual racists.
Okay so how do you take that statement by Shapiro?
if he is mainstream as you say, then racism is mainstream.
and conservatives would do well to distance themselves from the the type of rhetoric Schemy and Shapiro are pushing. But instead many are trying to say “he might be racist over there, but he made a few good points about the election over here”.
that’s why it’s getting lumped together.
You're a gentleman and a scholar, Seth. No blame attaches to you for this.
Schembechler is obviously a fool. The blame rests squarely on Harbaugh, Manuel and the department for not doing due diligence.
Let's. Go. Blue.
Pitch perfect Seth. Thank you.
I used to work in municipal government. Shortly after I took my job in government I found myself in a bit of hot water. I made some comments on a national urban planning page that were taken by an elected official as being opposed to the stated goals and objectives of the legislative body. As soon as I heard of it I changed my name and profile pic on Facebook and tightened up my privacy settings.
It was liberating. I was then able to take the people paying my wages head on without any pussyfooting or sugarcoating. I found I could also be more open about my beliefs without worrying how the worst people in the world would feel about what I was saying.
I would encourage anybody in public life to maintain two identities. One noncontroversial and anodyne that you associate with your real name. And one where you really let your opinions fly. Our society has a hard time allowing dissent against certain public orthodoxies. Best to let people think you are an obedient sheep until you no longer need their money and approval.
Please tell me you forgot the /s when you just described setting up a burner account so if you want to go full Shemy there are no repercussions.
I'd love to give them the benefit of the doubt but I'm struggling mightily, because there are way too many details in that post to be speaking from anything but experience.
I set up the burner not so I could go "full Shemy", but so that my opinions on bicycle infrastructure would not cause me repercussions from my political overlords. In our political culture where even the most seemingly minor difference of opinion can earn you a reprimand, you put your name on the internet at your own risk.
It's best that people know as little about your political preferences as possible, particularly if those preferences are significantly out of step with your paymasters.
Agree. Person above assuming you did it to go "full Shemy" is representative of the problem. Even for someone who is legitimately racist, publicly shaming them in an aggressive way isn't going to change their heart. It might make them temporarily fall in line publicly, but it likely just makes them more vitriolic. People do it to feel good about themselves "look at me I'm a good guy" because deep down their insecure and know they already have or will eventually say or like something questionable at some point. It's all self preservation and clawing to gain the moral high ground. It would be better to have open conversation, actually seek to understand and then win people over by showing strength, but also grace and kindness. Instead you have people who withdraw and stew and hate each other for it until things build and you get really nasty outcomes and even violence.
Seth, it speaks to your character that you would post this. But don't beat yourself up, you're not the Michigan HR Department (who very much should beat themselves up). I hear you because I made a similar comment without knowing the details based on a few nice interactions. I just wanted to share a positive thought from experience and wish I had known more. But those Tweets were outrageous and transcend politics, it's hard for that to always be on the radar. I think most would understand that you didn't know and would have spoken differently if you did. Good lesson for the future.
The amount of self righteousness and virtue signaling on this topic is beyond cringe. Shemy was hired, people checked his tweets and found he had objectionable likes, it was raised to the athletic department and he was fired/forced to resign. As for Ace - does he actually do anything except act like a complete ass on Twitter? Organize rallies/events? Fundraise for causes? He has every right to feel the way he does, but if all he's doing is rage tweeting, he's not doing much.
This is what good journalists do.
Psuedo-nepotism with a dash of privilege. Amazing that so many in here are appalled and surprised. Says a lot.
Shemy learned a life lesson probably 2-3 decades too late.
I think many of us could agree on whether certain statements are clearly racist or offensive or not.
I also think there is a lot of gray area, which some people today have decided is either black or white, either good or bad - for example, some people strongly believe that transgender women (formally males) should not be allowed to compete in women's sports while others strongly believe they should be allowed. So, if someone likes a tweet from Martina Navratilova about having three "sexes" competition (men, women, and open) does that make them transphobic? Not in my book, but maybe in yours. I'm OK with that but please don't judge other people based on your view of right and wrong. I got into many debates in S Quad in the early 80s with people of different political views but we still would go have lunch together in the cafeteria.
My sense is if Shemy deleted some 2000 likes or posts, he probably had some completely unacceptable likes. And probably some (maybe many more) likes that were gray area - not unacceptable to majority but certainly unwise to like if you are in the public eye.
The fact that most of these were probably recent (last few years) he can't claim that his views have completely changed. I'm just happy social media wasn't around in the mid 80s when I graduated from UM. Many of my views have definitely moderated from my early 20s.
As for how he got the job, probably a situation where he got fired, wasn't getting any offers from NFL teams (whether the tweet and likes were known to the league may have been a part of it), and reached out through intermediaries to Jim and Warde. We're all pretty amazed they missed this easy catch. I don't think the next hire is going to be able to pass the gauntlet if they have even a scruple of misconduct on social media.
Shemy has lost any chance for staying in the sports world. Maybe he was done after the Raiders anyway? I'm just glad I managed to stay out of the big spotlight as a chemical engineer. I only use social media for positive purposes (happy B day wishes, liking someone's kids graduation, etc.).
I guess I was away from this board at the wrong time. Remember the name Ace but don't know the story. Anyone have a synopsis - did he go off the deep end into some weird place?
It's not worth getting involved with unless you like drama lol.
Ace had a rough time health wise through no fault of his own, and I would say as a result of that, he's kind of lost patience with the world. But haven't we all at one time or another.
Ace took a couple shots at Brian this weekend for being MIA during the Anderson thing. Readers of this blog are aware of the personal issues that Brian was going through. Ace showed zero compassion towards Brian, someone who treated him exceptionally well. Ace is so sorely lacking in self-awareness it’s sad.
Hats off to you Seth.
Thank you for a great apology and for being transparent!
One of those things that is not a big deal but could have been down the road had you hid it.
Nice try.
The cyan'ing of Cade still sticks in my craw.
/s
I didn't plow through all the "likes" either. Someone in the AD should have done so. But the guy who is to blame here is Shemmy.
Seth - you are a fantastic part of this world. I appreciate that you felt the need to apologize, but I don't think you needed to. Keep up the great work!
All this back n forth feels like were in Jr High again can we just move on with this ? Asking for a friend
Thank you, Seth.
I for one didn't see your post as an endorsement and I don't believe you are responsible for vetting hires. My expectation in this particular scenario would be an opinion as to whether his experience/history represented a good hire and and maybe an opinion as to whether his name was worth the potential baggage.
Missing his history as a social media garbageman is on the AD.
I am so glad I had an new employer 18+ ago that basically said that if u have a social media account and that u can be identified as an employee of ours on that platform, or easily discovered elsewhere, anything you say will be assumed to be interpreted as the employers position and therefore would be grounds for termination...period. never have created a single account on any platform other then here....best decision I have ever made....and it was essentially made for me.
Or maybe just have social network accounts but don’t post and like racist shit? It’s not that difficult.
"I don't think he would have listened because this job meant the world to him."
He's in his 50s. If this job meant the world to him, why wasn't he in it before? It seems like he could have had this job any time he wanted up until recently. He was just fired, right? It has more of a fallback feel than a dream job.
My expectation that you search someone's Twitter history is nonexistent. This is an ugly little episode, but cut yourself some slack.
I’m sad that you have to apologize for this. I hope this is the last borderline stranger who’s racism you somehow are responsible for.