Principal’s Eye View

This week controversy returned to the NFL with the disclosure of emails sent by current Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden to some in the Washington Football Team’s front office. The emails were reprehensible and included the use of racist tropes, homophobic and sexist comments and ended with Gruden resigning his post at the start of the week.

I think there are number of topics worthy of discussion as a result of this, and other, incidents over the past few years. I know how I feel about leaked emails and the immediate labeling and cancelling of anyone who uses inexcusable language no matter how far back they stretch. In this case, Gruden’s former team the Tampa Bay Buccaneers immediately removed him from their hall of fame. The penalties for these actions trouble me and maybe that will be a topic for a future entry.

This, however, is a good time to remind everyone out there that what we type, send, post, text all remains somewhere that is retrievable if someone is motivated to do so. I don’t know if everything we ever post is a referendum on who we are, what we believe or what is in our hearts. I do know that we likely all have posts or texts that are potentially embarrassing or hurtful that we would like to stay hidden forever. Each year we get confronted with complaints of hurtful posts on social media platforms that promise anonymity like Snapchat or TikTok. We always investigate and while it might take a while we almost always find the source. The truth is that unless a post is never revealed to anyone else, unless we use strictly private accounts that are untraceable there is always someone else who knows.

I’ve seen a few social media posts recently about the importance of being good to each other. I know I’ve uttered those very words in conversations and in print over the past few years and never have they been more important. There is too much anger in the world and too often social media is where it all goes. I suppose it feels good to get it out and it may even feel better to think that anger is anonymous with its victims never being able to discover who wrote what. Not only should we all think twice before posting, but we should remind ourselves that one day all may be revealed, the curtain pulled back and an ugly truth will be staring us in the face.