Well to be fair, not everyone can lead a perfectly puritan lifestyle and never say something dumb or offensive.
I think Gruden and the NFL missed a learning / teaching opportunity here.
Gruden is a white guy in a position of power. As we all know and are learning more and more, white privilege is a real thing especially to those in authoritative positions. Emails and pictures being shared through email demonstrate that privilege as 10 years ago, Gruden likely looked at these sorts of things as guy banter and locker room talk and thought nothing of it. This DOES NOT justify what was done or said. What it does is demonstrates what we as a society are trying to get away from. The casual racism, misogynic and homophobia. The fact we look at this now with disgust shows progress. it should have always been this way yes, but we can't change past transgressions, only try to eradicate future ones.
I think it would have served the NFL, the public, and even Gruden much better to have addressed this. Instead of grabbing pitch forks and going on witch hunts which only seems to polarize peoples opinions (oh, we're firing people over 10 year old emails, silly cancel culture VS anyone who doesn't think he should be publicly hanged must be racist / misogynists'/ homophobic) and really gets us no where. It would have been better served to say this is a prime example of what needs to change and Gruden could have said something along the lines of with what has been learned over the last few years something like this never would have even been fathomed. Or something along those lines.
All that being said, this was unbelievably stupid on Gruden's part even 10 years ago. I don't think he should skirt responsibility by any stretch.
I do think it hilarious though that the Buccaneers took his name off the ring of honor, but keeps Warren Sapp's who solicited hookers and assaulted women. But that's a different thread.....
