So today's news on this. Reynolds has profusely apologized, said he realized he made a mistake, and then threw Terry Donahue under the bus saying Donahue "vowed to get me" after he was run out of town and he said Donahue showed snippets of the video to John York in January which resulted in a reprimand for Reynolds, apparently that wasn't enough for Donahue so he then sent the video to the local media which got Reynolds fired. That's Reynolds theory and Julian Peterson (who appears in the video) backs him. IT's interesting that the 49ers official stance is that anybody who appeared in or worked on the video has been disciplined and will be removed from the organization, does that include Julian Peterson?
Tim Kawakami talked about the stuff regarding Asians, the guy doing the mock Chinese accent last name is Chung, and the guy filming the video is Asian too, but Kawakami notes it doesn't matter how many Asians were involved at least one Asian group was so offended they are collecting 100,000 signatures from angry constituents to send to the 49ers.
A former employee (a trainer) said that Reynolds helped him a couple of years ago when he publicly came out as gay. It was right after Garrison Hearst said he didn't want any gays on his team and got crucified in the local media. The trainer apparently offered to go public on behalf of the team to try and soften the blow and let gay rights organizations know that Hearst's comments did not = the view of the whole organization. York told him he didn't need to do that, and the guy involved said it was Reynolds he discussed it with at length, he says Reynolds isn't homophobic at all. He said Reynolds knew about his sexual orientation long before he went public with it, never told anybody, and went out of his way to make him feel comfortable in an NFL lockerroom which he said was not easy.
The video was supposed to be a training video on what not to say or do, like the sexual harassment videos we've probably all seen at work that act out scenes and ask if it's harassment or not. Reynolds clearly went WAY too far in the video but Peterson is the one who pointed out that there's even a disclaimer at the beginning of the video that says this is a satire, a dramatization, it's not real and it's not meant to be taken as real(not the exact words). He said every 49er member who saw the video understood it was satire but he realizes how it could have offended people when it became public because they've only seen or heard snippets of it, not seen the whole thing so they're getting it out of context.
Gary Radnich who earlier yesterday was ripping the 49ers for being 2 faced was on tv last night saying it's done, it's over, the video was appalling, the guy deserved to be fired, that's it. I can't recall him ever doing a complete 180 like that on anything before, I wonder if someone told him he wouldn't get access to the team if he didn't shut up, or if is his employers, KRON 4, told him enough is enough shut up?
