Tucker Carlson has been in the media lately because of his comments made on the “Bubba the Love Sponge” show between 2006 and 2009. The backlash is because Carlson has refused to apologize for the comments he made. Instead, he invited anyone who wanted to speak to him about the issue to his show, where he is live on television every weeknight for an hour. This caused for more outrage in the media and started the trend for the hashtag #FireTuckerCarlson.

I am not going to write out the comments he made in 2006 – 2009, because, as the media says, they are awful things to say and I agree with that. His comments were racist, sexist and he even made questioning remarks about former president Barack Obama’s race. I agree, these comments are terrible to say and I don’t condone people saying those kind of things.

What I disagree with is ruining another person’s career because of something that was said over ten years ago. In the public eye, celebrities, or anyone with a platform for that matter, has no room for error, even if it was over ten years ago. The same thing happened to Kevin Hart for making jokes on Twitter about his son being gay in 2010. He had to step down from hosting the 2019 Academy Awards. The really big thing here is that people should be focusing on that it was over ten years ago.

I’ll say it again, ten years ago.

That was a whole decade ago. Do you know how much people change within a year, let alone ten years? Not only do people change, but the environment and culture has changed. In 2006, 2009 or even 2010 these types of comments didn’t make the news. Not enough people felt offended or empowered to call out people for what they were saying. These comments of Carlson’s were made on a public radio show.

He wasn’t keeping them a secret and many people heard what he had to say and no one did anything about it back then. But all of a sudden ten years later the non-profit company Media Matters decided to bring back these statements from a shock jock radio show. Here in 2019, times have changed.

These types of comments are no longer acceptable in society. If the public decides to go back into every famous person’s accounts and lives they are all going to find something to be offended by that could potentially destroy the career of said person. 

Carlson responded in a different way, by challenging people who wanted to know what his current opinions were to come onto his show and talk about it.

This is not the reaction of a man who is scared or is being ruined by some resurfaced comments made in 2006 or 2009. Logically if we think about the reaction of someone who truly thought these things they would not want to entice the media and the army of avid supporters against them. The reasoning for Carlson’s response was probably because he doesn’t think those things any longer. Now if Carlson still thinks like this and continues to make these comments on his show then the media can crucify him and try to get him fired. Only then would I support the deconstruction of a person’s career.

The human individual is imperfect and makes mistakes. We have all said or done things we are probably not proud of in our lives and the majority of us are only in our late teens or early twenties. Imagine in ten years from now when you are 30 and someone decides to bring back a tweet from today. We all say things we are not proud of and instead of attacking someone for something said a decade ago, the first question we should ask is, “Does this person still stand behind the things they said?” If the person agrees with the previous comments, actions or ideals, then the outrage can begin.

Sure, Carlson could have said, “Hey guys, I am sorry, but I don’t think these things anymore,” but more often than not even when celebrities do apologize, the public doesn’t forgive. The general public consensus is that someone made a bad decision and therefore they will forever be defined by the bad choices they made. What people should focus on is the here and now and what people are doing today rather than comments made a decade ago.