TJ Walker discusses a Justice Department report on racist emails sent by Ferguson police officers during work. The lesson: don't send emails you wouldn't want public, because they will be, and they destroy reputations.
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A U.S. justice report has come out and what do you know, it turns out the Ferguson Police Department was racist. So the Justice Department has come out with its study and it released a whole slew of emails that the members of the police department in Ferguson sent. Not to friends late at night on personal accounts, but these are emails that were sent to court officials during work hours. I mean, here's an example of the sort of things that these police officers felt was funny. President Barack Obama won't be president for long because what black man holds a job, a steady job for four years, it's filled with that allusions to the president being a chimpanzee, etc. Etc. Now here's the interesting thing. The Justice Department concluded there isn't really any evidence to suggest that anyone ever said, you know, hands up, don't shoot. But nobody's focusing on that now because these emails paint such a lurid picture of just absolute card carrying racist. So folks, it seems trite to say it. Don't send an email you wouldn't want the whole world to see. I'm constantly amazed at how many individuals and organizations destroy their reputations and their brands by sending nasty emails. People sort of get that you can't stand up in public, on tv, in the public square and shout racial slurs. People get that these days for the most part. But there's something about this idea of privately privacy of your own home or office typing something that just seems like it's permanently private. Well, it is private until it isn't. And then the whole world knows the Ferguson Police Department is forever going to be tainted as racist. There are calls now to essentially disassemble the police department and have it absorbed by other cities. Folks, let this be a lesson. Don't write anything in an email in any official capacity. Certainly anything dealing with government money, tax dollars, if you're a government official, that you wouldn't want the entire world to see, otherwise it will come back to haunt you.
