Blake P. Graves Resigns: Staffer Email Embroglio Costs A Man A Job
Posted on June 17, 2009 at 2:41 pmUPDATE: Director of Legislative Administration Connie Ridley tells Post Politics that Graves was not fired or dismissed. A former intern, Graves agreed to stay on as a temporary hourly legislative employee to help out in offices that needed it. Graves indicated to Ridley that he would be leaving the legislature in that capacity to pursue full-time work.
Jeff Woods reveals that the Democratic legislative staff member who sent an email making fun of several minority groups has been dismissed by the House Speaker:
According to sources, House Speaker Kent Williams, acting at the request of Democratic leaders, already has dismissed the intern, who has been identified as Blake Graves who was working in the office of Rep. Karen Camper, D-Memphis.
“It was offensive to Asians,” says our source, just to mention one of the pictures. Democrats think they can claim the upper hand in this little contretemps because their staffer has been fired, unlike the Republican offender, Sherri Goforth, who was merely reprimanded.
The graphics contained in the emails are available for viewing here. The firing of Graves comes only days after the revelation that a Republican staffer, Sherri Goforth, had sent out a racially inflammatory email about President Barack Obama.
Although Graves has spent his tenure in the legislature working for Democratic legislators Reps. Joe Towns and Barbara Camper, he was honored in a resolution earlier this year recognizing his affiliation with the College Republicans.
A legislative intern from January until April of this year, Graves became a “Temporary Legislative Assistant” just last month making him a state employee.
Immediately after Graves sent the offending email on Monday (the very same day the Goforth email hit the blogs), he sent a follow up email to the list of both Democratic and Republican staffers the email was sent to.
“Everyone, please excuse that e-mail I sent, I totally missed the words used in it. So please accept my apologies for that e-mail. Nonetheless, have a great Monday!” said Graves to his list of recipients.
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Comments
38 Responses to “Blake P. Graves Resigns: Staffer Email Embroglio Costs A Man A Job”
This was the right call.
But can we now expect Roger Abramson to lecture BCM and the others about how they need to “own” this one? Forget it, they’ll just all sit back smugly.
You left out the best part: Braisted says he may have been an intern for a Democrat, but he was a member of the COLLEGE REPUBLICANS.
OOPS!!!!!
OOps, MY error for not seeing it. I own that!
So it was a Republican who sent the email around after all, one who just happened to be assigned to a Democrat?
Well, I hope that BCM and the others are still outraged and offended. Although I’m sure that now that he’s been revealed to be a Republican, they’ll now piss and moan that he’s being discriminated against or something.
His facebook page says he’s a liberal.
How is anyone’s interest served by dismissing this young lad? Was anyone actually offended by the pictures, or just offended because it served a political interest to take offense.
Maybe my views are skewed because I work in a blue-collar field where I’ve been seen far more offensive racist/sexist/homophobic jokes and emails than the ones in question either with Goforth or Graves.
The question should be of intent. Did they intend to maliciously hurt a fellow staffer/co-worker? Or did they think it was funny in that, aww shucks this is kinda bad, sort of way? If its the former, if they sent it to an African-American or Japanese staffer with the intent of degrading them, then absolutely they should be fired. If it was intended to be something they thought others would find amusing, then they should be reprimanded (as Goforth was) and cautioned not to do it again.
There but for the grace of God go I, and if I were in either of their shoes, I know I’d prefer a second chance to show that this one instance didn’t reflect on who I was as a person.
Is there anyone who was ACTUALLY OFFENDED by the emails? Or was this just to prove a point?
Because at the end of the day, Sherri Goforth still has her job. And Graves doesn’t.
This reminds me a bit of the old football rule that the guy who punches back is the guy who gets flagged.
You mean that there are people with latent racism and bad judgement working for both democrats AND republicans?
Those who try to score cheap points with these lightweight scandals usually get hammered within a few news cycles.
This young “intern” will probably learn a valuable lesson.
[...] The intern for a Democrat that apparently thought no one is his address book had seen various internet memes got fired. [...]
Democrats=Results
Republicans=Delay, Denial, Deception
One could even argue that the young lad didn’t have much experience while a 20 year employee should hae known better.
Look, we Democrats fire people when they do stuff like this. The republicans only “reprimand” them. I guess the HR department didn’t tie our hands, so why is that the excuse for the republicans?
Kent Williams fired his staffer that sent an offensive email on a state account and on state time. Ron Ramsey keeps his staffer that sent an offensive email on a state computer and on state time.
Who is a leader?
Ok, now I’m thoroughly confused. What exactly happened?
No one will ever have it clear.
Fox News will be scheduling its protest against anti-Asian racism for next Wednesday, June 24th. Be sure to tune into Fox and Friends for the latest on this important developing story.
What exactly happened?
A bunch of shills got in a pissing contest to see who was the least racist; now, it seems, there’s a pissing contest among bloggers to see whose coverage of a moronic pair of stories got the least fair coverage. Tennessee still looks bad, there are still political prisoners in North Korea, violence is erupting in Iran, unemployment is near 10%, 1.7 trillion in U.S. wealth was wiped out, people are going bankrupt because of their health and lack of insurance.
But none of that really matters because we haven’t figured out for sure if a self-described liberal who joined the college republicans is a Republican or not, so that somebody’s next blog post can be named “Nanny Nanny Boo Boo” followed by someone else’s “So and So Only said ‘Nanny Nanny Boo Boo’ at 5:30″ when Such and Such said OMG!!! PWNED!!!” at 5:29:55″
Does that clear it up?
I smell the rotting corpse of Ron Ramsey’s campaign for governor. It’s around here, and I will find it.
Quit dry humping that corpse, Matt King. It be dead.
I can understand firing someone if their sending out emails telling/showing people how to go rape,murder,rob or molest other people. But good grief I think the summer heat has fried what few remaining brain cells some of you had left. Its just a few stupid emails, people. Reprimand them and move on. If the economy doesnt pick back up quick or you don’t get back into summer school, some of you are going to lose your minds this summer.
Holy shit. At this moment (3:47p Central), page 1 of Post Politics may very well be the most entertaining thing in the entire Tennessee blogosphere. ACK: I don’t care if you’re a GOP shill. Keep churning it.
Those behind this guy’s sacking have no guts. This was pretty damn harmless stuff. The guy rated a verbal smackdown but noooooooo, someone had to prove their purity, their uber-tolerance by not tolerating of big of goofing.
The Republicans ought to hire this guy to show that they are the party that believes in redemption.
The Republicans ought to hire this guy to show that they are the party that believes in redemption.
Weren’t they the ones who released the email in the first place to say, “See, see, Democrats are racist too!”?
Has anyone else noticed that Martin Kennedy is a drooling idiot. It’s like he’s trying out for a spot on FixNoise. He just throws out the most ridiculous right wing victimhood nonsense.
Pull your head out of your ass, Martin.
Well, Marty, not quite that third grade. I have noticed lately he’s advocated for schools that only poor kids can attend and said he’d prefer to give poor women cashmoney rather than child care so they can earn money for themselves. So, I used to respect his free market idealism, but lately he does sound more like a list of GOP talking points.
[...] Our colleagues at the Nashville Scene and the Nashville Post say the sender of the email, an intern named Blake Graves, is no longer employed in the [...]
I disagree with the good doctor a lot, but he is spot-on today, and it’s sure as hell no reason to attack him like that.
Doooooooochebag, of the GOP variety. That’s all Martin Kennedy is.
“Marty Douchebag.” Wow. That’s classy. That’s the kind of thing that gives anonymous Internet commenting such a good name.
I don’t know who released the email GoldnI. The problem is that things like this get abused by partisan hacks as if being human and fallible breaks neatly along party lines.
Connie Ridley’s comment is bull. Blake was looking for a full time position and basically had one in a legislative office. Ridley helped him get it.
With only five months in the Plaza, I can see why Blake made this tiny mistake but 20 years in the legislature would seemingly make Sherri Goforth know better.
Hey this guy is the same guy that was walking around a recent democratic event with a Vivian Wilhite saying he was helping with her campaign. When talking with him he said he was from Memphis and when I looked him up on the social site after he gave me his contact info it said he was a Republican on his page and he even had a Corker logo on his page. He gave me his email address which was ******@memphis.edu and a cell number of ******* and said he lived at *** Gay Street #***. I know this is the same guy because he said he worked for the legislature. He also mentioned working for a couple of campaigns for corker and for someone runnign for mayor in memphis. Something is not right here.
ACK, if you truly meant what you said about citizens, the post above with a citizen’s personal contact info should be deleted. It is what is not right. And, yes, I’d say the same for Goforth’s home phone and address.
Comment, I mean, not the original post.
The resolution passed by the Legislature plainly stated he was a member of the College Republicans. It seems like the post on this site should be changed. Wonder if the shoe were on the other foot how long that would have taken to change?
Thank you!
Get real. What about all the pictures of Bush as a chimp.
I am really getting tired of the dems acting and spending like little kids.
They will destroy us.
This is the biggest power grab in the history of mankind.
Idgaf is right. We must respect the dignity of chimpanzees.
I saw the e-mail (sent to me by someone I shall not name); and I thought it was a cat with it’s eye’s glowing in the dark. A caricature is just that; it’s something that depicts someone or something in a funny way. Obama reminds me of a cat ready to pounch on his prey - the American public’s very existence - the dollar and our way of life. It’s all about the end and we’re squabbling over e-mails. For Cripe’s sake! DELETE, delete, delete! And then move on. I’m old. If someone says they have a senior moment, am I supposed to be offended. My relatives (old 90’s) ended up with Altzheimers’. So what? They even laughed at “old” “senior moment” jokes when they could remember to do so. Let’s stop being so SENSATIVE! Stick to the real issues - like poverty, murder, holding on to our country’s values. Neither dem or rep should be fired. An apology was enough.
What is this country turning into when people change their political party over a period of time (sarcasm). I mean really people why don’t we just go communist? Everyone gets forwards, since when did everyone take each other so seriously. It doesn’t seem like this guy had anyone to go to bat for him. I hope that someone will hear what he has to say, because when you really look at it, it’s nothing like that first incident of the week.