Glassman In Zoom Call To Affiliates: “We’re Not Mourning For George Floyd”
Earlier this week, an article posted to the Medium website detailing the reasons for 10-year affiliate owner Michael Young’s disaffiliation from CrossFit revealed that the contents of a live Zoom call between Young, CrossFit Founder Greg Glassman, Director of Media Sevan Matossian, and a collection of other affiliate owners proved to the final motivation for Young’s decision.
The article detailed some inflammatory comments from Glassman regarding the George Floyd case, and subsequent racial inequality issues that have been boiling over in the United States in the days since the video of his death at the hands of former Minneapolis police officers became public.
- Young notably calls for the release of the full recording of the call by CrossFit HQ in order for the full scope of the conversation to become known to the public.
Multiple news outlets are now reporting additional details on the zoom call after obtaining the full audio of the conversation during which Glassman expands upon his feelings regarding the George Floyd killing, the subsequent public response, as well as the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- “We’re not mourning for George Floyd, I don’t think me or any of my staff are,” Glassman responded when asked about the company’s silence, “Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that it’s the white thing to do.”
- When questioned, Glassman later doubted the actuality of the public response to Floyd’s murder saying “I doubt very much that they’re more mourning for Floyd. I just don’t think that there’s a general mourning for Floyd, in any community.”
- Glassman also voiced his disapproval of the rioting and looting that has taken place in part as a response to the killing as well stating “I would prefer a trial of a murderer rather than burning the city down. I think that the law has a better response. I think burning your city to the ground and burning a police station to the ground because a cop killed what was very likely going to be a co-conspirator in a counterfeit ring”
The conversation then took a turn when Glassman expanded upon his belief of an unfounded conspiracy theory, speculating that Floyd’s killing was perhaps premeditated. Glassman accused the dance club Floyd worked at of being “under investigation by the FBI for over a decade for laundering money,” and that the charges against officer Derek Chauvin would eventually be upgraded to first-degree murder.
- Glassman: “Watch, this thing is going to turn into first-degree murder, that’s what it’s going to turn into. And it’s going to be because I’m predicting this, we have friends in the FBI in your neighborhood, and they’re of the view that this was first-degree murder and it was to silence him over the counterfeit money. That’s the belief. That’s what the cops think.”
- Later Glassman shared his support for law enforcement, recalling his experiences going on ride-alongs with police officers tasked with doing “crazy tough work,” and going on to call some of the backlash against police brutality and calls to defund the police “blaming the police for all of the problems in blighted communities.”
The call also involved discussion around the COVID-19 pandemic, to which Glassman asserted “the Chinese let this virus get out of the laboratory, and that indeed did happen,” before disparaging the lockdown measures placed in response.
- Glassman: “I think it’s inevitable that it’s going to turn out that this has cost way more lives than have been saved. Way more.”
- He also revealed that when asked by some members of the Italian affiliate community about what he would do in their position his response was “I would agree to any restrictions put on me by the health authorities and I would open my gym and then 10 minutes later I would do whatever the fuck I wanted. That’s what I would do.”
The roughly two-hour zoom call included interjections from Matossian, who bristled at the notion of an affiliate considering disaffiliation from CrossFit, accusing the gym owner of “approaching this strictly with your agenda.”
CrossFit Inc. has since issued an apology regarding their communication and handling of the issues presented over the last week, along with Glassman stepping down as CEO and retiring.
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