This is a joke, right?
When I read about ESPN moving an announcer named “Robert Lee” from the University of Virginia football game in Charlottesville, I thought, “People have gone insane.”
Marc Tracy writes in The New York Times that this has caused a storm for ESPN—and then tries to somehow blame Fox Sports and “conservative outlets” for reporting the story “extensively.” (I’ll ask: Where the hell was the nation’s largest newspaper?)
Fox Sports reported ESPN didn’t want to “offend anyone.” But ESPN President John Skipper told The Times, “There was never any concern—by anyone, at any level—that Robert Lee’s name would offend anyone watching the Charlottesville game. Among our Charlotte production staff there was a question as to whether—in these divisive times—Robert’s assignment might create a distraction, or even worse, expose him to social hectoring and trolling.”
Oh, they were worried about their “snowflake” getting hassled on Facebook or Twitter. What a load of crap.
The Times also said, “The Asian American Journalists Association said in a statement, ‘It is unfortunate that someone’s name, particularly a last name that is common among Asian-Americans, can be a potential liability.’” I agree.
For Inc. magazine, Suzanne Lucas noted, “Newsflash: Sportscaster Robert Lee and dead Confederate General Robert E. Lee are not the same person.” Good point, Suzanne.
If this story isn’t enough political correctness to make you vomit, The Columbus Dispatch reports the city council of Oberlin, Ohio, voted unanimously to abolish Columbus Day and replace it with Indigenous People’s Day. (I am not making this stuff up.) So what now happens to Columbus, Ohio, and The Columbus Dispatch? I wonder if the city workers in Oberlin will be upset losing their Columbus Day off because no one celebrates Indigenous People’s Day?
Can somebody wake me up from this nightmare?
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—Rolfe McCollister
