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Monday, September 10, 2007

Harold Reynolds: The Truth Comes Out

There has been all kinds of speculation as to the specifics of former ESPN Baseball analyst Harold Reynolds' firing.

Misconduct had been sited as the impetus, but details of the alleged infraction had not been conclusive.

Well, it seems that finally, the dark reasons for Reynolds losing his position are coming to light as he seeks wrongful termination proceedings against ESPN.

Harold Reynolds, the former "Baseball Tonight" analyst who is suing ESPN for wrongful termination, said in a court filing yesterday that the network treated him more harshly over a sexual harassment complaint than it treated white employees who engaged in similar types of misbehavior. ESPN and Reynolds, who is black, had been in settlement discussions that did not work out, said Daniel Alterman, a lawyer for Reynolds. Reynolds's filing in state court in Hartford described instances of sexual harassment and lewd and drunken acts by white employees in which the punishment fell far short of termination. Reynolds has said that he only gave a hug to a female intern, who later complained. "ESPN's rush to its decision to terminate Mr. Reynolds was affected by racial bias," the filing said.

Reynolds' lawyers had initially attempted to settle the case in an effort to allow ESPN the chance to avoid the embarrassment of having their racially biased termination history exposed. However, to the dismay of Reynolds and his lawyers, ESPN chose not to meet team Reynolds requests.

In June, a makeup artist for “Cold Pizza,” a defunct talk show, sued ESPN, saying she was fired after complaining about sexual harassment by the host, Jay Crawford, and an analyst, Woody Paige.

It would seem that, when the involved parties are white males, ESPN's course of action is to fire the accuser. For some reason, Reynolds' Negroeness elicited the complete reverse response from the employer.

The incidents listed included one in which an analyst showed a cellphone photograph of his genitals to male and female employees and received a one-week suspension.

Again, interesting. Reynolds imparts an unwelcome hug on a female, and he is canned. And Sean Salisbury reveals his meager pants filler to anyone of any sex with eyes and he is given a weeks vacation.

Most deplorable in all this is ESPN's 'response':

In a statement, ESPN said “Mr. Reynolds’s new claims represent a litigation strategy designed to deflect attention from his own conduct.”

Yes, clearly, referencing the precedents set by ESPN is aimed at deflecting from the fact that Mr. Reynolds upset someone with a hug. It has nothing to do with demonstrating the institutional bias housed within the campus at Bristol. It has nothing to do with clearly and unequivocally showing the world that if you are white and work for ESPN, you can essentially walk around with your pale and shrivelled little sack struggling to poke through the fly of your trousers. If you are white and work for ESPN, you can sexually harass the 'help' and, if they get uppity and complain, you can count on management terminating their existence at the WWL.

It seems ESPN would have us believe Mr. Reynolds is simply trying to cast the dark light of righteousness on the deplorable actions by both the white male 'talent' that harasses and the white male 'management' that covers up for them in an effort to make us forget that as a Negro, he deserves to be fired for hugging a white female.

That is what this is all about.

This is simply a modern edition of the revered American practice of lynching the Negro male that becomes familiar with the white woman.

We applaud Mr. Reynolds and his team of litigators for not simply allowing his body to sway silently in the wind as it hangs from the tree on which ESPN chose to hang him.



The generally accepted corporate separation principle is: you pay for silence.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The dark reasons"... rimshot.

nation_of_islam_sportsblog said...

Sir, our little bon mots never elude your eagle eyes!

Adam J said...

We'll know the fix is in when J.A. Adande is fired for refusing to be sodomized by Skip Bayless.

Oh, who am I kidding? Skip's a catcher.

Maximum Overdouche said...

I'm pretty sure the M's didn't re-sign him in '92 because he was coloured.

lgf said...

I might disagree with NOIS here, but upon hearing this:

"an analyst showed a cellphone photograph of his genitals to male and female employees and received a one-week suspension."

its pretty clear Reynolds was unfairly terminated.

August West said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
August West said...

100% agree with ya, NOIS

However you didn't even mention the truly terrible part of this whole affair: Harold Reynolds was the most talented baseball analyst, and one of the top 3 in-studio analyst regardless of sports, at ESPN! He was really, really good at his job and got fired for being a black man with his arms around a white woman.

Yet Lil' Sean, Jay and a guy named f*&king Woody get to stay on-air.

The unjust loss of The Taleneted Mr. Reynolds crippled Baseball Tonight, and for that, heads should roll.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

"an analyst showed a cellphone photograph of his genitals to male and female employees and received a one-week suspension."

Unfortunately, what Salisbury did was not sexual harassment. He may have been suspended for a week due to inappropriate behavior, but his actions would not give rise to a sexual harassment claim.

He must have consulted with his legal counsel before flaunting his junk, because he did it right.

If your conduct is the same wrt both sexes, it is NOT sexual harassment.

Harold's mistake was that he did not hug a male intern, too.

Sebastian said...

NOIS,

Excellent analysis.

Gern said...

I want to hear more about the Sean Salisbury incident. Anything that could help get him off the air would be welcome.

brian! said...

Ah, I'll take this one with a grain of salt NOIS. Who knows what Reynolds actually did? Should Sean have been canned? Hell yes. However, in the case of Harold, I think that there is a bit too much hoopla about this.

I'm sure you are all familiar with Ockham's razor. The simple explanation, that Reynolds was sexually harassing multiple women (I HIGHLY doubt hugging one intern caused this) is most likely the truth. I mean, jesus, Michael Irvin was pulled over with cocaine in his car and ESPN didn't can him.

Debora Spencer Photography said...

I worked for Harold Reynolds in the early 90's for his charity. I know from my experience with him that he is a harasser. He constantly hits on women then lies and vilifies them. He once showed up at my apartment saying he had no where to stay. I thought he was my friend so I told him he could stay on my sofa. He instead chased me all over until I was able to get a chair in front of a door to stop him.