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.