Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

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_Bach
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Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Bach »

An Asian American sportscaster gets booted from reporting on a sporting event by ESPN only because of his name : Robert Lee!!!

EA, KG &Jersey Girl - Need your racial rationalization here on this one. You guys are few that I know have the skills to explain.

Thanks in advance.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Even though I think you're an unemployed slob, a clock is right twice a day. You'll get no concession from the RadLeftists on the board (although you have EA and Jersey Girl pegged wrong).

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Maxine Waters
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Maxine Waters »

ESPN pulled an Asian broadcaster named Robert Lee from a University of Virginia football game because of his name. Lee is being moved to cover a game in Pittsburgh instead.

“We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name,” ESPN officials disclosed in a statement obtained from ESPN spokesman Derek Volner. “In that moment if felt right to all parties.”

OutkickTheCoverage.com’s Clay Travis broke the story Tuesday evening.  Travis wrote:

In a story that seems made for The Onion, but is actually true, according to multiple Outkick fans inside ESPN MSESPN decided to pull an Asian college football announcer named Robert Lee off the William and Mary at University of Virginia college football game because they were concerned that having an ASIAN FOOTBALL ANNOUNCER NAMED ROBERT LEE would be offensive to some viewers.

Did I mention that Robert Lee is Asian?

ESPN originally scheduled Lee to cover this weekend’s game between William and Mary College and the University of Virginia. Instead, ESPN reassigned Lee to cover the game between Youngstown State and Pittsburgh. Dave Weekley will cover the game in Virginia. “Unless someone tries to take down Dave Weekley statues between now and kickoff,” Travis wrote. “In which case ESPN will be royally screwed.”

Travis continued:

Does ESPN really believe people are this dumb or that having an Asian announcer named Robert Lee is too offensive for the average TV viewer to handle?

Yes, yes they do.

“It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play-by-play for a football game has become an issue,” the ESPN statement concludes.

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/08/ ... ball-game/

And here I thought Bach was just blowing smoke. Where would we be if these people were in control of the government again?
“There were mothers who took this [Rodney King LA riots] as an opportunity to take some milk, to take some bread, to take some shoes ... They are not crooks.”

This liberal would be about socializing … uh, umm. … Would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies.
_Doctor CamNC4Me
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

Image
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Jesse Jackson Jr
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Jesse Jackson Jr »

We also know that people with the last name "Lynch," can be viewed as being associated with the Ku Klux Klan. Whether they are or not does not matter, only how people might interpret this name. If that interpretation is liable to be offensive, we must create a safe space for those who are incapable of understanding the difference, which is most of the Democratic party right now.

Since Asians have been more successful than blacks on average, we must take special steps to cut them down in their careers when we get a chance if we can ever hope to achieve the equality of result social justice economy at the core of our philosophy. Dismissing Mr. Lee from calling the game was just the right thing to do at this time.

Also if Asians are more successful, it must be due to past racism in this country. It has nothing to do with hard work and family values.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Aug 23, 2017 11:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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_EAllusion
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _EAllusion »

The moved him to a different game because they didn't want his name to bring up an association with recent ugly events for the game he's calling in Virginia and therefore associate the proceedings with something dark. It's potentially a distraction, in other words. Sounds like a Disney move if I ever heard one. It's laughably oversensitive and treats the public like it is made up entirely of Helen Lovejoy's getting ready to clutch their pearls. This is quite different than removing him because his name is offensive.

Can't even represent the gimmes honestly. In other news, Ajax thinks the country was recently run by ESPN middle-management / marketing.
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Kevin Graham »

According to USA Today:

With Robert E. Lee suddenly back in the news, they feared Robert Lee, a young, new play-by-play announcer assigned to the Virginia-William & Mary game on opening weekend would show up in Twitter memes and posts on Web sites like Awful Announcing or Deadspin. They were worried that his big moment, even on a lightly watched game, might turn into a national joke.

According to an ESPN executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, ESPN asked Lee if he would be more comfortable calling another game but gave him the option to stay. Lee chose to switch assignments, and ESPN accommodated him.


Sounds perfectly innocuous and reasonable, right?

However, by reading the Right Wing headlines you'd think someone was fired for having the wrong name. That's certainly the way bach intended to frame it by saying he got "booted." Right wing propaganda mills, Daily Wire and Freebeacon.com say ESPN "removes" him and Newsmax says ESPN "drops" him.

But in reality this was just one company looking out for its employee. There is no doubt that someone in the Twittersphere would have picked up on the strange coincidence and make this guy the subject of brutal memefests.

The only reason this shows up as "news" for idiots like bach is because some Right Wing douche bag critic of ESPN caught wing of this and quickly scurried on over to FOX News, where they of course anxiously gave him a platform for yet another segment of their daily dose of non-news. During his time on the air he bitched about how Liberal Sportscasters were, laughing about how only 4% voted for Trump.Tucker Carlson went nuts while interviewing this guy, saying "this is grotesque!"

Just another day of manufactured outrage by the Right Wing Propaganda machine.

And think about the hypocrisy for a minute. The people here, who are desperately trying to create some kind of news story about some sportscaster reassigning himself to prevent a needless distraction, are generally the same people who have been bitching and moaning for years about how the Left Wing media focuses on non-news like Confederate monuments and Nazi killings.
_EAllusion
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _EAllusion »

In the ESPN comments Clay Travis got, they said they collectively made the decision with whatshisname. I take that to mean they asked him if he wanted to switch, and no one in their right mind would feel totally free saying "no" to such a question. He said yes. It's a bad look for ESPN here. It's almost satirical.

However, what it isn't is removing him because his name is offensive. It's moving him to another game because some people in management are thinking way too hard about how the audience is going to react.
_Kevin Graham
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _Kevin Graham »

EAllusion wrote:In the ESPN comments Clay Travis got, they said they collectively made the decision with whatshisname. I take that to mean they asked him if he wanted to switch, and no one in their right mind would feel totally free saying "no" to such a question. He said yes. It's a bad look for ESPN here. It's almost satirical.

However, what it isn't is removing him because his name is offensive. It's moving him to another game because some people in management are thinking way too hard about how the audience is going to react.


Nah. I don't doubt their stated intentions. It makes perfect sense for them to be concerned that this could create a distraction and all it takes is just one idiot of more than 300 million people in this country to notice the weird coincidence and cause a Twitter storm over it. If it were more along the lines of what you think, then I doubt they would have given him the choice to stay at all. It would be like a reporter named Saddam Hussein reporting on a surge in ISIS recruiting.

And a reporter being reassigned to a different game is no big deal at all and happens all the time according to SI. To complain would be like an airline pilot complaining that he's flying 3 hours to New York instead of 3 hours to Cincinnati. It just isn't that big of a deal.
_moksha
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Re: Robert Lee gets booted from broadcast by ESPN

Post by _moksha »

Couldn't they have simply listed him as Bubba Lee for that one particular game?
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