ABSURDARAMA!

Tales of the Absurd in this Mad, Mad World

ESPN announcer removed from UVA football game because of name

ESPN announcer removed from University of Virginia football game because of name

See Matthew Haagaug, “ESPN Pulls Announcer Robert Lee From Virginia Game Because of His Name,” New York Times, August 23, 2017.

ESPN has removed an announcer from its broadcast of the University of Virginia’s first football game next month because he has the same name as a Confederate general memorialized in statues that are being taken down across the country.

The network announced late Tuesday that the announcer, Robert Lee, a part-time employee who calls about a dozen college football and basketball games a year for ESPN, would no longer participate in the broadcast of the Sept. 2 game in Charlottesville, Va., which became the center of violent clashes this month during a white supremacist gathering.

White nationalists and neo-Nazis flooded into Charlottesville, marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches, to protest the city’s plan to remove a statue of the Confederacy’s top general, Robert E. Lee.

After the violence in Charlottesville, which left one person dead, ESPN executives and Mr. Lee decided that for his safety it would be best to have him to work on a different game that Saturday, a network spokesman said.

Please note that the announcer’s name is Robert Lee, not “Robert E. Lee”.

In caving in to fears of violence generated by white supremacists and neo-Nazis, ESPN apparently did not consider the other alternatives of providing Robert Lee with adequate security, monitoring threats, if any, or the impact of their decision on extremists’ groups.

This seems like a win for the racist extremists, demonstrating the power they have in threatening violence, in this absurd world.

Absurdo