"What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet." Apparently, Shakespeare was mistaken.
Robert
Lee, a part time announcer for ESPN, has now been redirected from his
employment in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia football game scheduled for
September 2 due to concern for his safety. Mr. Lee's crime was sharing a name
with a statue in that city, recently the subject of national
attention.
What have we become as a nation? Are we so vacuous that we can't distinguish between a former mid 19th century Confederate general and a present day gentleman of Asian descent whose full time job is in Albany, NY? Do we really have to worry that anyone named Robert Lee is now less safe than someone named Robert Smith?
ESPN, Mr. Lee's employer, should seriously reconsider its absurdity. It merely reinforces the problem, magnifying it and amplifying it. Mr. Lee has committed no sin and while ESPN is not throwing stones at him, it is clearly overreacting and creating a problem where none exists.
Somewhere in America there must be a person named Abraham Lincoln. Maybe Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Lee could become an announcing duo, giving us reason to believe that finally the civil war has ended.
What's in a name? Shakespeare may have to do a re-write on Romeo and Juliet.
2 comments:
We aren't stupid but we are in the control of the marketing Svengalis who have convinced us that "optics" and image and the snapshot-of-fame is far more important than substance. Even the word "substance" has been redefined to mean illegal drugs.
Then again, I always wondered if Sarah Huckabee Sanders is related to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and if so, she should quit her job and enroll as a Democrat.
Unfortunately, CNN's blunder has given a green light for the Pro-Trump radio talk-show idiots to make the analogy that Robert E. Lee and Robert Lee are both victims of political correctness. Stupidity has become an epidemic.
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