See No Evil

[liberty]

Is it racist to speak the truth? The way to fix a problem is to ignore it, right?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/white- ... spartandhp

White TV anchor fired after racial comments fights back with discrimination lawsuit

Washington Post - Washington Post
The Washington Post
(FILES) This file photo taken on August 01, 2015 shows he US Supreme Court is seenin Washington, DC. How much sovereignty does the island of Puerto Rico possess? The US Supreme Court on January 13, 2016 took up that question, a crucial one for a Caribbean territory torn between its ties to the United States and its desire for greater autonomy. / AFP / KAREN BLEIERKAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images

US Supreme Court declines to hear 'Angola 5' appeal
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White House: Senate gun votes ‘a shameful display of cowardice’

White House: Senate gun votes ‘a shameful display of cowardice’

Undated photo of Wendy Bell.© PittsburghPG via Twitter Undated photo of Wendy Bell. In March, a white, award-winning broadcast news anchor in Pittsburgh posted on her professional Facebook page what she claimed was a heartfelt call to action on the perceived black-on-black crime epidemic in the U.S., particularly in the city she’d covered for almost 20 years.

The post came two weeks after she covered a mass shooting at a backyard barbecue that left four people injured and six dead, including a pregnant woman, in Wilkinsburg, a majority black borough. The district attorney called the heinous crime calculated, planned and one of the “most brutal” he had seen in his 18-year tenure.

Police did not immediately release names or descriptions of the suspects. When WTAE-TV anchor Wendy Bell took to Facebook, there had been no arrests.

Yet the veteran journalist drew her own conclusions about the perpetrators anyway, comments that were decried as racist and demeaning — and that eventually cost her her job.

“You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday,” Bell wrote on Facebook, words that were later deleted. “… They are young black men, likely in their teens or in their early 20s. They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before. They’ve grown up there. They know the police. They’ve been arrested.”

She continued, claiming she found “HOPE” after watching a young, African-American bus boy hustling at his restaurant job while Bell was out to eat with her husband and sons. She complimented the teen through his manager, who later passed the praise onto him.

“It will be some time before I forget the smile that beamed across that young worker’s face — or the look in his eyes as we caught each other’s gaze,” Bell wrote. “I wonder how long it had been since someone told him he was special.”

Almost immediately, critics called her words racist and accused Bell of having a white savior complex. Two days later, the anchor removed the Facebook post and apologized. Seven days after that, on the same day as a meeting between the station management and the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, the TV station fired her.

“WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell,” read a statement from the station’s parent company, Hearst Television, reported the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.”

Now Bell is striking back.

On Monday, an attorney for the mother of five filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf claiming that if she were black, her Facebook post would not have been considered a fireable offense in the eyes of her employer.

“Had an African-American journalist said the same thing, it wouldn’t have generated the same quote-outcry-unquote,” Cordes told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Monday after the suit was filed. “What she said was benign at best. President Obama has said similar things.”

The lawsuit claims that WTAE-TV, an affiliate of Hearst Television Inc., violated the Civil Rights Act when it fired Bell. She wants her job reinstated and to be compensated for backpay and attorney fees.

“Had Ms. Bell written the same comments about white criminal suspects or had her race not been white, Defendant would not have fired her, much less disciplined her,” the suit claims.

Bell’s attorney also suggests in the filing that WTAE-TV “consistently downplays misconduct” by other reporters and anchors because of their race or gender, citing one instance where an employee was not disciplined for making lewd comments to interns that led to the termination of the internship program, and another where a reporter was not disciplined after being arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer.

After she was fired in March, Bell told the Associated Press she didn’t get a “fair shake” from the station.

“It makes me sick,” she said at the time. “What matters is what’s going on in America, and it is the death of black people in this country. … I live next to three war-torn communities in the city of Pittsburgh, that I love dearly. My stories, they struck a nerve. They touched people, but it’s not enough. More needs to be done. The problem needs to be addressed.”

Bell had worked at the station since 1998 and won more than 20 regional Emmy awards for broadcast excellence. In the suit, her attorney describes her as a beloved community journalist who was regularly praised by her employers for her professionalism, judgment and work ethic. It claims that in her most recent performance review, Bell’s bosses encouraged the anchor to continue engaging with the audience on her Facebook page.

The suit claims that the last performance review also said that Bell was “often exceeding expectations in the way she embodies [the station’s] core values.”

The news of Bell’s dismissal was leaked to news outlets hours before the station told her, the suit claims, and emphasized that the decision coincided with a meeting the station held that same day with the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation to discuss the Facebook post and issues of racial diversity.

The federation told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that they did not call for Bell to be fired, and that their meeting took place after news of her termination was announced.

In the immediate aftermath of Bell’s post, angry viewers and commenters flooded the TV station Facebook page, the comments sections of news reports on the issue, Twitter and Reddit. Others, however, vehemently defended Bell and praised her for speaking what was on her mind. In the post, she expressed anger and sadness for the senseless loss of life at the hands of gunmen she called cowards.

The Wilkinsburg mass slaying case that inspired the controversial Facebook post has yet to be solved. Two men described as suspects by prosecutors have not been charged with the murders, according to news reports, but are being held at the Allegheny County Jail on drug charges in an unrelated case that dates back to 2013.

Sam Cordes, Bell’s attorney, told the Post-Gazette on Monday that he plans to add a gender discrimination claim to the lawsuit once he receives the okay from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Bell has deleted her WTAE Facebook page and scrubbed her Twitter biography of her ties to the station or the journalism profession. On a new, personal Facebook page, she has conducted informal interviews with people around the city.

Cordes told the Post-Gazette that Bell is looking for a job, but faces challenges because the TV station told her it would enforce a noncompete clause in her contract that ends on March 30, 2017.

The station has not commented on the suit.

“This was not easy for her and has not been,” Cordes told the Post-Gazette.

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[Scooter]

She spoke the truth? And you know this how, moron? What FACTS can you present about this case that prove she spoke the truth?









Anything at all?



















waiting




















waiting



















waiting



















waiting



















waiting



















Didn't think so.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Is it incredibly lazy to copy/paste material from the interwebs without editing out all the rubbish that does not belong in it? Here, I've done it for you. Next time, you do it.

Is it racist to speak the truth? The way to fix a problem is to ignore it, right?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/white- ... spartandhp

White TV anchor fired after racial comments fights back with discrimination lawsuit
Washington Post

In March, a white, award-winning broadcast news anchor in Pittsburgh posted on her professional Facebook page what she claimed was a heartfelt call to action on the perceived black-on-black crime epidemic in the U.S., particularly in the city she’d covered for almost 20 years.

The post came two weeks after she covered a mass shooting at a backyard barbecue that left four people injured and six dead, including a pregnant woman, in Wilkinsburg, a majority black borough. The district attorney called the heinous crime calculated, planned and one of the “most brutal” he had seen in his 18-year tenure.

Police did not immediately release names or descriptions of the suspects. When WTAE-TV anchor Wendy Bell took to Facebook, there had been no arrests.

Yet the veteran journalist drew her own conclusions about the perpetrators anyway, comments that were decried as racist and demeaning — and that eventually cost her her job.

“You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday,” Bell wrote on Facebook, words that were later deleted. “… They are young black men, likely in their teens or in their early 20s. They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before. They’ve grown up there. They know the police. They’ve been arrested.”

She continued, claiming she found “HOPE” after watching a young, African-American bus boy hustling at his restaurant job while Bell was out to eat with her husband and sons. She complimented the teen through his manager, who later passed the praise onto him.

“It will be some time before I forget the smile that beamed across that young worker’s face — or the look in his eyes as we caught each other’s gaze,” Bell wrote. “I wonder how long it had been since someone told him he was special.”

Almost immediately, critics called her words racist and accused Bell of having a white savior complex. Two days later, the anchor removed the Facebook post and apologized. Seven days after that, on the same day as a meeting between the station management and the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation, the TV station fired her.

“WTAE has ended its relationship with anchor Wendy Bell,” read a statement from the station’s parent company, Hearst Television, reported the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Wendy’s recent comments on a WTAE Facebook page were inconsistent with the company’s ethics and journalistic standards.”

Now Bell is striking back.

On Monday, an attorney for the mother of five filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf claiming that if she were black, her Facebook post would not have been considered a fireable offense in the eyes of her employer.

“Had an African-American journalist said the same thing, it wouldn’t have generated the same quote-outcry-unquote,” Cordes told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Monday after the suit was filed. “What she said was benign at best. President Obama has said similar things.”

The lawsuit claims that WTAE-TV, an affiliate of Hearst Television Inc., violated the Civil Rights Act when it fired Bell. She wants her job reinstated and to be compensated for backpay and attorney fees.

“Had Ms. Bell written the same comments about white criminal suspects or had her race not been white, Defendant would not have fired her, much less disciplined her,” the suit claims.

Bell’s attorney also suggests in the filing that WTAE-TV “consistently downplays misconduct” by other reporters and anchors because of their race or gender, citing one instance where an employee was not disciplined for making lewd comments to interns that led to the termination of the internship program, and another where a reporter was not disciplined after being arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer.

After she was fired in March, Bell told the Associated Press she didn’t get a “fair shake” from the station.

“It makes me sick,” she said at the time. “What matters is what’s going on in America, and it is the death of black people in this country. … I live next to three war-torn communities in the city of Pittsburgh, that I love dearly. My stories, they struck a nerve. They touched people, but it’s not enough. More needs to be done. The problem needs to be addressed.”

Bell had worked at the station since 1998 and won more than 20 regional Emmy awards for broadcast excellence. In the suit, her attorney describes her as a beloved community journalist who was regularly praised by her employers for her professionalism, judgment and work ethic. It claims that in her most recent performance review, Bell’s bosses encouraged the anchor to continue engaging with the audience on her Facebook page.

The suit claims that the last performance review also said that Bell was “often exceeding expectations in the way she embodies [the station’s] core values.”

The news of Bell’s dismissal was leaked to news outlets hours before the station told her, the suit claims, and emphasized that the decision coincided with a meeting the station held that same day with the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation to discuss the Facebook post and issues of racial diversity.

The federation told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that they did not call for Bell to be fired, and that their meeting took place after news of her termination was announced.

In the immediate aftermath of Bell’s post, angry viewers and commenters flooded the TV station Facebook page, the comments sections of news reports on the issue, Twitter and Reddit. Others, however, vehemently defended Bell and praised her for speaking what was on her mind. In the post, she expressed anger and sadness for the senseless loss of life at the hands of gunmen she called cowards.

The Wilkinsburg mass slaying case that inspired the controversial Facebook post has yet to be solved. Two men described as suspects by prosecutors have not been charged with the murders, according to news reports, but are being held at the Allegheny County Jail on drug charges in an unrelated case that dates back to 2013.

Sam Cordes, Bell’s attorney, told the Post-Gazette on Monday that he plans to add a gender discrimination claim to the lawsuit once he receives the okay from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Bell has deleted her WTAE Facebook page and scrubbed her Twitter biography of her ties to the station or the journalism profession. On a new, personal Facebook page, she has conducted informal interviews with people around the city.

Cordes told the Post-Gazette that Bell is looking for a job, but faces challenges because the TV station told her it would enforce a noncompete clause in her contract that ends on March 30, 2017.

The station has not commented on the suit.

“This was not easy for her and has not been,” Cordes told the Post-Gazette.

[liberty]

Is it incredibly lazy to copy/paste material from the interwebs without editing out all the rubbish that does not belong in it? Here, I've done it for you. Next time, you do it.

[quote=".

[/quote]

Mr. Meade, thank you, I admit I screwed up. I was in too much of a hurry. If I keep it up you will just have to fire me.

[MajGenl.Meade]

She spoke the truth? And you know this how, moron? What FACTS can you present about this case that prove she spoke the truth?

Maybe she didn't speak the truth. Maybe she made a reasoned deduction based on the crime, the place in which it occurred and the murder/shooting statistics of black on black crime in Philadelphia.

Evidently whether or not the persons named below are actually the perpetrators, the police seem to think that the shooters were er... black persons with prior criminal records. I wonder where they got that idea?

OK she lied made a wrong assumption - they weren't in their teens or early twenties - they are both in their late twenties.

“At a bond hearing this morning on a case involving drug and weapons charges against Robert Thomas, it was revealed through statements by both prosecution and defense counsel that Thomas is considered a suspect in the March 9 shootings in Wilkinsburg. That information was then further confirmed through testimony from an Allegheny County homicide detective. Following our argument that we consider Thomas a flight risk and a danger to the community based on his previous record and the drug and weapons charges that he currently faces, Judge (David) Cashman agreed with our assessment and denied bond.”

Four people, including two men identified as suspects in the March mass slayings in Wilkinsburg, were held for trial Friday on drug and other charges in a 2013 case that a district judge had dismissed twice...Friday’s hearing stemmed from an incident Feb. 21, 2013, when two county probation officers went to an apartment to arrest Shelton, 29, of Lincoln-Lemington, and Mr. Gomez, 27, of Rankin, on probation violations

No one has been charged for the murders yet, but during a court hearing last week an Allegheny County police detective revealed that Robert Thomas, 27, is a suspect in the attack. Another man, Cheron Shelton, 29, has been questioned twice about the attack. Both men are in jail on weapons and drugs charges.

[Lord Jim]

Once again lib, I feel compelled to point out that it is your seemingly obsessive fascination with matters of race...

And matters of race that always seem to be variations on a single theme:

Whites supposedly being mistreated because of their race, blacks being credited with things they don't deserve because of their race, black-on-white crime supposedly not being reported, and on and on and on...

That gives re-enforcement to the view of many here that you are a racist....

and this thread is going to serve as yet one more example to re-enforce that view...

[Joe Guy]

Many racists don't believe they are racist.

That's because they are all dumbass honky crackers...

[Scooter]

Can you think of a single racist who believes he/she is a racist?

Because somehow the village idiot has deluded himself into thinking that merely proclaiming not to be a racist makes it so.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Whether or not lib is a racist (and he certainly has a bee in his bonnet on the subject), is it possible to respond to the actual post itself?

Was the comment by the woman racist in nature or not? If not, how is firing her justified?

[Joe Guy]

...Was the comment by the woman racist in nature or not? If not, how is firing her justified?

It was a racist statement if she didn't know the shooters were black. Seems obvious to me...

[Scooter]

She wasn't just talking about the shooters, she was painting a picture of an entire community, and she was trying to create a link between what she purports to be characteristics of that community and crimes like the one at issue here.

Even her lawsuit is couched in the rhetoric used by racists to attempt to justify themselves. If I were a judge just reading her pleadings would be enough to tell me that her employer pegged her completely accurately.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Maybe she made a reasoned deduction based on the crime, the place in which it occurred and the murder/shooting statistics of black on black crime in Philadelphia.

Evidently whether or not the persons named below are actually the perpetrators, the police seem to think that the shooters were er... black persons with prior criminal records. I wonder where they got that idea?

OK she lied made a wrong assumption - they weren't in their teens or early twenties - they are both in their late twenties.

Fair enough, Joe. But was her statement based on a racist assumption or a reasonable assumption? Was she right or wrong in her (editorial) comment?

What do we think about the total lack of description of the two shooters in the media at the time of the event? It seems incredible that the witnesses did not at least give some description involving the skin tone of the shooters - or why on earth did police look for two black dudes?

If they'd been white, I would bet that would be sensational news (and an almost vanishingly likely occurrence). White dudes surviving the 'hood? Could happen.

It seems to me that this entire thing is based on denial - black lives matter (yes, indeed they do) but God forbid we should acknowledge that blacks kill blacks in horribly huge numbers. Let's fire the woman who reported (accurately enough) on what went down.

[Lord Jim]

Maybe she didn't speak the truth. Maybe she made a reasoned deduction based on the crime, the place in which it occurred and the murder/shooting statistics of black on black crime in Philadelphia.

(Actually I believe it was Pittsburgh, but the point remains the same...)

Well, it's an indisputable fact that the greatest threat to the lives and safety of African Americans (particularly African Americans living in the kind of low-income urban environment that apparently is where this terrible crime took place) isn't rogue cops or cross burning Klansmen, it is the scourge of black-on-black crime...

The statistics on this are overwhelming and irrefutable...

So I don't think that given this fact, that speculation like this, (speculation that Meade's research on the case reveals to have been largely accurate) is in and of itself racist per se...

Personally, I think if it had been engaged in by a newspaper columnist or someone hired to do commentary, it would have been perfectly fine...

For me the real question is whether it is appropriate for someone who is billed as a journalist, a reporter of the news, a reporter of fact, (and in this case apparently a fairly prominent and well known one in that market) to be engaging publicly in this sort of speculation absent actual factual confirmation...

In my opinion, probably not. Given her position, I don't think that showed good judgement on her part. (Presumably she herself came to understand this, when she took down the posting and apologized for it.)

That having been said, should this bad judgement call have risen to the level of a firing offense? In the news biz, the answer to that is that it's a business decision, not a "moral" one....

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sorry about Philadelphia when it wasn't.... brain fart.

She wasn't just talking about the shooters, she was painting a picture of an entire community, and she was trying to create a link between what she purports to be characteristics of that community and crimes like the one at issue here

Now who's using racist words? She spoke of the killers - the above applies the description to an entire community (because they are black).

“You needn’t be a criminal profiler to draw a mental sketch of the killers who broke so many hearts two weeks ago Wednesday,” Bell wrote on Facebook, words that were later deleted. “… They are young black men, likely in their teens or in their early 20s. They have multiple siblings from multiple fathers and their mothers work multiple jobs. These boys have been in the system before. They’ve grown up there. They know the police. They’ve been arrested.”

What kind of idiot does not recognize the extreme likelihood that young men with that kind of background (young, black, prior arrests; in the system) were the shooters?

I don't know if their fathers are absent but it's likely their mothers work more than one job to try to make ends meet. Is that racist - to say they work hard? We're speaking here of the conditions that create monsters.

[Joe Guy]

Fair enough, Joe. But was her statement based on a racist assumption or a reasonable assumption? Was she right or wrong in her (editorial) comment?

I don't know anything about her but I suspect it was more of a reasonable assumption than a racist one.

It seems to me that this entire thing is based on denial - black lives matter (yes, indeed they do) but God forbid we should acknowledge that blacks kill blacks in horribly huge numbers. Let's fire the woman who reported (accurately enough) on what went down.

She shouldn't be reporting her assumptions, just the facts. I don't think she should have been fired but they didn't ask me. I'm sure the reason for the firing was because some fat rich white dudes in some air conditioned office suite took their typical lazy and easy way out. They didn't stand behind their employee because they didn't want to bother with all the complaints they would receive from the black community.

If I substituted 'black' for 'white' in the above paragraph, would that be racist?

[liberty]

Some time back sixty minutes did an episode on intercity homicides. They were in an intercity elementary school with and a group students assembled. They were asked to raise their hand if they knew someone who had been murdered. If I remember correctly every kid in that room raised his hand. Assuming the kids were not lying, surely everyone here can see a problem that needs to be fixed.

This is not a racial problem it is a cultural problem. There is nothing that can be done about race, I am what I am, but culture is something that people make and they can remake it. I live in an area where I have black neighbors all around me, but when hear gun shots I don’t think drive-by shooting, I think target practice. We do don’t have shooting here, for the most part. We have a rural southern culture where violence is not the norm.

What is going on in the inter-cities of this country some could consider a holocaust and I find it interesting that here the ones that seem to care the most are conservative and the ones that seem to care the least are liberals. Am I wrong?

[Bicycle Bill]

What in the hell is an "inter-city homicide"?  Methinks you meant "inner-city homicide", and as Meade has already noted, you are too lazy or otherwise inept to do a little bit of fact-checking and/or proof-reading.

And given the developments in this case Ms. Bell should be re-hired, because — as she hypothesized in her earlier article — it turns out that both suspects are people who are endowed with an over-abundance of melanin.  This means that Ms. Bell either is a genuine psychic and possesses powers of divination far beyond anyone since "The Amazing Kreskin", or she has sources of intelligence that are far more accurate than anything local law enforcement has been able to cultivate.

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

She shouldn't be reporting her assumptions, just the facts.

But she didn't "report" her assumptions, Joe. She wrote her opinion that was:

posted on her professional Facebook page

[liberty]

What in the hell is an "inter-city homicide"?  Methinks you meant "inner-city homicide", and as Meade has already noted, you are too lazy or otherwise inept to do a little bit of fact-checking and/or proof-reading.

-"BB"-

In real estate they say something is worth what one is willing to pay. I am not making a lot here.

I am not lazy nor do I fail to proof read and I did mean inner-city instead of inter-city, I just didn’t see it. I can ensure you it will happen again in what context I can’t say, but it will happen. So that leave you with two choices, you can start a thread to have me removed or you can expect it to happen again.

[liberty]

And given the developments in this case Ms. Bell should be re-hired, because — as she hypothesized in her earlier article — it turns out that both suspects are people who are endowed with an over-abundance of melanin.  This means that Ms. Bell either is a genuine psychic and possesses powers of divination far beyond anyone since "The Amazing Kreskin", or she has sources of intelligence that are far more accurate than anything local law enforcement has been able to cultivate.

-"BB"-

The ability she has is the ability to see a pattern. I use it myself in my work; it saves a lot trouble shooting time. Evidently there are a lot people that don’t have that ability.