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.
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“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.”
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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.
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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.
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PC going awry again…
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