November 03, 2016
Source: Bigstock
After adding a well-intentioned (if self-important) anecdote praising a young black busboy she encountered at a restaurant, Bell concluded,
There’s someone in your life today”a stranger you”re going to come across”who could really use that. A hand up. A warm word. Encouragement. Direction. Kindness. A Chance. We can”t change what’s already happened, but we can be a part of what’s on the way. Speak up. Reach out. Dare to Care. Give part of You to someone else. That, my friends, can change someone’s course. And then”just maybe THEN”I”ll start feeling again like there’s something nice to say.
Wow, what ghastly racism, what vile bigotry. Even a hardened Klansman would recoil from such blatant hate speech.
Now, here’s an interesting twist: Bell turned out to be right about the race of the killers, but (and few in the media have reported this) she was actually too kind in her description. The mastermind of the shooting, 29-year-old Cheron Shelton, is no “lost child.” He’s a cold-blooded butcher, an assassin whose intention had been to wipe out an entire bloodline. As reported by WTAE”the station that fired Bell”Shelton told his accomplice, “I”m trying to treat them [the family whose members were gunned down] like the Jews; I”m trying to eliminate their whole blood lines.” The WTAE reporters covering the story even mused about Shelton’s “bloodlust.” I guess WTAE allows that kind of speculation.
In light of Shelton’s arrest, let’s reverse engineer Bell’s comments. Let’s say they were made after Shelton was identified. Let’s say she took a look at this human monster, this sickening creature, and said, “Oh, he’s just a lost soul, a product of the system, the inevitable result of an uncaring society that forces impoverished mothers to work multiple jobs.” She”d have been hailed by leftists as a social justice hero for “humanizing” a black murderer and deflecting blame onto “the system.” She”d have been lauded as one of the “good whites.” But because Bell had the misfortune of making her statement before the arrest, she’s a Klanswoman, a Nazi.
Fortunately, Bell isn”t taking the racial double standard lying down. She’s fighting back, and she has a very capable employment discrimination attorney by her side. That lawyer, Sam Cordes, is doing something exceedingly brilliant; he’s making the left’s beloved antidiscrimination laws work in his client’s favor. WTAE has argued in court that the suit should be dismissed because Bell’s contention that she wouldn”t have been fired for her comments had she been black is based on “speculation,” but Cordes countered by citing two recent decisions by the liberal-leaning Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that rejected the notion that a plaintiff in a discrimination case must prove a defendant’s state of mind by citing factual evidence. “State of mind can be inferred from the situation,” Mr. Cordes told the court. The case was allowed to proceed.
“We”re in the typical back and forth phases before the judge, and we just got a new one because the one assigned to our case retired, determines how we can proceed,” Bell told me last week. “A long process, as you well know.” Due to the ongoing litigation, neither she nor Mr. Cordes could comment on the specifics of the case, but I certainly can. Make no mistake”this is a supremely important lawsuit. For a while now, the left has been directing its fire at public media companies (like WTAE) in its quest to enforce speech apartheid. It’s relatively easy to get a media personality fired for real or perceived (and it’s almost always perceived) racism, because media companies have a bit more leeway to fire employees for speech crimes due to the legitimate argument that public personalities, be they actors or newspeople, have a responsibility to maintain an image that doesn”t alienate viewers. That’s fair enough. Had Wendy Bell taken to Facebook and posted a hate screed against blacks, WTAE would have had a case. But she didn”t. She didn”t do anything even remotely close to that. She is being penalized for her skin color, and her skin color alone.
If Bell prevails in court, it will absolutely make other employers think twice before they punish an employee for being too pink-skinned to speak the truth.
Good luck, Wendy. And good on you for fighting back against the racial state.
