Black, female ex-Charlie Rose staffer suggests racism because he didn't harass her

Thomas Lifson  "It's always something," as the late Gilda Radner's comedy character Roseanne Roseannadanna would conclude – usually about trivial or completely misguided complaints she voiced (a classic example here).  Those words echoed in my mind as I read the litany of complaints one of Charlie Rose's former staffers lodged in the pages of Esquire earlier this month.  Ms. Rebecca Carroll wrote:

His language around race felt consistently coded. Charlie demanded I book the black guests he wanted but previously had been unable to get – black guests of a perceived level of respectability and intelligence (Sidney Poitier) – while dismissing the black guests I pitched, (Vivica Fox, for example). He accused me of pushing my own agenda several times, memorably when I pitched a panel on hip-hop. (I did not hear my white colleagues receive criticism that they were pushing any sort of agenda when they pitched potential guests and segments.)

 "It is unclear if being asked to book black guests he wanted was in itself offensive to her.  One could argue that this was racist – segregating the booking process.  But one could also argue that not asking her to book black guests was racist, as in "keeping it within the community" or "cultural appropriation" claims of turf.

"But she was just warming up.  A similar ambivalence attends her words about sexual harassment:    (Wait for it, here it comes:)

[W]hile many of us on staff were subject to Charlie's unsolicited shoulder massages and physical intimidation, as he towered above us at a height over six feet tall, the women Charlie preferred and preyed upon – at least that I witnessed – were white. It was an environment that all but erased me, while simultaneously exploiting me as a black woman. . . .