Editor’s Note: Peniel E. Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in ethics and political values and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor of history. He is the author of “Stokely: A Life” and “The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.” The views expressed here are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.
Mike Richards’s ouster as executive producer of two popular game shows – “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” came Tuesday after weeks of turmoil. Despite appearing to some as closure, his fate also reveals the enduring challenges that persist in combating systemic inequality in corporate America.
Richards’ dismissal comes after he stepped aside as “Jeopardy!” host, following an outcry over offensive comments – made on an old podcast and resurfaced by “The Ringer” – mocking Haiti, women and Jews (among other derogatory remarks).
“Jeopardy!” producer Sony declined to comment to “The Ringer,” and Richards said in a statement to them: “It is humbling to confront a terribly embarrassing moment of misjudgment, thoughtlessness, and insensitivity from nearly a decade ago. Looking back now, there is no excuse, of course, for the comments I made on this podcast and I am deeply sorry.”
When Richards was initially announced as the host who would permanently replace Alex Trebek, who passed away in November 2020 after a battle with cancer, the news immediately raised eyebrows – even before the controversy over his behavior erupted.
That’s largely because Richards oversaw key aspects of the nine-month search for a permanent host after Trebek’s death. It’s also because the extensive search featured a series of guest hosts, with fan favorites including LeVar Burton, whose potential presence promised to diversify the longstanding game show.
When Richards himself was named, fans immediately grumbled about a rigged process, expressing disappointment only partially ameliorated by the announcement that former “Blossom” star Mayim Bialik would host a series of primetime “Jeopardy!” specials.
Yet many fans (myself included) wondered why Burton, former star of “Roots,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and beloved children’s show “Reading Rainbow” – the closest thing America has to a Black Mr. Rogers – was not named the permanent host, even after a very visible campaign of public support for him unfolded on social media.
The image of Burton as “Jeopardy!” host is a deliciously subversive one. A Black host of a game that appeals to intelligence, curiosity, a love of books and learning would visibly refute stereotypes about Blackness and intellect that that have remained stubbornly powerful in American society.
At first, Sony refused to dismiss Richards after his offensive comments surfaced. In the wake of last year’s racial justice protests, Sony expressed public support for the Black Lives Matter Movement, but faced subsequent charges of workplace discrimination even as they tried to advocate for racial equity. A Sony spokesperson told CNN the company does not comment on confidential personnel matters, but that diversity, equity and inclusion are “core” to the company.
Beyond the specific details of one potential host’s behavior or another employee’s allegations of racism lies a bigger picture. What is sadder than the absurdity of these events is the way in which they reveal dimensions of how global corporations remain in a tragic feedback loop of prizing the familiar over the potentially new and innovative.
How many second chances do White men such as Richards receive in the world of business before a White woman like Bialik or a Black man such as Burton get one that doesn’t feel like it has an asterisk attached?
Of course, some will blame Richards’ departure as both host and now executive producer on the rising tide of “cancel culture” organized by a “woke mob” of the politically intolerant left who will come for all of us one day. The truth is more complicated.
Richards’s offensive podcast comments formed part of a pattern of alleged workplace misconduct that Sony executives should have found disqualifying before he was publicly named host.
Revelations also came to light about allegations of sexual discrimination on “The Price is Right,” where Richards had previously been an executive. A lawsuit which was filed by a model on the game show in 2010 was settled in 2016. Richards addressed it thus: “These were allegations made in employment disputes against the show….The way in which my comments and actions have been characterized in these complaints does not reflect the reality of who I am…”
The extent of the willingness to keep defending and promoting Richards until the bad publicity became too much should spark serious questions – of those to whom Richards reported, and of the rest of us as well.
Last year’s racial and political reckoning proved to be a watershed moment in American history. Corporate America, from the NFL to Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley venture capitalists, promised to do better – pledging close to $50 billion toward the pursuit of racial justice and equity within their own companies and the broader society.
Companies spread messages in support of Black Lives Matter, organized anti-racism training and made Juneteenth a paid holiday. Their vows to confront systemic racism wherever and whenever it was found (meaning, as we know, everywhere) seemed to augur a new day for the American workplace. Most of that pledged money, according to The Washington Post, is in the form of loans and investments that will reap profits for these companies. Only $70 million has gone to organizations that directly focus on racial justice.
The devil is really, always, in the details.
A great many corporations said all of the right things last year, some under great pressure and because it seemed good for business. Unsurprisingly, 2021 has seen, in many situations, a return to the status quo. The normalization of the kind of casual workplace inequity that allowed Mike Richards to become executive producer of the national treasure that is “Jeopardy!” is less an aberration than a reflection of what this status quo, when it goes uninterrogated, can often yield.
This hesitation to do the work, to mind the details underneath the sweeping statements of support, is too often exactly who we are as a nation, even if at times last year, we vehemently denied it. Burton would be the perfect rejoinder to anodyne diversity statements that go unmatched by deeds. Like the late Trebek did, Burton forges an uncanny, unspoken connection with diverse audiences who feel the sense of community his warmly charismatic presence radiates across the screen.
As a longtime lover of “Jeopardy!” I can’t help but hope this latest challenge also offers an opportunity – not for something as vast as collective redemption for supporters of racial justice, but for something more like ripples of hope that bubble up, over time, into streams of steady progress.
What better result from all of this drama than if Burton – one of the fan favorites during his guest stint –were to be named the permanent host. We could even make him a “Jeopardy!” answer to this clue: “The person who eventually gets the beloved position on television she/he should have had all along.”