Actor and America’s Got Talent host Terry Crews went on the Today show to talk about the upcoming new season of AGT. In the midst of the interview, one of the interviewers asked him what he thought about actress Gabrielle Union’s racist and sexist allegations against the show’s production.
“First of all, I can’t speak for sexism because I’m not a woman, but I can speak on the behalf of any racism comments,” Crews said. “That was never my experience on America’s Got Talent. In fact, it was the most diverse place I have ever been in my 20 years of entertainment. The top 10 acts were Asian, women, older, younger, black. It was everything in the gamut…”
Crews implied that because he hasn’t been harassed and due to the contestants being diverse that racism was not an issue on the set, despite complaints from celebrities Nick Cannon and Gabrielle Union.
“Gabrielle Union has not made any statements to this day about any of these allegations publicly,” he said.
Word of Crews passive aggressive attempt to dismiss Union’s claims got back to the actress.
She responded saying, “Can someone please ask about what happens to all that diversity folks are talking about BEHIND THE SCENES.”
While Crews was accurate about the diversity in front of the camera, he didn’t have much to say about diversity being prevalent in positions of power and behind the scenes.
Union continued, “Let’s also talk about where the diversity is in the hair & makeup dept for contestants that DOES NOT reflect all that diversity that hits the stage. Let’s Google the execs that run the show & ask follow up about THAT egregious lack of diversity.”
It’s common for people and their companies that preach about inclusion and promote diversity in their employee handbooks and affinity group initiatives love to put people of color, women and youth on the frontlines to give the illusion of diversity.
But, in reality, the positions of power that actually can cultivate the culture of the company and make executive decisions that impact and influence the outcome of business objectives are usually not diverse at all.
What follows are culturally clueless decisions and inappropriate workplace behavior that if exposed to the general public would be detrimental to the bottomline of the company. No one wants that. So, what happens?
The overt culture of toxicity in the form of discrimination, racism, sexism, ageism and any ism one can think of continues until a complaint is filed with HR or someone speaks up or files a lawsuit.
What’s sad about the situation with Terry Crews is that he appears to be someone that will do anything for a check. Without facts, proof or even talking to the source of the complaint, he has an opinion on whether these very common issues exist at AGT, but the opinion opposes the victim or witnesses.
Was he propositioned to make the comments that he did on Today? Is it fair for him to even go there knowing that NBC Universal is still investigating the situation?
“We all agreed to let the investigation be completed before speaking but if we doing this…” Union posted on Twitter.
Crews knows better, too. He was just embroiled in controversy of his own when he accused a famous Hollywood agent of sexually harassing him. So many people tried to shame him or discount his allegations before they knew the total and complete facts.
Oh, how tables turn when a check is involved.
