TMZ reports that The Roots drummer and bandleader Questlove is being sued by two ex-employees of NBC for racial discrimination.
According to the report, the two men who filed the suit are Kurt Decker and Michael Cimino. They were camera operators for The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon. The Roots, of course, are the show’s house band, and allegedly the pair forwarded a racist text to member Mark Kelley. Decker and Cimino, both white, were fired after Questlove “demanded” they be let go, they said.
However, the plaintiffs maintain that they were sent the message by a stagehand during taping and immediately reported it to NBC executives. They say that they never responded to the text message and were inappropriately blamed for its content due to the fact that they are both white. Kelley, who also received the text, faced no recrimination, which they also allege to be racially motivated.
As The Roots and Questlove have been outspoken on race issues and social justice for their entire careers, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would send them a racist joke in the first place.
The report doesn’t include the actual text of the message, but one can only assume that it was offensive enough to cost the two camera operators their jobs. Whether or not they sent it themselves will have to be determined when or if the suit goes to trial.
