Tennis

Buzz: US Open tied to racist exec

Published Sep. 17, 2013 1:00 a.m. ET

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Sam Gardner

A 45-year-old Harlem resident is suing the company that provides security to the US Open tennis tournament after leaked emails showed the company’s VP for special events making racist remarks with regard to his employees.

According to the New York Post, 56-year-old Scott Dennison sent several emails to a co-worker at Contemporary Services Corp. in which he "repeatedly used the N-word and called blacks 'scum suckers' and 'worthless.' "

Here’s more, taken directly from the Post report:

“No African Americans please only limited quantities that have brains and can actually do a day’s work,” Dennison wrote on Oct. 1, 2009, in reference to recruiting potential employees for the prestigious tennis tourney, whose women’s title was won by top-ranked Serena Williams this month.

In another vicious email, Dennison discussed sending a “world renowned” German-shepherd trainer to Boston to check out a dog to replace one that had died.

“If he likes what he sees he will fly the Dog to Denver. There he will do a great deal of bite work, off leash training and some n—-r eating exercises,” he wrote on July 14, 2011.

Dennison, of Scottsdale, Ariz., also disparaged President Obama and the Rev. Al Sharpton in a July 22, 2010, e-mail regarding a Craigslist posting for security jobs at the Flushing Meadows grand slam event, offering a mock testimonial by a former black employee, Sean Felder, 45, of Harlem.

“Yu sez brothurz, Mr. Gon allows the black man to be superior we run the place cuz we needs the money and Obama and Rev Sharpton allowed us to mix with the White Crackers at this event,” he wrote. “Come on down we can cheat, steal, eat food and sleep. Just like our new govt allows us to do, to get back at the white man for Slavery.”

The recipient of the emails, 47-year-old Michigan resident and former CSC employee John Storer, made sure to distance himself from Dennison’s remarks, saying: “The first thing I thought was: 'How stupid do you have to be to put this in writing?' [But] the guy is my boss. What am I going to do?”

Dennison’s apparent racism didn’t appear to have any impact on the actual tennis at the US Open — a USTA spokesman told the Post he would “have to look into” the emails.

But it’s still not a good look to be affiliated with Contemporary Services Corp. So, in light of these emails, you can guess CSC won’t be around much longer. And that’s the right move to make, whether Dennison is just a rogue employee or one representative of the group as a whole.

To do otherwise and keep allowing a company that has been publicly tied to this kind of racism to provide security at a stadium named in honor of Arthur Ashe would be a disgrace.

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