Kass wasn’t happy to hear suggestions of non-white Legman
Prince alludes to an encounter in the newsroom the day before Quintanilla was fired but doesn’t name the columnist Quintanilla says he encountered — John Kass. Quintanilla heard that Kass had just hired another white legman so he e-mailed him to let him know there were minority reporters at the Tribune who could do the job too. Next thing he knew, Quintanilla tells me, “Kass is standing right on top of me. I can see all of the wrinkles in his shirt, kind of a tan shirt, he was that close to me. His shirt was practically touching me. He said, ‘You’re calling me a racist’ — something to that effect, I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ I said I admire his work. And he was screaming again, I had to hang up the phone and at that point I had to stand up. He was physically intimidating.” Quintanilla says Kass challenged him to step outside. Kass hasn’t gotten back to me with his side of the story.
Quintanilla says he couldn’t sleep that night. The next day he was fired and he couldn’t sleep that night either.
It’s hard to be a white man in America today.