Robert Lee lost something in Virginia, and 152 years later, another Robert Lee did too.

The living Robert Lee, an ESPN sports broadcaster, was pulled from calling the University of Virginia home opener against William and Mary on Sept. 2 due to sharing a name with the Confederate general at the center of unrest in Charlottesville.

"We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name," Derek Volner, an ESPN spokesman, told The Washington Post in an emailed statement.

"In that moment it felt right to all parties. It's a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue," he said.

Volner declined to say if the network made a preemptive decision or responded to outside pressure to pull Lee from the broadcast. He also did not say if Lee was made available for comment. Lee, a sportscaster for 20 years, began his career calling games at Syracuse University, his alma mater. He is bilingual and speaks Mandarin Chinese, according to his online resume.

The number of signatures is now well over the 100,000 needed to merit a formal White House response. Antifa recently received attention for violently confronting the "Unite The Right" marchers in Charlottesville, but has been routinely assaulting not just ****-sympathizers and white nationalists, but also anyone seen as Trump supporters. Their tactics and behavior have drawn the ire of even such staunch leftists as Noam Chomsky.

"As for Antifa, it's a minuscule fringe of the Left, just as its predecessors were," Chomsky told the Washington Examiner. "It's a major gift to the right, including the militant right, who are exuberant."

"What they do is often wrong in principle – like blocking talks – and [the movement] is generally self-destructive," he said.

Some journalists are frustrated at the leaked Wall Street Journal emails revealed to The New York Times Wednesday, showing Editor in Chief Gerard Baker lamenting them for injecting too much “opinion” into the outlet’s reporting, imploring them to stick to the facts.

“Sorry. This is commentary dressed up as news reporting,” wrote Baker in a series of late night emails regarding The Journal’s reporting on President Donald Trump’s rally in Phoenix on Tuesday. “Could we please just stick to reporting what he said rather than packaging it in exegesis and selective criticism?”

So imagine if you’re scheduled to be the announcer for ESPN’s livestream of the University of Virginia’s season-opener football game against William and Mary in a few weeks and your name is Robert Lee. But you have watched, along with the world, as thousands of torch-wielding, white supremacists screaming hate-filled chants marched around the UVA campus and rallied all their hate at the foot of a statue bearing your name: Robert Lee. A monument the city had voted to remove under state objections. Well, it’s not unreasonable, even though you are Asian-American, that you — and your employer — may have some concerns.

Nope, not unreasonable at all. Not in today’s America. Not when we just witnessed heavily armed, swastika-wearing protesters who believe in white supremacy clashing in the streets with counterprotesters, who believed just as passionately that all people are created equal. Not when one woman is dead and dozens more injured because they had the audacity to stand up to the failed notion of white supremacy. Not when a statue, or a team name, or a presidential tweet can incite racial tensions and violence.

No matter that Robert Lee is Asian-American and his name has nothing to do with the Confederacy or slavery. It seems unreasonable, ignorant and downright ridiculous to associate his name in any way with the Confederate general. Still, nothing we’ve witnessed in Charlottesville, or since, has been reasonable or intelligent.