These last few months have not been good to ESPN. Back in August, one of their on-air commentators had to be taken off from the team of a college game broadcast because his name is strikingly similar to infamous Confederate general Robert E. Lee (he's an Asian named Robert Lee), many hosts were laid off because of budget cutbacks (or other similar reasons) their ratings and subscriber base have steadily dwindled for months (maybe even years), and their mic flags have changed one featuring their app icon.
But the most embarrassing moment for them this year happened to be this moment that transpired last week: host of SportsCenter Jemele Hill has had enough of the antics of President Orange himself Donald Trump and took to Twitter to air her grievances. And here They are, as shown in this Donkey of the Day video by The Breakfast Club, in this particular order:
https://youtu.be/Msutx3GvvT4
You know what? She's right.
Trump IS something of a white supremacist. His voter/supporter base was filled with white supremacists, it's been made clear for months (even more clearer since that press conference after the Charlottesville massacre); he does not care much for the minority races (look at his rallies and rants about the border wall); and he damn sure has a problem with people who point it all out to him (most of them minorities).
Everything Jemele said was true. It's very obvious from every single word she typed in her tweets. And we know this just from watching TV and reading about it online. So where's the lie? Certainly not here. And I'm sure some conservative TV hosts will see something else --like Tomi Lahren, Breitbart, everyone else from Fox News, Jason Whitlock aka Shitlock, and Stephen "Ass." Smith. I know they're gonna jump the 100th gun with their responses. And the White House's respomse was typical Trump White House, as they all wanted Jemele fired for her opinion.
And so ESPN decided to say something about it anyway to keep their subscriber base (or what's left of it) leveled with a response statement to Hill's Twitter rant barrage--because Trump rednecks and Nazis love to watch people of different races play against each other and root for the white ones to beat the other ones. They said:
https://twitter.com/ESPNPR/status/907683111693164545
This was not a good idea and was a poor show of anything from ESPN. They didn't have to respond to this, because they know it about Orange too, but because one of their own actually said it in public (the web version of course), they had to scramble and something to soften the blow because why not? She didn't even say it on the air; she said it on Twitter off-the-clock --meaning she did this away from the confines of the network she works at.
But in my opinion, I wouldn't have done a thing so quickly because I know my workers have the freedom to say what they want and I can't or won't restrict it from them. It wouldn't be fair to them if I did; And it wouldn't be fair to me to restrict something I believe in. So why should it be fair to ESPN to butt in scared when one of their own is speaking out about something she believes in? (here's a hint: THEY SHOULDN'T.)
I know as a TV network, you have to be careful about what you say that won't offend anyone, but these days there's a lot of labeled groups that'll easily be offended by a lot of things, so it's no longer "damned if you do, damned if you don't", it's "fuck it, let's see what group of people will be offended by the correct, factual, understandable statement I/we make and for how long". (Well, depending on if the statement is correct and factual and definitely understandable.)
And since Jemele's rant was all of these things, ESPN had no point in responding to it to attempt to soften the blow. So i support Jemele Hill for speaking up and speaking the truth about our jackass-in-chief.
But what the hey, at least Monday Night Football is back (and with that classic theme "All My Friends are Here on Monday Night" too!) At least nothing wrong will come from that.
... Fuck.
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