50 years after the March on Selma, ESPN’s First Take belittles the Civil Rights Movement by turning a football decision into something much bigger.
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On Monday, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said something irresponsible, in the name of culture.
During ESPN’s First Take, Smith said “brothers have questions for Chip Kelly.” In respect to Smith, he never calls the Philadelphia Eagles coach a racist. He instead uses words like uncomfortable and implies that the loss of Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy and DeSean Jackson coinciding with Riley Cooper, a player who was caught using a racial slur, still remaining an Eagle as making him uncomfortable:
We are no longer referring to a sports news network, but rather an entertainment network whose business is propagating gossip disguised as news.
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“Chip Kelly makes decisions over the last couple of years that, dare I say, leave a few brothers feeling uncomfortable. I think that’s fair to say. We’re sitting here looking at some of the decisions that Chip Kelly makes and I’m like what is up — what’s up with that? It’s like you gotta be his kinda guy, you know? And when Riley Cooper’s your kind of guy?
I’m saying, let’s get beyond the system though, the operative word is culture. The culture is what resonates with me more profoundly because I’m looking at Chip Kelly and I’m like, really?
Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad freeNow you gotta remember, Skip. Where did I work for 16 years? I mean, this is Philadelphia. I’m always in Philly, and I’m telling you right now you got people walking the streets and — the hell with it — you got brothers walking the streets going like ‘What’s up with Chip? I don’t understand this.’
On Tuesday, Smith doubled down on his incredibly irresponsible commentary.
“I pointed out how DeSean Jackson is gone, LeSean McCoy is gone, Jeremy Maclin is gone, but Riley Cooper is still here. I wonder why that is? That has obviously provoked some people to sit there and say I went on the air and called Chip Kelly racist. That is a lie, that is false, that is inaccurate. But it’s not surprising, because that’s what people want to do sometimes, just because they have a problem with you because I do have the ability to make some people uncomfortable, sometimes. I must acknowledge it actually makes me smile, it doesn’t bother me one bit. I know I’m going to make people uncomfortable sometimes, sitting in this chair. Such is life.”
Long ago, ESPN traded in the credibility of its network and its slew of sports personalities for the all-mighty dollar.
We are no longer referring to a sports news network, but rather an entertainment network whose business is propagating gossip disguised as news. The E standing for entertainment now runs amok, leaving the S for sports in its shadows.
Evening SportsCenters end with anchors giving “takes,” and morning programming’s sole purpose is to gain viewership by click-bating:
Over First Take’s run, we have heard Rob Parker question whether Robert Griffin III is a “brother” or a “cornball brother.”
Smith, who seems to revel in this brand of sensationalism, was suspended for contending some victims of domestic violence provoke their attacks. He later apologized.
Skip Bayless has been on the end of many verbal attacks, using his platform to hear his own voice and compare his glory days of supposed athletic prowess with that of the current crop of elite athletes.
Bayless and Smith have long since swapped journalistic integrity for a paycheck. Each talking head reportedly makes seven figures to drum up controversy by any means necessary.
There is no factual basis for Smith’s commentary. And the truth of the matter is that Chip Kelly’s decisions are based solely on football and have nothing to do with a “culture,” white or black. This isn’t hard to see, if you pause for just a moment and tune out the trumped up outrage.
McCoy – who the Eagles were to pay $25 million over the coming three years – was traded for Kiko Alonso. Alonso’s father is Cuban, his mother Colombian.
Last year, before releasing Jackson, he traded for Darren Sproles, an African-American.
The Eagles just re-signed Mexican-American Mark Sanchez.
The first player Philadelphia signed in the off-season was African-American Byron Maxwell.
Jeremy Maclin was not let go, he was a free agent and took bigger dollars to go to Kansas City. The Chiefs offered $11 million, putting him in the range of Larry Fitzgerald and Brandon Marshall; a top ten wide receiver. Many would say he hasn’t earned that type of contract.
You can question Kelly’s football moves. Many have. But when –with no basis whatsoever– you question his moves as it relates to “culture” or “brothers,” it is irresponsible plain and simple.
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50 years ago, March 7, 1965, hundreds of civil rights activists marched east out of Selma on U.S. Highway 80. The protest went according to plan until the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where they found a wall of state troopers and county posse waiting for them on the other side.
County Sheriff Jim Clark had issued an order for all white males in Dallas County over the age of twenty-one to report to the courthouse that morning to be deputized. Commanding officer John Cloud told the demonstrators to disband at once and go home. Rev. Hosea Williams tried to speak to the officer, but Cloud curtly informed him there was nothing to discuss.
Seconds later, the troopers began shoving the demonstrators. Many were knocked to the ground and beaten with nightsticks. Another detachment of troopers fired tear gas, and mounted troopers charged the crowd on horseback.
Televised images of the brutal attack presented Americans and international audiences with horrifying images of marchers left bloodied and severely injured, and roused support for the Selma Voting Rights Campaign. Amelia Boynton had helped organize the march and was beaten unconscious. A photograph of her lying on the road of the Bridge appeared on the front page of newspapers and news magazines around the world. In all, seventeen marchers were hospitalized; the day is now referred to as “Bloody Sunday”.
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The Selma Bridge symbolizes the fight to change a culture. That bridge is something worth feeling uncomfortable about. The people bloodied on that bridge were fighting for Smith.
President Barrack Obama stood in the shadows of that bridge on the 50th anniversary. He too, a symbol of that march, spoke eloquently about how far we as a “culture” have come.
“We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, that racial division is inherent to America. If you think nothing’s changed in the past 50 years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or Los Angeles of the 1950s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the secretarial pool if nothing’s changed. Ask your gay friend if it’s easier to be out and proud in America now than it was thirty years ago. To deny this progress, this hard-won progress -– our progress –- would be to rob us of our own agency, our own capacity, our responsibility to do what we can to make America better.”
Smith trivializes this progress of freedom by contending football choices are earmarked as cultural decisions. To imply racism in this instance by using words like “culture” and “brothers” is not only disingenuous, it flies in direct opposition to President Obama’s message and the battle many still fight.
If Smith needs to pinpoint an issue where sports and race intersect, there are hundreds of instances. In the Fall, professional athletes wore t-shirts protesting “Black Lives Matter.” In light of the racist chant spewed by the SAE fraternity at University of Oklahoma, students, football players and coaches produced a powerful message of unity. Those are instances of fighting to change a “culture”.
When Smith insinuates that Kelly’s decisions are based on culture and not character or talent, he makes this an issue about race.
This is not racism. It’s ignorance.
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Photo Credit: Brutuxz Montero/flickr