I voted no only because of all the fucked up shit that has been said on the show, this is what ESPN decides to take a stand on? What he said a couple of days was bad, but in my opinion, not even the worst thing that has been said by either Stephen or Skip. It's perplexing to me.
HC - 10 years ago
I believe Stephen A. rightfully got suspended because he doubled down on the comments. This whole thing didn't have to get this far, and for that I blame white people! I'm partly joking.
I hate to combine multiple issues and take the spotlight off of domestic violence, but Stephen A. Smith ties these together. Stephen A has a history of victim blaming. He likes to think of himself as a truth teller that says what black America or women need to hear and not what they want to hear...not all that dissimilar from the people that write in to the show to complain about Karen's accent, but I digress. It was barely a few weeks ago that he gave cover to Mark Cuban's racism by taking the respectability politics route. He got backlash, including from fellow black espn colleagues, but came out and doubled down on it to the adoring cheers of the Fox News crowd. So naturally, when he first made his recent statements, he went back to the same playbook. He tweeted about how "ANNOYED" he was about the backlash, then defended the comments. Only this time, instead of adoring cheers and thinkpieces from the closet bigots rushing to his aid, Michelle Beadle responded, and now here we are.
If only someone who mainstream America pays attention to had checked him earlier, maybe a lesson is learned, we don't get a double down, and a suspension is avoided.
Spacely - 10 years ago
I have never watched "First Take" but that seems to be the show where people are encouraged to say edgy things. But as soon as they take one pinky toe over that edge, they get suspended. That said, Smith went far over the expected line of expected propriety; if nothing else, he had to know that take was not going to go over well. They work at ESPN at their own risk, so I don't have a problem with his suspension. I don't agree with his comments, but I would not have been against them not suspending him, since this show seems to trade in this tightrope walk.
Anthony Cumia - 10 years ago
I don't know what the problem is?
kweli - 10 years ago
Absolutely he should have. Because if there was a Fox News panel discussing Eric Garner and the one person addresses high incarceration rates of black men and what they can do to not provoke the police to kill them there would have been the exact same outcry from the black community calling for a suspension or stiffer penalty
Mikell - 10 years ago
In my humble opinion people like Stephen A. Smith's detractors are a bigger problem than anything Smith said. There seems to be this notion that any time incidents of domestic violence or sexual assault occur where the woman is the victim, there is absolutely nothing the woman could have done to avoid the situation in every case 100% time of the time. That type of thinking causes more harm than good.
We should be a society that prosecutes these domestic/sexual offenders to the fullest extent of the law but we shouldn't demonize people who tell victims or potential victims to be smart, take some self responsibility and put yourself in the best possible situation to succeed. In many cases there is nothing the victim can do to help themselves but in some cases (i.e. drinking underage with a group of men, physically striking a man, walking alone at night in dangerous areas, etc) let's not pretend there isn't anything women can do to help themselves.
I voted no only because of all the fucked up shit that has been said on the show, this is what ESPN decides to take a stand on? What he said a couple of days was bad, but in my opinion, not even the worst thing that has been said by either Stephen or Skip. It's perplexing to me.
I believe Stephen A. rightfully got suspended because he doubled down on the comments. This whole thing didn't have to get this far, and for that I blame white people! I'm partly joking.
I hate to combine multiple issues and take the spotlight off of domestic violence, but Stephen A. Smith ties these together. Stephen A has a history of victim blaming. He likes to think of himself as a truth teller that says what black America or women need to hear and not what they want to hear...not all that dissimilar from the people that write in to the show to complain about Karen's accent, but I digress. It was barely a few weeks ago that he gave cover to Mark Cuban's racism by taking the respectability politics route. He got backlash, including from fellow black espn colleagues, but came out and doubled down on it to the adoring cheers of the Fox News crowd. So naturally, when he first made his recent statements, he went back to the same playbook. He tweeted about how "ANNOYED" he was about the backlash, then defended the comments. Only this time, instead of adoring cheers and thinkpieces from the closet bigots rushing to his aid, Michelle Beadle responded, and now here we are.
If only someone who mainstream America pays attention to had checked him earlier, maybe a lesson is learned, we don't get a double down, and a suspension is avoided.
I have never watched "First Take" but that seems to be the show where people are encouraged to say edgy things. But as soon as they take one pinky toe over that edge, they get suspended. That said, Smith went far over the expected line of expected propriety; if nothing else, he had to know that take was not going to go over well. They work at ESPN at their own risk, so I don't have a problem with his suspension. I don't agree with his comments, but I would not have been against them not suspending him, since this show seems to trade in this tightrope walk.
I don't know what the problem is?
Absolutely he should have. Because if there was a Fox News panel discussing Eric Garner and the one person addresses high incarceration rates of black men and what they can do to not provoke the police to kill them there would have been the exact same outcry from the black community calling for a suspension or stiffer penalty
In my humble opinion people like Stephen A. Smith's detractors are a bigger problem than anything Smith said. There seems to be this notion that any time incidents of domestic violence or sexual assault occur where the woman is the victim, there is absolutely nothing the woman could have done to avoid the situation in every case 100% time of the time. That type of thinking causes more harm than good.
We should be a society that prosecutes these domestic/sexual offenders to the fullest extent of the law but we shouldn't demonize people who tell victims or potential victims to be smart, take some self responsibility and put yourself in the best possible situation to succeed. In many cases there is nothing the victim can do to help themselves but in some cases (i.e. drinking underage with a group of men, physically striking a man, walking alone at night in dangerous areas, etc) let's not pretend there isn't anything women can do to help themselves.