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ESPN segment had layered beauty

This week’s best sports radio segment had little to do with sports. This week’s best criticism of ESPN came from inside ESPN. They were the same thing.

Wednesday night saw President Trump at a political rally in North Carolina speaking about Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, an American citizen who is originally from Somalia. The crowd began to chant, “Send her back.” Trump basked in the chant for about 10 seconds that night, disavowed it on Thursday, then reversed course Friday and called those crowd members “incredible patriots.”

There are words for people who want to get rid of those with differing opinions, but patriot isn’t one of them.

Dan Le Batard had plenty more to say on his Thursday ESPN Radio show, skewering the chant and the company’s “no politics” policy which dictates that commentators like Le Batard limit their opinions to “a current issue impacting sports, unless otherwise approved by senior editorial management.”

Le Batard didn’t run his Thursday rant by the bosses.

“So what happened (Wednesday) night — this felt un-American. Basically a chant, ‘Send her back.’ It’s not the America that (my Cuban exile parents brought me to). There’s a racial division in this country that’s being instigated by the president. And we here at ESPN haven’t had the stomach for that fight ... nobody talks politics on anything unless we can use one of these sports figures as a meat shield in the most cowardly possible way to discuss the subject.

“What you’re seeing happening here is about race being turned into politics, and we only talk about it here when (NBA coaches) Steve Kerr or Gregg Popovich says something. We don’t talk about what is happening unless there’s some sort of weak cowardly sports angle that we can run it through — when sports has always been a place where this stuff changes.

“Jim Brown walks with a cane. He’s going to go to the grave without having seen change. He’s going to go to the grave with Colin Kaepernick still out of the league. Literally blackballed because we’re taking this stuff and making it about the flag when it’s not about the flag. It’s about race. Like burning a cross and saying it’s about God ...

“We won’t talk about it unless Russell Wilson is saying something about it on his Instagram page. Then we have the power to run with it. It is antithetical to what we should be. And if you’re not calling it abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric, you’re complicit.”

Le Batard’s bosses at ESPN insisted the “no politics” policy was still in place Friday, while punishing him in no visible way for a clear and calculated violation.

The beauty in the segment was layered. Le Batard said what he wanted to say about “Send her back,” all while sending back an ESPN “no politics” policy that is — in the words of The Comeback editor Jay Rigdon — “an insulting PR move designed to try and appease both rights partners and a vocal minority of conservative viewers.”

Kevin Wilson is editor of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at:

[email protected]

 
 
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