OT ESPN removes Rachel Nichols from NBA programming, cancels 'The Jump'

she said no lies

people will find racism wherever they want

 

come age?

 

m
Different article. And no pics. I was looking forward to my heart fainting.

 

And be happy it autocorrected to that and not some other come……

 

Where have you read that she's been fired or even demoted? I haven't found that anywhere. She just isn't a part of the NBA coverage anymore. That's not punitive in my opinion.

 

Even so, when it's exposed that you don't hold the same views as the private entity that you work for, they then have the option of taking the PR hit for continuing to employ you.

Don't blame ESPN. Blame capitalism.

She belittled a person's abilities only for being black. Now she's experiencing detriment because of that.

ESPN gets to decide whether or not she continues to be platformed as someone who they feel has hurt their brand.

 

Yeah people, we're honestly pretty tired of this trope being thrown around. McDonalds offered this lady pennies.

 

“I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball. If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.”

I guess I don’t read that as belittling anyone other than ESPN for not doing a better job promoting diversity in the past.

 

If I complain that my paycheck is written by a company with a crappy longtime record I doubt I'd still have a job

 

Ya, that’s true

 

I guess reading and comprehending it is fundamental.

She is belittling her by saying:

"yeah she does all those things I guess, but since you have such a bad diversity record, you want to give her affirmative action airtime
(since her talents can't get her there, her skin tone will)."

Ever been called an affirmative action hire? I have. To keep our jobs we have to outwork our white counterparts and face all kinds of discrimination at work.

The racists said that about Obama and what Rachel said was fucking racist...

 

Hiring someone just because she is a woman is as bad as not hiring someone because she is a woman.

 

Why are you using quotes around something she didn’t say?

 

This was not the point and is not true. Hiring someone with the added benefit of increasing the diversity of perspectives within a workplace adds strengths to said workplace. Firing someone based on some bit of demographic information is bigotry.

The point you were responding to is that reducing someone's value in a workplace down to a piece of demographic information (like gender or race) and ignoring all of their previous accomplishments and qualifications is bigotry. In this case Rachel Nichols distilled Maria Taylor's value down to her race, ignoring any and all other reasons she may have been the better candidate. That's racism, it's nuanced because Nichols may have really thought she was the better candidate but when she went there mentally and said it was because of Taylor's race, it became racism.

 

Supposedly ESPN broke their contract with Nichols when they took her off covering the NBA finals - and given her support for racial causes over the years, I do not believe that this was a racist comment but a comment about ESPN's lack of diversity and the fact that they (ESPN) were scrambling to add diversity coverage in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder.

There is a reason she was not fired and they continue to pay her, they mismanaged this greatly - I would not be surprised if the Jump (which is her creation) removal is part of some kind of settlement they are paying her - because the leaked video broke privacy laws in 3 different states on top of that contract breach.

 

I don't know if Nichols is "racist" but when she reduced the reason that Taylor would get the job ahead of her down to race, it was a racist comment and idea. There are a million other reasons Taylor may have taken over that gig but Nichols didn't want to consider those, so she said it was due to "diversity" or in other words the color of Taylor's skin. I don't know how someone can reduce another person down to the color of their skin and nothing more, in any situation and that not be racism.

 

That's a fair point, and an unfortunate one. I will accept this as a racist comment, even if Nichols being upset at a specific breach of her contract - and not a dismissal on merit - and even if her target of criticism is the network itself - she has just done it in a very poor manner.