Not In My House… A Closer Look at Race Issues within the ESPN Network!

By Joyce Davis

When George Floyd was murdered by cops the entire world took notice. So many different companies made a point to point out they were allies to the Black community. They donated to Black Lives Matter, they posted their support on social media accounts, and anywhere people could see. They wanted to be seen supporting the Black community which was threatening to boycott anyone who did not stand in support.

One such place was ESPN. They went from not talking about race at all to allowing their host and tv personalities to speak freely on the subject just to show they were conscious of the conflict going on in America. They wanted us to believe that they were a diverse company and these things did not happen in their house.

One of my heroes is Jemele Hill. She worked at ESPN on a show called SportsCenter with Michael and Jemele. She made the mistake of calling Trump a White Supremacist on her personal twitter account. Trump did not like it and the White House made a statement that what she said was a fireable offense. ESPN did not fire her outright, they demoted her until she left a year later.

This was all before George Floyd happened and it was okay to side with a racist.

Since then, another scandal has erupted at ESPN concerning race. Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor are at the forefront of the scandal. Rachel, one of the hosts of The Jump, had a conversation with Adam Mendelsohn concerning Maria Taylor being given a spot that she felt belonged to her. She felt like she was paying the cost for ESPN’s lack of diversity by them taking away something that belonged to her and giving it to a Black woman, Maria. The conversation itself was recorded “accidently” on her camera and picked up by ESPN internally. The story itself stayed behind the scenes at ESPN for a year. We, the public knew nothing about it until it was leaked in July. The question most people asked was who leaked the tape to the press? I have noticed that instead of dealing with the racism that took place they preferred to talk about the leaker. It is a tactic companies, Republicans, and others use in order to run from the conversation of racism. They focus on the person who outed them.

Systemic racism exists. So many people want to fight the truth of systemic racism by saying it does not exist and our company, country, school, or you plug in a place does not have a problem. ESPN has a problem with racism. They have not addressed the issue that I have seen other than moving Rachel Nichols around. That did not happen until the tape leaked to the public. It says to me it was not a problem to them until the public found out it happened. It tells me that racism is okay in their house as long as we will not be judged on it by our viewers. I even believe the original tape from Rachel to ESPN was on purpose. I think she thought she would expose ESPN for taking her job away so they could prove they were a diverse station. Instead, ESPN kept it quiet (how many other things are they keeping quiet?) for the next year and when it leaked to the public it backfired against her.

I do not feel that ESPN is the only company that says they support BLM but have their very own race problems. Being transparent to the public could destroy an image of a company. They set it up so that you are silenced from speaking your truth. Jemele spoke of how when her scandal blew up on social media and in the news, she was not allowed to talk about it. Not to defend herself or set the record straight. She wanted to keep her job or give them any cause to fire her. Some people don’t speak up because they do not want to lose their jobs that they worked so hard to get. Some do speak out with risk to their job, having their words turned against them, or even becoming the villain because the company can smear you.

For now, systemic racism is here to stay because people refuse to look in their own houses. They want us to believe that a hashtag of #BLM is enough to say you are an ally. It is not enough. Let employees have a voice with someone whose job it is to solve the issue not fix it to protect the company. If I tell someone in human resources that I have experienced racism and it turns out the person I am speaking to is a racist or their job is to make the problem go away I am likely to lose my job or go through an incredible amount of harassment meant to make me quit. Seeing how these are things I have experienced I know that at some point you quit telling human resources.

If we want to see change, we need to see it happen from inside the house and work its way outward. If it is tolerated on a daily basis behind closed doors, it will only grow.

[si-contact-form form=’2′]