ESPN hypocrites celebrate Black Lives Matter at ESPYS while silencing Schilling, Lewis over their politics

Wednesday night’s ESPY award broadcast was filled with about as much race-baiting, left-wing politics as the Democrats convention in Philly will have two weeks from now.  And ESPN, the Disney-owned network that created and produces the awards broadcast on their parent network ABC, went out of their way to feature and celebrate the divisive Black Lives Matter grandstanding.

Advertisement

Here are some clips of NBA stars Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade and LeBron James opening the broadcast with the complete transcript:

Carmelo Anthony: Good evening. Tonight is a celebration of sports, celebrating our accomplishments and our victories. But in this moment of celebration, we asked to start the show tonight this way: the four of us talking to our fellow athletes with the country watching. Because we cannot ignore the realities of the current state of America. The events of the past week have put a spotlight on the injustice, distrust, and anger that plague so many of us. The system is broken. The problems are not new, the violence is not new, and the racial divide definitely is not new. But the urgency to great change is at an all time high.

Chris Paul: We stand here tonight accepting our role in uniting communities to be the change we need to see. We stand before you as fathers, sons, husbands, brothers, uncles, and in my case, as an African-American man and the nephew of a police officer, who is one of the hundreds of thousands of great officers serving this country. But Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile: this is also our reality. Generations ago, legends like Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, Tommie Smith, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jim Brown, Billie Jean King, Arthur Ashe, and countless others—they set a model for what athletes should stand for. So we choose to follow in their footsteps.

Dwyane Wade: The racial profiling has to stop. The shoot-to-kill mentality has to stop. Not seeing the value of black and brown bodies has to stop. But also the retaliation has to stop. The endless gun violence in places like Chicago, Dallas, not to mention Orlando—it has to stop. Enough! Enough is enough. Now, as athletes, it’s on us to challenge each other to do even more than what we already do in our own communities. And the conversation cannot—it cannot stop as our schedules get busy again. It won’t always be convenient. It won’t. It won’t always be comfortable. But it is necessary.

LeBron James: We all feel helpless and frustrated by the violence. We do. But that’s not acceptable. It’s time to look in the mirror and ask ourselves, “What are we doing to create change?” It’s not about being a role model. It’s not about our responsibility to a condition of activism. I know tonight, we’ll honor Muhammad Ali, the G.O.A.T. To do his legacy any justice, let’s use this moment as a call to action to all professional athletes to educate ourselves, explore these issues, speak up, use our influence, and renounce all violence. And most importantly go back to our communities. Invest our time, our resources. Help rebuild them. Help strengthen them. Help change them. We all have to do better. Thank you.

Advertisement

The politics didn’t end after that opening. Later in the evening, the Arthur Asche Courage Award went to a high school football player named Zaevion Dobson who died while shielding three girls from a spray of bullets while they were caught in the crossfire of gang activity in Knoxville, TN.

The award was introduced by President Barack Obama via a pre-taped, video message.

Naturally, his mother’s acceptance speech became a call for ending “gun violence” in America. Words that have become code for 2nd amendment infringements.

“I’m here to urge all of you to join the movement tonight to save innocent lives. We need to rewrite laws. To make it harder for the people to get guns. Some progress has been made, but just a few months ago in Tennessee, a law was passed to allow people to carry more guns on college campuses. What sense does that make? We need to go in the opposite direction.”

No passionate rhetoric about stopping gangs or about the hip-hop culture which too often glorifies gang mentality and is celebrated by the very athletes sharing the ESPY stage with Mrs. Dobson. Nope, let’s just grab all the guns.

And there was more. Vice President Joe Biden was on hand to deliver the Jimmy V award to reporter Craig Sager, who is battling cancer. Biden recently lost his son to cancer and has launched a new, big government spending initiative to find a cure for the disease.

Advertisement

That’s a whole lot of politics and it’s a whole lot of politics from one, leftist perspective. So how are we supposed to square this celebration of Saul Alinsky with ESPN’s claim that they don’t want politics in any of their broadcasts?

Well, we can’t.

Remember Curt Schilling was fired for speaking out on his Facebook page about transgender bathroom laws? And when Schilling spoke out about his firing, he made it clear that it’s only a certain kind of politics ESPN doesn’t want to hear:

 

“One of the things I got early on, people would walk up to me… We had the green room in ESPN, which I kind of turned it into a locker room where everything was on the table, you could make fun of anybody’s mom and all the things that go with that, like in a baseball locker room. But I had people come up to me and go [whispering] ‘Hey, I’m with ya. I’m a Republican, too.’  It was like a deadly serious thing, like, we didn’t talk… like religion on the table was a much easier discussion than who you voted for.”

But maybe it’s just race-based politics ESPN is tolerant of. Maybe if you are a black athlete and you want to speak your mind about concerns over crime and policing in the African-American communities, that’s ok with ESPN. Well… remember this viral video from former ESPN NFL analyst Ray Lewis?

“Why do we always find ourselves the victims, and now we have the separation once again that we’re being victimized because of one bad white cop, two bad white cops, three bad white cops, killing a young black brother. But every day we have black-on-black crime, killing each other?”

Advertisement

Of course, Lewis was not a former analyst for ESPN when he delivered these powerful words. But within a month he was fired.

ESPN continues to maintain that they have no tolerance for political statements on their broadcasts:

At ESPN, our reputation and journalistic credibility are of paramount importance — and that extends to our coverage of the Presidential Election, candidates, issues and the intersection of sports and society. Our audiences should be confident that political pressures or personal interests do not influence our news decisions. At the same time, the news cycle has evolved and there is an increased appetite for broader coverage of candidates, placed in proper sports context.

But this is the company that hired lefty hero Keith Olbermann. This is the company that hired lefty hero Nate Silver. This is the company that continues to employ lefty journalist Michael Wilbon (Barack Obama’s golf buddy) and celebrate his controversial, race-based political statements and positions. This is the company that awarded “The athlete formerly known as Bruce” Jenner with a courage award at last year’s ESPYS.

This is also the network that produced the 2016 ESPY awards, as described above.

Let’s be real ESPN: You don’t mind politics invading your broadcasts. You encourage it. As long as it’s the correct politics.

ESPY BLM

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement