Preaching: Stephen A. Smith & Skip Bayless Talk About Racial And Ethnic Sensitivity

Stephen A Smith hit the world with that real talk, I agree with all of it.
When he was on his rant on live tv I was going through his mentions to see how many people were killing him and I saw Monstar1s twitter in there. He does not agree with Stephen A. Thats my cool story of the day

 

Agree with Stephan A Smith 100%.

 

Surprised by how much I agreed with Smith.

...that being said, I think free-speech should be enforced. ESPN is still a private organization though and can do whatever they want to do.

We could get into whats "offensive" regarding some topics discussed on NT and other places. I'm still of the mentality that there are some topics that being "offended" is merely the problem of the person claiming to be "offended." Nothing or no one can make you more upset or offended than what you let what another person says or does affect you.

Its like, when you watch stand-up community, are you thinking about the person who just got joked on or are you only going to cry foul when the guy on stage is ragging on you?

A white dude calling me an "N-word" doesn't bother me. I don't like it, but oh well. Its his right to say what he wants. Its what action that might accompany that term that I worry about. But thats a conditional thing. 

I don't think the dude should have been fired...but if you're going to work under people, you have to follow their rules. Whether it was a poor choice of words or an intentional pun, we will never know. If part of your job responsibilities encourages you to be aware of social conventions, then you might want to pay attention to that. 

 

p4l

 

p4l link not showing on phone

 

Can't see it on this iPad. Link?

 

Agree 100%.  Unsurprisingly people are accusing him of self-hatred on twitter 

 

yeah, i agree with stephen 100%, he said that really well, he kinda went off topic from the Jeremy Lin story though.

 

That is why I love ESPN First Take. They are not afraid to discuss sensitive issues.
Stephen A. Smith is that dude.

 

Damn he went in

He was speaking some truth

 

usually im not a fan of either of these guys. but they both said it perfectly

 

Son went off and mad valid points. If you're ignorant to the fact that something is offensive but once u become aware u apologize or make amends, move on b/c it wasn't meant to be ill.

But of course u still have those that don't have to face any type of discrimination that will blow it off, which is the issue.

As soon as I seen the headline, I knew what dude was doing. It was a play on words, though it may have not been intentional, it still looked bad.

 

ya'll need steven A smith to speak out loud? come on man..

 

Stephen A. with that LeBron hairline tho.

 

I applaud this man, but as he anticipated he's going to need to put his flame suit on-Especially the part about excuses being a crutch to the black community

 

Ok I agree with Stephen A. BUT he was way off topic.  Nothing he said had to do with Jeremy Lin.  He started talking about black leaders going too hard on people.  Thats different.

But you have to realize Stephen A. is a writer.  He was sticking up for a person in his fraternity.  Thats why he spoke on people losing jobs and not feeding their families. And thats also why he's talking about "forgive and show compassion".  He catches alot of heat for things he says so he's putting out that message to be "compassionate" to people in his shoes. He said alot of good things but still dodged the actual "___ in the armor" comment.

He sounded dumb as hell saying "i don't know whats racist"  or "sometimes we don't know what's offensive"...are you serious?  Grown men with degrees in journalism or mass communications don't know whats offensive?  Naw not buying that. 

I don't care what anybody says that headline was done on purpose.  Headline writers uses puns. 

After Melo came back the NY times read "Marsh-Melo..melo comes up soft vs nets".  Thats what they do on every website, newspaper, magazine.

So we really think that its acceptable to say "____ in the armor...Lins turnovers cost game"  First off why is the phrase "____ in the armor" being used?  What does that have to do with Lin, Knicks, basketball, or anything?  The only word in that phrase that connected to the story was the slur.   Maybe if they were the NY Knights then it could kinda make sense.  It's like the dude was waiting to use that phrase.  I'm sorry man I don't buy a guy that writes puns for a living choose that phrase and wasn't aware of what he was doing.  Its unacceptable. 

So Stephen A. said some great things but he completely dodged the topic and he actually stuck up for the writer on the low.  Thats why I didn't like this segment.

 

i agree w/ stephen A.

however, i'm not cosigning free reign to be disrespectful to any group of people.

but ignorant people will be ignorant regardless.

 

I agree with what Stephen A. said, but I think that it's not appropos in this case. The headline writer knew exactly what they were doing with that headline, and if they didn't then they are too incompetent to have that job, because who knows what else they don't know. The dude had to go.

 

Who disagreed? Did anyone think it was accidental?

Alot of people have played the "maybe he didn't know" or "its a common phrase" card.

And from what I heard Stephen A say it sounds like was backing the writer.  Which is ridiculous
  

 

Oh now I got you. I didn't take it that way, I would hope that everyone knows that the writer knew full well what was up, and jus thought he would get a free pass on it. What I do agree with is that people should be given second chances and that goes for most situations. I can't condone taking away a guys livelihood cause he said one ignorant comment. If he apologizes and means it then let him get another go at it. Chris Browns getting a free pass for committing a felony, yet its off with this dudes head cause he made a tasteless joke? Does not compute.


I will also say that black people in particular are quick to call racism on everything. Its beyond annoying . I went to an HBCU for my college matriculation and the amount of hate that I saw was disgusting. People were calling racism for the smallest of things. People really have "being proud of who you are" confused with "hate whoever isn't like you" its sad. People of every race do this, but in my opinion black people of all people shouldn't be the ones. We use it for cop outs for unfair treatment then turn around and use it to treat people unfairly ourselves. Its gotta stop

 

I agree with a lot of what he had to say but at the same time he's got to acknowledge and understand that black hypersensitivity is not a cause but an effect. Our collective hypersensitivity to racial issues is not the cause of other peoples subsequent pseudo-hypersensitivity. Years of misunderstanding due to racial tensions across all racial booundaries, sparked by our countries ugly history caused that. Black oppression in this country forced us to use our skin color as a sword and a shield. Other people have seen the utility of that and copied it. It's almost become a diversionary tactic which fosters more misunderstanding. When people discuss what bothers them, instead of addressing it other people come out and say "well this bothers me." Never any true dialogue to break down and get to the root of perceived insensitivity. It happens all the time on NT. Hell it happens everywhere. People are more comfortable parrying racial insensitivity with their own racial proclivities, then actually breaking it down and gaining greater understanding.

 

There has to be a line drawn somewhere on an issue. There is no excuse for the "[email protected]!#$ in the Armor" headline, there is so many other options for a cover title. Hell even "Dent in the Armor" would work. I thought Stephen A Smith's input was great, as well as Skip who I usually am not too fond of

 

QFT. Skip and A are on point with this. I love both of them but Stephen A is the truth.