On Thursday’s edition of The Dan Le Batard Show, the longtime radio host and TV personality ignored ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro’s “no-politics” policy and ripped into his network for not allowing its broadcasters to respond to the “send her back” chants that took place at a Donald Trump rally on Wednesday in North Carolina.
Before tearing into his network’s policy, Le Batard called the chants that took place “deeply offensive” and said it was “so wrong” that Trump is trying to get reelected by “dividing the masses at a time when the old white man, the old, rich white man feels oppressed being attacked by minorities.”
Le Batard then when after ESPN for not allowing its employees to discuss racism under the veil of it being a political issue.
“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,” the veteran host said during his rant. “Jemele [Hill] did some things on Twitter and … all of a sudden nobody talks politics on anything unless we can use one of these sports figures as a meat-shield in the most cowardly way possible to discuss these subjects. 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. Weak-ass shield.”
He concluded: “That’s what you’re seeing, and the only way we can discuss it around here – because this isn’t about politics, it’s about race – what you’re seeing happening around here is about race being turned into politics. And we only talk about it around here when 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 been a place where this stuff changes.”
Stop what you're doing and watch this.@LeBatardShow responds to the racist "Send her back" and "Go back to your country" attacks against Ilhan Omar and other congresswomen.
"If you're not calling it abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric, you're complicit." pic.twitter.com/ntOC2Seg3b
— Erick Fernandez (@ErickFernandez) July 18, 2019
Whether ESPN is comfortable with him making it or not, Le Batard certainly has a point.
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