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

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dviss1 said:
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. :dunno:

ESPN gets to decide whether or not she continues to be platformed as someone who they feel has hurt their brand.
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“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.
 
Mediocre Man said:
“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.
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If I complain that my paycheck is written by a company with a crappy longtime record I doubt I'd still have a job
 
Mediocre Man said:
“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.
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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...
 
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dviss1 said:
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...
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Hiring someone just because she is a woman is as bad as not hiring someone because she is a woman.
 
dviss1 said:
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...
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Why are you using quotes around something she didn’t say?
 
royo said:
Hiring someone just because she is a woman is as bad as not hiring someone because she is a woman.
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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.
 
andalusian said:
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.
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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.
 
blazerkor said:
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.
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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.
 
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blazerkor said:
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.
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To be fair I don't know if Nichols is racisct or not. Maybe you rite.
But to be clear: To add "strengths to said workplace" you have to add professionals, not diversity.
I am in constructions. Imagine if I base my team of builders on diversity. Instead of five big mfs with tone of experience I would build my team based on race, sex and political opinions. I am pretty sure that Facebook activists would be delighted and I would have great PR, but no one in the world would take my work seriously and rightfully so.
And that, I think, was Rachel's case. Again, I might be wrong about this one.
All in all, if man base his hiring on race instead of professionalism, he is the one, that is racist.
 
royo said:
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To be fair I don't know if Nichols is racisct or not. Maybe you rite.
But to be clear: To add "strengths to said workplace" you have to add professionals, not diversity.
I am in constructions. Imagine if I base my team of builder on diversity. Instead of five big mfs with tone of experience I would build my team based on race, sex and political opinions. I am pretty sure that Facebook activists would be delighted and I would have great PR, but no one in the world would take my work seriously and rightfully so.
And that, I think, was Rachel's case. Again, I might be wrong about this one.
All in all, if man base his hiring on race instead of professionalism, he is the one, that is racist.
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Yeah, if you hired all dry wall guys it would work perfectly... wait, you need diversity of experience to be successful. In a creative workplace like television different backgrounds and experiences are even more important. That being said, for Nichols to be sure that Taylor didn't have more skills and experiences than her that made her more qualified isn't really Nichols' place to determine. I for one liked Taylor's hosting better. So we're still missing the important part. Nichols ignored everything else and decided to identify Taylor's skin color as the thing that won her the job... that shit is racist.
 
blazerkor said:
Yeah, if you hired all dry wall guys it would work perfectly... wait, you need diversity of experience to be successful. In a creative workplace like television different backgrounds and experiences are even more important. That being said, for Nichols to be sure that Taylor didn't have more skills and experiences than her that made her more qualified isn't really Nichols' place to determine. I for one liked Taylor's hosting better. So we're still missing the important part. Nichols ignored everything else and decided to identify Taylor's skin color as the thing that won her the job... that shit is racist.
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As I said, I didn't dig about Taylor and you can easily be right about this one.
But I can understand that someone can be frustrated about this diversity and PC stuff, cos it came way over the board and many people base their opinions about people on sex or race - trying to be PC - and they don't see they are the ones, that actually are racists.
If you hiring someone and you add them points just for being african, you are fuckin racist, not me.
 
I was on Kara Walker exhibition today. She would probably agree with you;)
 
Her target of criticism was a black woman and ESPN. ESPN for saying they're making diversity hires, the black woman for saying she would be the recipient of the diversity hire...

Why the fuck do people have to explain this shit in 2021...?
 
It's debatable whether Nichols was correct in her criticism. Hell, if she had just spoken a simple truth, "Maria Taylor got the job because she's hotter than me," even that might have been enough to get her fired and/or redistributed nowadays. See: Mike Richards of Jeopardy.
 
Mediocre Man said:
Proof?

I never liked Maria Taylor. I do however think Malika Andrews is better than both of them
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It's a rumor. But one that's been substantiated by folks in the bubble. I'm surprised you never heard about it.

Edit: Oh wait, I thought you were asking for proof about RN's affair with JB. That's the rumor.

I've always liked Maria Taylor. :dunno:
 
dviss1 said:
It's a rumor. But one that's been substantiated by folks in the bubble. I'm surprised you never heard about it.

Edit: Oh wait, I thought you were asking for proof about RN's affair with JB. That's the rumor.

I've always liked Maria Taylor. :dunno:
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I have heard the RUMOR
 
dviss1 said:
Now you're on some other shit. Maria Taylor is great at her job.

Rachel really probably got fired because she was fucking Jimmy Butler...
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I realize you're incapable of picking up on nuances, but Taylor being great at her job has nothing to do with what I said. Your knee jerk reaction implies that Nichols is worse at the same job, which again, is at best debatable.

It's entirely possible for Nichols to have been correct that Taylor was a diversity promotion while also being deserving, just as it's possible for Nichols' statement to have been equally truthful and unacceptable.

p.s. I thought you were ignoring me for the foreseeable future?
 
handiman said:
I realize you're incapable of picking up on nuances, but Taylor being great at her job has nothing to do with what I said. Your knee jerk reaction implies that Nichols is worse at the same job, which again, is at best debatable.

It's entirely possible for Nichols to have been correct that Taylor was a diversity promotion while also being deserving, just as it's possible for Nichols' statement to have been equally truthful and unacceptable.

p.s. I thought you were ignoring me for the foreseeable future?
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You just diminished Maria Taylor saying she got hired because "she was hotter". I said she's good at her job.

It's a direct response to your idiocy.
 
dviss1 said:
You just diminished Maria Taylor saying she got hired because "she was hotter". I said she's good at her job.
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It's a truth, not the only truth. Again, nuances. Understanding them will get you further in life.
 
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