ESPN shaming Redskins is media elitism at its worst

ESPN is hard to ignore. Not because it isn’t often worthy of changing the channel, but because they are an omnipresent on the NFL landscape, and now where the Redskins name is concerned, on the social one as well.

Nowhere was that more evident than this week, when a pantheon of their ‘on air talent’ took to the airwaves to criticize the very group of people that they believed they were advocating for.

The same group of people that said in a very clear and point specific voice, and with an overwhelming percentage of 90% of Native American respondents, said they aren’t offended by the Washington Redskins being the “Redskins”.

When I wrote of this last week, after the Washington Post released an exhaustive poll of 504 people from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, one would think that, while it didn’t necessarily put the issue to rest, it would at least provide significant if not definitive clarity on the whole “Redskins” name. At least from the people it was supposed to offend.

But it didn’t. Especially at ESPN.

In the wake of the Post story, I wasn’t, though I wish I would have been, surprised by the response of many ESPN personalities and commentators. But some stand out more than most, and for that, their arrogance and myopic world view deserve to be called out.

On the show “Around The Horn”, a three person panel of social justice warriors went so far as to imply that Native Americans likely don’t know the history and thus should be offended.

Or as Master of the Universe J.A. Adande noted, that it’s important “to avoid the tyranny of the majority”, adding “that’s something that the framers of the Constitution instituted into our democracy. And I think that’s something that should apply here, even if the majority is within the particular group that we’re talking about”.

Avoid the “majority”? Even if the “majority” is the group you target as needing to feel offended?

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He misses the point. The very people who he thinks SHOULD be offended, ARE NOT.

Israel Gutierrez, who was part of that very one sided, ESPN approved diatribe, completely ignored the findings of the poll that showed despite the media’s narrative, Native Americans overwhelmingly don’t care about the issue at all.

To quote Mr. Gutierrez, “It could just be that others don’t know the history of it and therefore aren’t offended,” noted Israel Gutierrez. “There’s so much history there. Maybe even Native Americans don’t know the history“.

Because yes, Native Americans likely don’t know history?

Lastly, Pablo Torres went to the always reliable ‘race card’, when he said, “Our conversation around race is worse when we reduce people to cartoon characters, as a policy,” added Torres, “that opens the door to other things but absolutely still stands in this case”.

Did they even read the Washington Post story or the direct quotes from those surveyed?

If they did, then they are the best example of an elite media that wants to think for the majority class, and then be offended when the majority class disagrees with them.

That sentiment about the Redskins name was found up and down the ESPN platforms with every agenda driven voice echoing the same talking points. And that’s my problem with ESPN.

They are agenda driven.

Their revulsion that independent thinkers don’t sip from the same Kool-Aid that is likely found in their on campus cafeteria was on full display when their delicate, liberal ecosystem was sent aghast by the poll.

What did they dislike most?

Was it a random poll that had a “5.5 percentage-point margin of sampling error, was conducted by randomly calling cellular and landline phones. It asked questions only of people who identified themselves as Native American, after being asked about their ethnicity or heritage”?

Maybe it was the larger point of concern amongst Native Americans that those interviewed “highlighted again and again other challenges to their communities that they consider much more urgent than an NFL team’s name: substandard schools, substance abuse, unemployment”.

Or maybe most upsetting on the MotherShip campus was this direct quote, “Let’s start taking care of our people and quit worrying about names like Washington Redskins,” said Randy Whitworth, 58, who lives on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana”.

I’ll the first to say that I don’t have the first person experience to identify with the Washington Post poll, or the respondents they interviewed and quoted.

According to a well-known expression, Rome’s emperor at the time, the decadent and unpopular Nero, “fiddled while Rome burned“.

ESPN willfully ignored the words and opinion of a majority of people. An overwhelming majority. Especially the opinion that there are much bigger issues for Native Americans than the name of the football team in Washington.

They are vexed by the very people that they feel should be offended by a word they find offensive, and are offended that you or I don’t.

ESPN may not be as Nero is described, but they have a social arrogance and political leaning I can no longer ignore.

I’ll say it again, I don’t have the first person experience to identify with the Washington Post poll, or the respondents they interviewed and quoted.

But I can read what 90% say they think.

And that’s hard to ignore.

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