ESPN’s “Woke” Center really stepped into some deep muck again this week. Showing its true cop-hating colors, it tweeted the message that athletes should be as fearless as a highly controversial character on the HBO “Euphoria” program. This 13-year old boy is not just a drug dealer but has also killed two police officers.
Sunday’s SportsCenter tweet stated, “Name an athlete as fearless as this guy.” Beneath that message was a photo of actor Javon Walton, who played the role on “Euphoria” of a juvenile named Ashtray.
Ashtray is a young man who has lived a dangerous and violent life and killed two police officers. In Sunday’s season-ending episode, the violent Ashtray kills a rival drug dealer, then gets into a shootout with policemen. One cop is shot by Ashtray before being killed in the gunfight.
This is the type of athlete “Woke” Center claims America needs. The word “detestable” does not begin to describe the sick person who posted this vile message on behalf of the ESPN network.
The tweet was rightly criticized by Twitter, and ESPN had to correct itself for failing to control its awake employees.
The Tweet was deleted Monday, and ESPN issued a public statement, saying, “The content posted was not in alignment with ESPN’s brand and we removed it.”
That pitiful ESPN response doesn’t come close to appropriate. The ESPN response fails to express its regrets to those wearing the blue. They are people who risk their lives every day to save a culture that puts them down and demands their funding be cut. It’s a destructive culture that ESPN is now on record as being party to.
A writer for The Spun blog, Daniel Bates said, “Unfortunately, while trying to engage with a younger audience, the meme just came across cringey and a bit out of touch.
“Don’t expect many more ‘Euphoria’ posts from ESPN for the time being.”
The blog Total Pro Sports described it this way: “ESPN’s ‘SportsCenter’ account has been doing its best to keep up with everything pop culture related and making it sports related to show how they are in tune with the youngsters. It failed in a big way on Monday.”
ESPN’s latest social media blunder ranks right down there with former “Woke” Center co-host Jemele Hill’s famous 2017 Tweet calling Donald Trump and his supporters “white supremacists.” She made that regrettable statement on her own Twitter account, but as a high-profile, on-air personality, it nonetheless cast a bad light on her ESPN employers. It resulted in the network trying to tamp down employees’ political statements, and began Hill’s slide toward the network’s exit door.
This post was last modified on March 1, 2022 2:10 pm
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