RUSH: I mentioned before the break at the top of the hour that I couldn’t believe what the president of ESPN said. Here it is. His name is John Skipper. He “was one of the featured guests at” a tech conference out in Dana Point, California. It was called “the Code/Media conference” on Wednesday and he broached quite a few topics. One was the inclusion of black writers at ESPN and Skipper in essence scolded other media outlets for their failure to hire African-Americans. [The president of ESPN said], ‘There is not enough black media in this country. There is not enough black-owned media in this country.
“‘There are not enough sites run by people of color.'” That is how he promoted a new website that ESPN is launching called The Undefeated. I don’t know. Maybe it has been launched. I’m not sure. The way this is written, it says, “And it led into Skipper discussing the launch of The Undefeated, the one-time vehicle for Jason Whitlock, that will,” yeah, here it is, “start operation later this year. ‘We are going to have a site run by people of color, by black Americans who are going to curate the site. They’re going to create the content for that site.'”
ESPN is going to own it, but that is as far as they’re going to be involved in it. “Skipper pointed out that of the 85 women or African-Americans hired by national outlets, ESPN has 74 under its employ. He said it was important to cater to the African-American community because they watch sports too: ‘African-Americans are a very important part of our constituency. They watch a lot of sports. And I believe that we have to be their home, and they have to believe that we represent their interests.'”
Fine and dandy.
ESPN can do whatever they want; Skipper can say whatever he wants.
But it sure sounds like segregation to me. It doesn’t sound like what Dr. King talked about. I remember when I was growing up, the subject was integration. When I was growing up, the complaint was that certain — well, even before I was growing up. You know the drill. Certain parts of the lunch counter, White Only. Restrooms, White Only. Buses, White Only. So the civil rights movement was about integrating. It was about breaking down barriers. It was about integrating the races, getting rid… The ultimate objective, I always believed, was the colorblind society.
I actually don’t think that’s the actual objective. I think if we ever got there, too many in the race business would be out of business and they don’t want to go there. So a colorblind society — while I think would be absolutely wonderful and fabulous — I don’t think we’re ever going to be allowed to get there. But my point is, back in the ’50s and ’60s when I was growing up, integration was what the entire civil rights movement was about. And it seems… It’s not just recently. Like the last 20 years. It seems like after succeeding and integrating so much of our society, the desire all of a sudden to separate popped up again.
And on college campuses you see black dorms, Black Studies, black classes, African-American Studies, Black History Month as opposed to American History Month. And now ESPN with their website, The Undefeated, which is 100% African-American in content. As though that is the only way the African-American audience at ESPN can be properly served. It just doesn’t seem like it’s going in the right direction to me. I know the word “empowerment” is used a lot, and this will be seen as “empowering” the people who are employed to work on this website.
And it will probably be said that it’s “empowering” the African-American audience of ESPN, but it’s still segregating, isn’t it? I mean, is that what we’re out to do now? Is that the objective? Segregation? It’s not just African-Americans. For the longest time, militant feminism… Remember all these women saying only women can adequately represent women in the Senate? Only women can possibly understand “women’s issues,” and we don’t have enough elected women? We don’t have enough elected women in the Senate and the House?
As though it was everybody else’s fault, as if there was some sort of institutional bias or racism. “No, we’re not going to elect a bunch of women; we don’t want them in this place!” When in truth was there weren’t that many running. But somebody decided, “There aren’t enough women here; there aren’t enough African-American here,” and somehow that so-called fact ended up being blamed on people who had nothing to do with it, and then that led to the whole concept of integration, I guess, failing, because the majority was still putting up roadblocks not permitting it.
So we have to re-segregate here? And as we re-segregate, people are being applauded and thinking they’re doing great things? I don’t know how this is advancing anything. I fully expect to hear about this. I’m fully aware that I’m going to catch hell. I’m going to be misrepresented and people are going to accuse me of whatever that’s not going to be anywhere near accurate. But as I watch ESPN, I don’t know how anybody — any sports fan — gets shortchanged. They cover everything, and they’ve got everyone. He’s right. Skipper is right. They have a lot of ex-jocks, African-American coaches.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: There’s a good point about what’s going on. This is not just segregation that’s setting in again as exemplified here by what ESPN is doing. I’m going to take it further. It’s not only integration being brought to a screeching halt and segregation resurfacing. I think this is also about assimilation.
I think this is about the whole concept of what it is to be an American. I think that’s under siege, and I think it’s in the process of being redefined. That’s what the Democrat Party is all about now: The attack on the founding, the belief that America is founded unjust and immoral. There’s a whole bunch of things out there that are really aimed at restructuring and redefining the whole country and breaking down the concepts that were established of what this country is since our founding.
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