Rachel Nichols canceled

[jambr380]

Made 2 bullet point lists of everything said in this topic so far.

1 list of all the reasons Rachel should stay.

1 list of all the reasons she should go.


STAY:
 - she's a woman in sports journalism whose career began in the 90s (tenure?)
 - She was a true trail-blazer (same as above)

GO:
 - Never particularly liked her as a journalist
 - she was willing to throw them (ESPN) under the bus
 - She always seemed to be more of a shill for whichever star players were willing to give her access than she was a reporter of any kind.

I'm not listing the skin colour ones because those are rubbish, right? Or DO we care about skin colour? In that case, does the colour of Rachel's skin put her in column A or B?

So, tenure is why she should stay?

So far, it's not looking rosey.

Again, my point remains the same; if you want to argue someone got hired because of the colour of their skin, at least bring points to the table that argue for/against that. Don't just bring more of the same rhetoric but from the other perspective.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that Nichols was replaced by a young, inexperienced black host during the height of BLM, when ESPN was openly catering its coverage toward racial justice?  Despite Nichols being contractually promised hosting duties?

This was all about skin color.  Hiring / firing / promoting / demoting based upon race should be unconstitutional, and hopefully the current Supreme Court will overturn prior racist precedent.

You're doing it again.

Just digging in.

I don't know either of these people, but so far I only know that people here think;

 - Rachel isn't as knowledgeable about basketball
 - Rachel isn't considered a great reporter
 - Rachel likes pushing players that talk to her
 - Rachel got replaced
 - Rachel pulled a race card

I don't know anything about the other person, and I haven't seen a single positive word about her other than "she has been doing this for a long time", which, well, experience is something anyone can get.

So, knowing NOTHING else about this situation, I'm still 100% sceptical about that race card. And the more people say "it's about race" instead of "she's better because X", the less I'll believe it.

The contractual obligation ESPN had to give Nichols hosting duties? Maria Taylor was certainly less qualified than the most powerful female voice in sports.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what is being said here but Maria Taylor isn't exactly a slouch, either.  She's a solid reporter who has some pretty impressive credentials herself and NBC was more than happy to snap her up right away and give her an Olympic hosting job which is a pretty prestigious gig.  She's busted her tail too.

See? This is my point, once again.

As soon as we ditch the conversation about race, it's really not all that clear cut anymore.

That's why going to race first, is stupid. Cuz once again, as a whitey, if we don't tie this arguement, we deserve to lose it for some very, very obvious reasons.

But it isn't a tie ballgame. Maria Taylor is no slouch at all. She's one of the more renowned up and coming journalists in the game.

But she is not on the same level as the premier female voice in basketball journalism who was contracted for that role.

Being "the premier female voice". Let's break that down.

First, female doesn't matter because we're comparing to another female caster.

Second, how'd they get to be the premier female voice? Because this role would definitely get you there. It's a combination of platform and tenure, right? And skill, and maybe connections. I've yet to hear a single argument of skill in Rachel's favour. Most responses in this topic have been about her not being a great reporter. She has connections though, so fair enough.

Third, where would that premier voice be best put to use? At the highest platform? Or trying to raise a lower level show up to that level? I'd argue the second would be more fruitful. And then you can use her former role to raise another female voice to power.

I don't know. I think new blood isn't a bad thing.

And I also think immediately throwing shade and pulling a race card when you get replaced is lazy.

You are weirdly trying to moderate the conversation, but from a biased point of view. I take it you don't know very much about Rachel Nichols, but no need to diminish her accomplishments and so what if a few posters on Celtics Strong aren't huge fans of her?

I will take the other side and you can add it to your pros side. I always found Nichols refreshing, charismatic, and professional. Maybe she doesn't have the in-depth knowledge of a Woj, but that's not what she was hired for.

Also, dude, it is crystal clear she was being replaced because of race. ESPN is a business and I understand why, but I also understand why she was peeved. It's too bad her private grievance went public. That really sucks for her, but it also sucks for the CHA announcer whose Nuggets tweet autocorrected to the n-word, and he got fired. People need to be super-careful about what they put out there (or might get out there).

[Roy H.]

ps, in doing this, she also sabotaged the heck outta Maria Taylor. Anything she's gonna get now will be blemished by "she got that due to her race"

Affirmative actions does that to all candidates who are automatically given positions despite not outperforming others.  In fact, it brings down all black people, having folks question their qualifications even if they haven't benefited from race-conscious decision making.  Clarence Thomas has made this point repeatedly:

His argument is rooted in two beliefs, each informed by his time spent on the left. The first is that affirmative action reinforces the stigma that shadows African-Americans. Among many whites, blackness signals a deficit of intellect, talent, and skill. Even Supreme Court Justices, Thomas wrote in one opinion, “assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” When the state and social institutions identify African-Americans as beings in need of help, they reinforce that stigma. It doesn’t matter if some African-Americans succeed without affirmative action. In the same way that enslavement marked all black people, free or slave, as inferior, affirmative action—here Thomas borrows directly from the language of Plessy v. Ferguson—stamps all African-Americans with “a badge of inferiority.”

The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy. The most remarkable element of Thomas’s affirmative-action jurisprudence, and what makes it unlike that of any other Justice on the Supreme Court, is how much attention he devotes to whites, not as victims but as perpetrators, the lead actors in a racial drama of their own imagination. Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-radical-vision-of-race 

[Kiorrik]

Made 2 bullet point lists of everything said in this topic so far.

1 list of all the reasons Rachel should stay.

1 list of all the reasons she should go.


STAY:
 - she's a woman in sports journalism whose career began in the 90s (tenure?)
 - She was a true trail-blazer (same as above)

GO:
 - Never particularly liked her as a journalist
 - she was willing to throw them (ESPN) under the bus
 - She always seemed to be more of a shill for whichever star players were willing to give her access than she was a reporter of any kind.

I'm not listing the skin colour ones because those are rubbish, right? Or DO we care about skin colour? In that case, does the colour of Rachel's skin put her in column A or B?

So, tenure is why she should stay?

So far, it's not looking rosey.

Again, my point remains the same; if you want to argue someone got hired because of the colour of their skin, at least bring points to the table that argue for/against that. Don't just bring more of the same rhetoric but from the other perspective.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that Nichols was replaced by a young, inexperienced black host during the height of BLM, when ESPN was openly catering its coverage toward racial justice?  Despite Nichols being contractually promised hosting duties?

This was all about skin color.  Hiring / firing / promoting / demoting based upon race should be unconstitutional, and hopefully the current Supreme Court will overturn prior racist precedent.

You're doing it again.

Just digging in.

I don't know either of these people, but so far I only know that people here think;

 - Rachel isn't as knowledgeable about basketball
 - Rachel isn't considered a great reporter
 - Rachel likes pushing players that talk to her
 - Rachel got replaced
 - Rachel pulled a race card

I don't know anything about the other person, and I haven't seen a single positive word about her other than "she has been doing this for a long time", which, well, experience is something anyone can get.

So, knowing NOTHING else about this situation, I'm still 100% sceptical about that race card. And the more people say "it's about race" instead of "she's better because X", the less I'll believe it.

The contractual obligation ESPN had to give Nichols hosting duties? Maria Taylor was certainly less qualified than the most powerful female voice in sports.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with what is being said here but Maria Taylor isn't exactly a slouch, either.  She's a solid reporter who has some pretty impressive credentials herself and NBC was more than happy to snap her up right away and give her an Olympic hosting job which is a pretty prestigious gig.  She's busted her tail too.

See? This is my point, once again.

As soon as we ditch the conversation about race, it's really not all that clear cut anymore.

That's why going to race first, is stupid. Cuz once again, as a whitey, if we don't tie this arguement, we deserve to lose it for some very, very obvious reasons.

But it isn't a tie ballgame. Maria Taylor is no slouch at all. She's one of the more renowned up and coming journalists in the game.

But she is not on the same level as the premier female voice in basketball journalism who was contracted for that role.

Being "the premier female voice". Let's break that down.

First, female doesn't matter because we're comparing to another female caster.

Second, how'd they get to be the premier female voice? Because this role would definitely get you there. It's a combination of platform and tenure, right? And skill, and maybe connections. I've yet to hear a single argument of skill in Rachel's favour. Most responses in this topic have been about her not being a great reporter. She has connections though, so fair enough.

Third, where would that premier voice be best put to use? At the highest platform? Or trying to raise a lower level show up to that level? I'd argue the second would be more fruitful. And then you can use her former role to raise another female voice to power.

I don't know. I think new blood isn't a bad thing.

And I also think immediately throwing shade and pulling a race card when you get replaced is lazy.

You are weirdly trying to moderate the conversation, but from a biased point of view. I take it you don't know very much about Rachel Nichols, but no need to diminish her accomplishments and so what if a few posters on Celtics Strong aren't huge fans of her?

I will take the other side and you can add it to your pros side. I always found Nichols refreshing, charismatic, and professional. Maybe she doesn't have the in-depth knowledge of a Woj, but that's not what she was hired for.

Also, dude, it is crystal clear she was being replaced because of race. ESPN is a business and I understand why, but I also understand why she was peeved. It's too bad her private grievance went public. That really sucks for her, but it also sucks for the CHA announcer whose Nuggets tweet autocorrected to the n-word, and he got fired. People need to be super-careful about what they put out there (or might get out there).

Nah, I've been asking for good reasons since the word go.

You're the first to not ignore me, and answer straight, instead of going "she black!"

Thanks for that.

I'm still of the opinion she should've gone about this differently. In private or not. Which again, has been my point from the word "go".

.edit: Sorry, Gouki was accommodating me too. You weren't the first - sorry Gouki

[Kiorrik]

ps, in doing this, she also sabotaged the heck outta Maria Taylor. Anything she's gonna get now will be blemished by "she got that due to her race"

Affirmative actions does that to all candidates who are automatically given positions despite not outperforming others.  In fact, it brings down all black people, having folks question their qualifications even if they haven't benefited from race-conscious decision making.  Clarence Thomas has made this point repeatedly:

His argument is rooted in two beliefs, each informed by his time spent on the left. The first is that affirmative action reinforces the stigma that shadows African-Americans. Among many whites, blackness signals a deficit of intellect, talent, and skill. Even Supreme Court Justices, Thomas wrote in one opinion, “assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” When the state and social institutions identify African-Americans as beings in need of help, they reinforce that stigma. It doesn’t matter if some African-Americans succeed without affirmative action. In the same way that enslavement marked all black people, free or slave, as inferior, affirmative action—here Thomas borrows directly from the language of Plessy v. Ferguson—stamps all African-Americans with “a badge of inferiority.”

The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy. The most remarkable element of Thomas’s affirmative-action jurisprudence, and what makes it unlike that of any other Justice on the Supreme Court, is how much attention he devotes to whites, not as victims but as perpetrators, the lead actors in a racial drama of their own imagination. Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-radical-vision-of-race

I know, which is why I keep saying that race doesn't matter. On that subject, it ought to be a tie.

This is why you do a pro-con list that doesn't include race.

And then you see who's a better fit for the job. Excluding race. If in THAT case you still think Rachel wins, fair enough. But I've yet to see someone outright say they prefer Rachel over Maria?

[rondofan1255]

She always seemed to be more of a shill for whichever star players were willing to give her access than she was a reporter of any kind.

Agreed. Good riddance.

[Birdman]

Not surprise by this but thought it be when she got caught on the phone

[mobilija]

You can never be woke enough.  The lesson:  stay silent and move aside while less qualified people take your job, or it may be the last time you work in the industry.  Value is judged by your race and/or the concentration of melanin in your skin.

The color of your skin has always and continues to effect hiring practices. It used to favor one color and is now starting to favor another. Two wrongs don't usually make a right but lets hope that by swinging one way and then the other, that at some point we learn the balance. Maybe enough people learn to empathize, truly feel injustice that at some point a true equality is found.

[Chief]

Ive always liked her and enjoyed the Jump.

Hopefully she can rebound.

[footey]

Rachel started to annoy me when she openly told GMs of other teams (kidding or not) NOT to pick up the phone if Danny Ainge called, because he will hose you.  It started out as a joke, I don't think she attempting to undermine the Celtics, but man it bothered me; I really do feel it reinforced league wide perception of Ainge.

I think Maria was quite good at her job, preferred her to Rachel, and had more credibility as a former basketball player (I think she played college ball at Georgia).

[Kuberski33]

I don't think Nichols is any great talent. She got her job because of her looks. And when that happens, aging is not going to be great for your career. And even worse, she's white.  So if she wanted to stick around, she needed to play nice with everyone. 

Someone obviously had it in for her and when the opportunity presented itself, they took advantage. It does kind of suck for Nichols that she got the boot that way, but TV is also a cutthroat industry as it has a limited amount of quality jobs and tons and tons of people who want them.

[Roy H.]

ps, in doing this, she also sabotaged the heck outta Maria Taylor. Anything she's gonna get now will be blemished by "she got that due to her race"

Affirmative actions does that to all candidates who are automatically given positions despite not outperforming others.  In fact, it brings down all black people, having folks question their qualifications even if they haven't benefited from race-conscious decision making.  Clarence Thomas has made this point repeatedly:

His argument is rooted in two beliefs, each informed by his time spent on the left. The first is that affirmative action reinforces the stigma that shadows African-Americans. Among many whites, blackness signals a deficit of intellect, talent, and skill. Even Supreme Court Justices, Thomas wrote in one opinion, “assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” When the state and social institutions identify African-Americans as beings in need of help, they reinforce that stigma. It doesn’t matter if some African-Americans succeed without affirmative action. In the same way that enslavement marked all black people, free or slave, as inferior, affirmative action—here Thomas borrows directly from the language of Plessy v. Ferguson—stamps all African-Americans with “a badge of inferiority.”

The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy. The most remarkable element of Thomas’s affirmative-action jurisprudence, and what makes it unlike that of any other Justice on the Supreme Court, is how much attention he devotes to whites, not as victims but as perpetrators, the lead actors in a racial drama of their own imagination. Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-radical-vision-of-race

I know, which is why I keep saying that race doesn't matter. On that subject, it ought to be a tie.

This is why you do a pro-con list that doesn't include race.

And then you see who's a better fit for the job. Excluding race. If in THAT case you still think Rachel wins, fair enough. But I've yet to see someone outright say they prefer Rachel over Maria?

What’s better about Taylor?  She’s younger and more attractive.  Her primary role before taking over from Nichols was being eye candy on football broadcasts.  She didn’t pay her dues; she was automatically elevated to be front and center during the NBA Finals, at the same time BLM was being painted on the court.

[Ogaju]

ps, in doing this, she also sabotaged the heck outta Maria Taylor. Anything she's gonna get now will be blemished by "she got that due to her race"

Affirmative actions does that to all candidates who are automatically given positions despite not outperforming others.  In fact, it brings down all black people, having folks question their qualifications even if they haven't benefited from race-conscious decision making.  Clarence Thomas has made this point repeatedly:

His argument is rooted in two beliefs, each informed by his time spent on the left. The first is that affirmative action reinforces the stigma that shadows African-Americans. Among many whites, blackness signals a deficit of intellect, talent, and skill. Even Supreme Court Justices, Thomas wrote in one opinion, “assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” When the state and social institutions identify African-Americans as beings in need of help, they reinforce that stigma. It doesn’t matter if some African-Americans succeed without affirmative action. In the same way that enslavement marked all black people, free or slave, as inferior, affirmative action—here Thomas borrows directly from the language of Plessy v. Ferguson—stamps all African-Americans with “a badge of inferiority.”

The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy. The most remarkable element of Thomas’s affirmative-action jurisprudence, and what makes it unlike that of any other Justice on the Supreme Court, is how much attention he devotes to whites, not as victims but as perpetrators, the lead actors in a racial drama of their own imagination. Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-radical-vision-of-race

And yet when he was affirmatively promoted HE ACCEPTED.

[Ogaju]

Made 2 bullet point lists of everything said in this topic so far.

1 list of all the reasons Rachel should stay.

1 list of all the reasons she should go.


STAY:
 - she's a woman in sports journalism whose career began in the 90s (tenure?)
 - She was a true trail-blazer (same as above)

GO:
 - Never particularly liked her as a journalist
 - she was willing to throw them (ESPN) under the bus
 - She always seemed to be more of a shill for whichever star players were willing to give her access than she was a reporter of any kind.

I'm not listing the skin colour ones because those are rubbish, right? Or DO we care about skin colour? In that case, does the colour of Rachel's skin put her in column A or B?

So, tenure is why she should stay?

So far, it's not looking rosey.

Again, my point remains the same; if you want to argue someone got hired because of the colour of their skin, at least bring points to the table that argue for/against that. Don't just bring more of the same rhetoric but from the other perspective.

Do you think it’s a coincidence that Nichols was replaced by a young, inexperienced black host during the height of BLM, when ESPN was openly catering its coverage toward racial justice?  Despite Nichols being contractually promised hosting duties?

This was all about skin color.  Hiring / firing / promoting / demoting based upon race should be unconstitutional, and hopefully the current Supreme Court will overturn prior racist precedent.

ESPN is a private company and can put people on the air however they want.  If ESPN feels like having a lack of representation is hurting their brand, then they have every right to address that.  Rachel Nichols then attacked ESPN and ESPN responded in the way they felt appropriate.  ESPN has a horrible record promoting black employees.  She could have moved past this but she kept attacking ESPN in private.

So, if ESPN thinks they're losing their white audience and decides to fire black employees and promote white broadcasters, that's legal?

Of course it is.

[KG Living Legend]

 Most annoying voice on espn. See ya.

[Moranis]

ps, in doing this, she also sabotaged the heck outta Maria Taylor. Anything she's gonna get now will be blemished by "she got that due to her race"

Affirmative actions does that to all candidates who are automatically given positions despite not outperforming others.  In fact, it brings down all black people, having folks question their qualifications even if they haven't benefited from race-conscious decision making.  Clarence Thomas has made this point repeatedly:

His argument is rooted in two beliefs, each informed by his time spent on the left. The first is that affirmative action reinforces the stigma that shadows African-Americans. Among many whites, blackness signals a deficit of intellect, talent, and skill. Even Supreme Court Justices, Thomas wrote in one opinion, “assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.” When the state and social institutions identify African-Americans as beings in need of help, they reinforce that stigma. It doesn’t matter if some African-Americans succeed without affirmative action. In the same way that enslavement marked all black people, free or slave, as inferior, affirmative action—here Thomas borrows directly from the language of Plessy v. Ferguson—stamps all African-Americans with “a badge of inferiority.”

The second way affirmative action continues white supremacy is by elevating whites to the status of benefactors, doling out scarce privileges to those black people they deem worthy. The most remarkable element of Thomas’s affirmative-action jurisprudence, and what makes it unlike that of any other Justice on the Supreme Court, is how much attention he devotes to whites, not as victims but as perpetrators, the lead actors in a racial drama of their own imagination. Put simply, Thomas believes that affirmative action is a white program for white people.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-radical-vision-of-race

I know, which is why I keep saying that race doesn't matter. On that subject, it ought to be a tie.

This is why you do a pro-con list that doesn't include race.

And then you see who's a better fit for the job. Excluding race. If in THAT case you still think Rachel wins, fair enough. But I've yet to see someone outright say they prefer Rachel over Maria?

What’s better about Taylor?  She’s younger and more attractive.  Her primary role before taking over from Nichols was being eye candy on football broadcasts.  She didn’t pay her dues; she was automatically elevated to be front and center during the NBA Finals, at the same time BLM was being painted on the court.

She was hosting NBA Countdown.  ESPN elected to make NBA Countdown and not The Jump (Nichols' show) the Finals pregame show.  It is true that ESPN had originally planned on The Jump, but changed course amidst the pandemic.  That said, The Jump had never been the pregame show so it was a new position.  Nichols ended up replacing Doris Burke on the sideline during the Finals (that is the job she thought Taylor should get which caused all the uproar).

And for the record, Taylor played both volleyball and basketball at Georgia (she was a pretty high level volleyball player playing for the US on some Junior national teams), has been a part of a lot of basketball related shows for a lot of years on both the SEC Network and then ESPN directly (including actually calling some women's college games and doing analyst work, along with hosting).  It isn't like they pulled her from obscurity and gave her the NBA Finals job.  She was hosting a NBA show for ESPN already.