ESPN must hold Stephen A. accountable after doubling down on racist remarks about White basketball players

Stephen A. Smith is doubling down on his racist commentary, insisting the Los Angeles Lakers cannot succeed if their top three players are White.

On Wednesday, Smith mocked the team's trade for Walker Kessler, pairing him with Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.

"Where the hell the Los Angeles Lakers think they are going with a bunch of White dudes?" he asked on his podcast. "Your three top players are White dudes. Really? This is basketball."

He then asked, "In NBA history, when has a team led by three White dudes ever gone to the promised land? Somebody gotta say it."

After facing criticism, Smith responded Thursday by declaring he "ain't backing down." He argued it's "just facts" that championship teams need "Black brothers" to help "White dudes" win.

https://x.com/stephenasmith/status/2072744504650559747

Consider that Smith is this worked up simply because the Lakers' top players happen to be White.

Notice, too, how illogical his argument becomes. In defending himself, Smith acknowledged the greatness of Larry Bird, Dirk Nowitzki, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Steve Nash and Cooper Flagg. If he acknowledges that White players can be just as great as Black players, then there's no logical reason three elite White players couldn't win together without "Black brothers."

By Smith's own logic, it would simply mean no team has assembled the right White trio yet. But that isn't what he argued. He claimed a team cannot win with three White stars because no team has.

The distinction matters.

By that reasoning, no NFL team could win a Super Bowl with a Black quarterback, Black head coach and Black general manager. Of course, that's not true. It just hasn't happened yet. Still, if someone argued otherwise, Smith and his ilk would rage in fury.

The double standard is obvious.

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Notice how much stronger the reaction has been to Colin Cowherd reporting that teams viewed new 76ers forward Jaylen Brown as "arrogant," a possible explanation for his underwhelming trade market. Cowherd relayed what teams reportedly believed. Smith, meanwhile, is explicitly arguing that White players are inherently inferior.

Smith didn't make these comments off the cuff. His social media team promoted the clips, and he has continued defending them. In his latest video, he argued the comments "had to be said." It's unclear why, other than that he appears to believe White players should know their place.

But the larger issue isn't just Stephen A. Smith.

Since 2020, society has increasingly normalized, if not rewarded, for making openly hostile racial comments about White people. There is no accountability for it. In some cases, there are incentives, with White executives continuing to elevate personalities who traffic in racial grievance because it's safer than confronting them.

That's why certain media figures seem to pretend to be racist, including Jemele Hill and former ESPN broadcaster Mark Jones. Whether genuine or performative, they understand there's value with their bosses and with "Black Twitter" in cultivating hostility toward White people.

It's transparent. And it's ugly.

Smith did not respond to OutKick's request for comment.

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Smith's comments should not be acceptable. Even on his own platform, he remains one of ESPN's most prominent personalities. Yet there's little reason to believe his employer will hold him accountable.

OutKick has repeatedly asked ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro over the past year why he allows Black commentator to make bigoted remarks about White people and White athletes. On occasion, Pitaro has sent a PR stooge to call me names off the record.

Pitaro himself has never publicly addressed the issue -- or privately.

Sources tell OutKick that Pitaro backed Mark Jones in 2020 when Jones falsely accused police officers of plotting to shoot him. He also defended Kendrick Perkins in 2023 after Perkins falsely accused NBA MVP voters of favoring White players based on inaccurate claims about the racial makeup of the voting pool.

Just imagine the message Pitaro could send if he simply acknowledged Smith's comments as racially inappropriate. It would cause lesser-known race idolaters at ESPN to think twice before making similar remarks on air.

But he likely won't. Pitaro has shown a consistent pattern of cowardice since assuming the chairman role in 2018.

That's why the consensus ESPN commentary about Caitlin Clark is that the Black women who cheap-shot and hard-foul her out of animosity are the true victims, not Clark, no matter how many black eyes and injuries she sustains.

It's pathetic.

Pitaro has enabled a culture in which black commentators feel beyond consequence, while everyone else walks on eggshells, hoping he doesn't lay them off.

Still, one has to ask a simple question: Who exactly is the target audience for segments like Stephen A.'s rant about "white dudes" on the basketball court?

Seriously.

Maybe Black people are better at basketball than White people on average. It's certainly possible. But so what? Who tunes into sports talk to hear that? What's the point?

Likewise, who is looking for a sports talk show to argue that white people are better at golf, as Smith also claimed during his rant?

Anyone?

We ask because Smith's former colleagues tried this approach before. ESPN gave Bomani Jones three shows that covered sports primarily through a racial lens. All of them failed and posted historically poor ratings in their respective time slots. Jemele Hill tried it. It failed. Dan Le Batard leaned heavily into similar commentary and saw ESPN's radio affiliate count dramatically shrink during his tenure.

Believe it or not, sports fans don't watch games counting the number of White and Black athletes involved. Only the media does.

And until a Black commentator is held responsible for making openly hostile remarks about White people, nothing will change. In other words, nothing will change.

As soon as these anti-White commentators are done dog-whistling about the Lakers' new White trio and Caitlin Clark, they'll move on to the media-generated race war between Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson.

Rinse and repeat.

But since Stephen A. Smith is so eager to point out patterns, here's one.

His show most days features him alongside an almost entirely Black panel of commentators. First Take's ratings have become a problem. They're sluggish compared with the shows immediately before and after it, hosted by White dudes Mike Greenberg and Pat McAfee.

In fact, sources say Smith has told executives at ESPN to stop booking guests who appear on his show on Greenberg's the same day, as a result.

Should we point that out because it's "just facts"?