ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith is determined not to let “white America” use the Ja Morant gun incident to indict the black community.
On Saturday, a video of Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant displaying a gun in a strip club went viral.
4kt Ja in the Skrip club wit the blicky. pic.twitter.com/mFEOvZ5MVY
— DJ Akademiks (@Akademiks) March 4, 2023
The NBA suspended Morant for two games over the incident.
On Monday, Stephen A. Smith took to the ESPN airwaves to address the most crucial part of this story. No, not to discuss what could have led this young man to make such poor decisions. No, not to address Morant’s dangerous fascination with firearms in general and how he can be helped to learn from his mistakes.
Oh no, Stephen A. wants to talk about the all-important issue of making sure “white America” doesn’t use Morant’s troubles to paint the black community in a negative light.
“Ja Morant ain’t messing anything up for the next generation,” Smith said Monday morning. “Load management might mess things up and some of the conduct in terms of a willingness or lack thereof to show up to work…but let me tell you something, I don’t want white America to think for one second that this is an example that you’re gonna use to shine a light on the collective problem on the Black community and all this other stuff.”
Stephen A. Smith: “Ja Morant ain’t messing anything up for the next generation. Load management might mess things up.” pic.twitter.com/kZLYUdBNgl
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 6, 2023
“There are countless black athletes that show up and show out,” Smith asserted. “They bust their butt, they work hard, they represent us in exemplary fashion and society is not gonna use one issue as a reason to sit up there and paint everybody with a broad brush and all of a sudden talk about how young black men, ‘you can’t give them this, you can’t give them that.’ Young black men in the world of sports have been showing, for quite a long time, that you can provide those opportunities to us and we can take it and run with it in a very positive, productive fashion. I ain’t letting white America get away with that. I can tell you that right now.”
Smith did not elaborate on what part of “white America” he was referring to. Certainly, no one at Breitbart Sports (an outlet Smith would probably consider representative of “white America”) ever made the charge that Morant’s troubles were symbolic of the black community.
But imagine if a white analyst at ESPN said what Stephen A. feels so comfortable saying: That he’s not going to let the “black community” get away with something. Anything. That person would not just be fired. He would be fired into the atmosphere.
No one is making the Ja Morant issue about race except for Stephen A. Smith.