Apparently, there wasn’t enough football news during draft night on Thursday to occupy the “journalists” at Sports Illustrated. I say that because SI felt it was newsworthy to take an ESPN guy’s very innocent comment and try to turn it into a racial incident.
ESPN analyst and former NFL player Louis Riddick was breaking down Arizona’s selection of Ohio State offensive tackle Paris Johnson Jr., with the sixth overall pick of the first round. When describing Arizona’s reasoning for choosing Johnson Jr., Riddick said the Cardinals were looking for “chiefs on their team, not Indians, chiefs.”
No biggie, right? Wrong!
Sports Illustrated broke with reporting on football, the only thing people cared about last night, and decided to run a story titled: ESPN’s Louis Riddick Facing Criticism After Insensitive Proverb During NFL Draft.
Of course, Riddick wasn’t facing all that much “criticism,” but Sports Illustrated would do its best to fix that!
During ESPN’s NFL draft broadcast Thursday evening, analyst Louis Riddick attracted criticism for an awkward turn of phrase insensitive to Native Americans https://t.co/cm1ub3pXV2
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 28, 2023
And who were the people SI found who were so very outraged by Riddick’s comments? They found exactly three people who total less than five thousand Twitter followers. You can read who they are here. I’m not posting hypersensitive randos.
The offended Twitter users also do not appear to represent any Native American group or organization. So, like the entire debate over the Washington Redskins name change, it seems that white people are acting offended on behalf of Native Americans who aren’t offended.
And this in the age of sensitivity to cultural appropriation. You hate to see it.