Crybullies and commentators: The race to play victim in modern media

If Emmanuel Acho wanted to criticize Louisiana State Tigers star Angel Reese on a public platform, he should have waited to see if she said she was a fan of Candace Owens or pledged to vote for Donald Trump in November or came out in favor of banning men from women’s sports.

Acho clearly hasn’t learned the ground rules for criticizing black women in public. Those who are seen as sympathetic victims of racism and sexism are to be shielded from critique. But for those who express unsavory political views, no attack is off limits.

The more victimized you are, the more society will bend to your whims.

Right now, Angel Reese has the “affection for protection” and Candace Owens does not.

Acho, the outspoken sports commentator who often talks about race, essentially said that Reese can’t play the villain one minute and play the victim the next. Those comments earned him what he called a “reprimand” from friends and associates, and Acho clearly bent the knee to the angry mob.

The same mob is out in full force because the Breakfast Club and rapper-turned-podcaster Joe Budden dared to have a conversation with someone who has different views than he does. The Grio published an article on why black people shouldn’t embrace Owens’ efforts to rebrand herself. Another popular commentator on race issues wrote a piece in the Guardian headlined, “Hate cannot be reasoned with. So why is Black radio hosting ‘conversations’ with Candace Owens?”

Progressives will try to claim that the vitriol toward Owens is not representative of a broader anti-conservative bias, but that simply isn’t true.

The late entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte once compared Secretary of State Colin Powell to a “house slave” during his tenure with the Bush administration. More recently, an opinion piece in the Grio referred to Condoleezza Rice as a “foot soldier for white supremacy” after her comments about critical race theory on “The View.” Winsome Sears was accused of being a mouthpiece for white supremacy by Michael Eric Dyson after she won her election to become lieutenant governor of Virginia. Byron Donalds was called a “prop” working to uphold and perpetuate white supremacy by U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.).

Black media outlets think Candace Owens and other black conservatives are “dangerous” because they treat politics like a religion, and they don’t want her to spread heresy to people starting to question the faith. They have no problem with artists who glorify drugs, violence, and sexual promiscuity. Dysfunction and self-destruction are fine for the community, but unapproved political opinions “hurt” their listeners.

It just goes to show how much the media has changed over the last 30 years.

There was a time when daytime talk shows invited controversial figures — from David Duke to Louis Farrakhan — to express their views. Both the host and the audience had opportunities to push back on the guest and tell them why they were wrong. Now, we live in an era where speaking to someone is considered “platforming” them.

This phenomenon represents a much bigger problem in our digital public square. The race merchants who create content built on slander, insults, ad hominem attacks, and character assassination hate reaping what they sow.

They call black conservatives sellouts, race traitors, and tap dancers for white supremacy every other day. The feminists in the bunch insult and demean black men with regularity. They have no problem comparing a mild-mannered Christian like Tony Dungy to a white supremacist for daring to speak at a pro-life rally.

And more than anything, these crybullies love to talk about white people. They write articles titled “The 5 types of Becky” and “The 8 Kinds of Karen.” They claim that using memes of black people is “digital blackface.”

These people are clearly in the wrong business. They like to dish out criticism but can’t take it. They like to engage in race craft on cable news but hate when it is returned in kind. Their tongues are hot with fire, but their ears melt quicker than ice. This is a very bad combination for people who want to be in the public square.

They are like kids in a schoolyard who call “yo mama” everything but a child of God, then run off crying to the teacher when you say their mom can’t make a decent ham sandwich.

Americans have gotten soft. No one values stoicism or enduring difficulty with a stiff upper lip. We live in a therapeutic culture, where everyone understands that the quickest way to be acknowledged, affirmed, and validated is to prove that you have been aggrieved. The more victimized you are, the more society will bend to your whims.

The racialized framing that has become so commonplace today represents another problem that is rarely discussed. The quality of writing in the race commentary space has declined dramatically in recent years. I consider Ta-Nehisi Coates to be the Steph Curry of this genre. He did things with his pen that dazzled his fans and earned him the respect of his ideological foes. Like the four-time NBA champion, Coates inspired a new generation of copycats who had neither his personality nor skill.

His writing took a nosedive after Donald Trump became president. Every blog post became a different way to blame the problems of the world — and the black community — on white supremacy. His followers took notice, and for nearly a decade, they have taken the issues we face in a large, multiethnic, dynamic nation and flattened them into boring and predictable pieces that always come back to the same list of -isms and -phobias.

This is why Emmanuel Acho was chastised by his peers in sports media. I assume he’s learned his lesson: Only black women like Candace Owens can be publicly criticized. As a man who occupies a higher position of “privilege” than the female athletes he covers, his job is to be a good “ally” to Angel Reese, not treat her like one of the men he covers.