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Why is everyone so hard on Stephen A. Smith?

mystic

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I don’t think he’s an Uncle Tom. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I do think he’s well intentioned with some of the things I’ve heard him say. A lot of people make statements based on their experience. I think he subscribes to respectability politics at times, and that’s likely what’s helped him advance, so that’s the perspective he has. I feel like a lot of Black folks from his generation tend to have the same mindset.
 

Natturner2000

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I don’t think he’s an Uncle Tom. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I do think he’s well intentioned with some of the things I’ve heard him say. A lot of people make statements based on their experience. I think he subscribes to respectability politics at times, and that’s likely what’s helped him advance, so that’s the perspective he has. I feel like a lot of Black folks from his generation tend to have the same mindset.

That's a fair well-measured response.
 

collegegal1997

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Well, it doesn't help that every morning I wake up to this man yelling across the screen...... but, all I have to say is he's more old school and afraid of change. A lot of younger players are challenging the system and doing sh!t out of the norm.
 

LoveSupreme

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I’ve only heard a few things he’s said. Not into celebrities, so I’m not that well-versed about him.

However, the few times I’ve heard him pontificate upon blackness, I was left with the impression that he was a colored man trying to keep his prestigious job. This means he is a fence-sitter: He will talk out of both sides of his mouth to keep massa’s money flowing.

In my opinion, such persons shouldn’t speak half-heartedly or at all on race issues. Nobody picked him as a “leader,” so he should shut up and just do his job. He’s not good at race relations commentating. He looks like an insincere fool.
 

Emerald Diamond

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Liss..:emoji_clap:sen....:emoji_clap:

This man will forever have a piece of my heart for that legendary read he gave on a baller! Mind you, I didn't even know the guy, but this was so funny I don't need to

 

dkong

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he's kind of arrogant to me but perhaps that 's just a persona he puts on to attract the views. I won't know how he is off camera.
 

Femme Pop

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not only is he a corporate shill and a fake woke sellout, he's a gross misogynist too. he basically tried to excuse ray rice's horrific attack on his fiance by saying "we don't know what she did to make him react that way" e8

nah man, its forever fµck him. i just consider him a meme, like umar johnson.
 
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Wondahful

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I don’t think he’s an Uncle Tom. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I do think he’s well intentioned with some of the things I’ve heard him say. A lot of people make statements based on their experience. I think he subscribes to respectability politics at times, and that’s likely what’s helped him advance, so that’s the perspective he has. I feel like a lot of Black folks from his generation tend to have the same mindset.

This. He's a "bootstrapper" in terms of his mentality about how Black people can and should advance in society. It is fine to acknowledge individual and personal responsibility of each person to better their lot in life, but Stephen A. Smith rarely acknowledges in any real way the impact of systemic racism.

For example I was watching last week and he and the panel were discussing whether or not NBA players should play in light of the protests. SAS's point of view was that players should play and that they should use their platform to demand legislative changes. Not a bad perspective. But where he began to err in my opinion is that he began to castigate black folks for not voting in the last election and how conservatives don't worry about who "their" candidate is, they go out and vote and laugh at those who don't. Max, his white co-host, provided the context that it is largely a white conservative talking point that black people don't vote. He also acknowledged the ways in which voter suppression and lack of access to the ballot historically has played a role in the weariness that some black people have with the electoral process. So even in that exchange you have SAS dressing down blacks without providing any perspective to the larger issues while his white co-host has to come through with the historical context. This is largely the pattern when they discuss race on that show.
 

THE STANDARD

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not only is he a corporate shill and a fake woke sellout, he a gross misogynist too. he basically tried to excuse ray rice's horrific attack on his fiance by saying "we don't know what she did to make him react that way" e8

nah man, its forever fµck him. i just consider him a meme, like umar johnson.
It’s been fµck Stephen A forever ever since the Ray Rice fiasco! I will NEVER forget that mess!
 

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