MANIFESTATIONS: ESPN's bosses were roundly disparaged!

THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2021

In stepped the New York Times: In yesterday morning's New York Times, Kevin Draper—no relation to Don—filed his second report on the "scandal" at ESPN now known as Disparagementgate.

(That's been shortened from the name initially given to this alleged scandal. Initially, experts had called it Disparagingcommentsgate.)

In print editions, Draper's initial report on the alleged scandal had appeared on the front page of Monday morning's Sports Monday section. You can read that first report here.

In print editions, Sports Monday is a fully separate, stand-alone section. This initial report by Draper was given gigantic display.

Augmented by a very large visual, Draper's initial report consumed roughly the top eighty percent of the Sports Monday front page. In fairness, the headline atop the report was basically accurate:

A Leaked Video Inflames The Racial Turmoil at ESPN

In print editions, that's what Monday's headline said.

Question! Until that day, had anyone known that there actually was "racial turmoil" at ESPN? At one point in Monday's report, Draper linked to an earlier report on the general topic, a report he'd written back in July 2020.

In truth, there wasn't much to that July 2020 report. Monday's report would be different.

This Monday morning, Draper's report was given massive prominence. Yesterday morning, he published a follow-up report, largely concerning the spread of the turmoil at ESPN. 

The turmoil at the Disney property had indeed been inflamed! Headline included, the new report started like this:

DRAPER (7/7/21): Rachel Nichols Out for N.B.A. Finals Coverage on ABC

When a sideline reporter first appeared on ABC’s broadcast of the N.B.A. finals on Tuesday night, it was not Rachel Nichols, an abrupt change announced by ESPN earlier in the day. It was an attempt to stanch a yearlong scandal that has spilled into public view about the company’s handling of conflicts centered around race.

The decision to have Malika Andrews be the sideline reporter instead was made after The New York Times reported that Nichols, who is white, made disparaging comments about a Black colleague, Maria Taylor, last year. Among other things, Nichols said that Taylor was picked to host N.B.A. finals coverage last season because ESPN was “feeling pressure” about diversity.

"Among other things"—so true! So true, but also so cool! 

It was delicious stuff! Rachel Nichols—and Nichols is white!—had made "disparaging comments" about a colleague, Maria Taylor. 

Deliciously, Taylor is black! This was the stuff of the scandal.

The disparaging comments were made last year, but finally, Nichols was out! As Draper was now reporting, Nichols wasn't part of ABC's broadcast on Tuesday night, when coverage of this year's NBA finals started. 

(Somewhat appropriately, ESPN and ABC are both owned by Walt Disney Television, a division of Disney General Entertainment Content of The Walt Disney Company. As such, the hackwork occasionally seen on each network leads back to Mickey Mouse!)

In the main, yesterday's headline was accurate. As a result of disparaging comments, Rachel Nichols was "out!" 

More specifically, Nichols was "out for N.B.A. Finals coverage on ABC." In this way, Draper reported the state of play in the alleged scandal at ESPN now known as Disparagementgate.

As we gather together this morning, let the word go out to all the nations—on a fateful morning one year ago, Rachel Nichols did, in fact,  make some disparaging comments. (About whom, we won't yet say.) She did so during a telephone call which she believed was private.

Yesterday morning, as Draper continued, he revisited the scene of the crime:

DRAPER (continuing directly): Nichols’s comments came during a private phone conversation while she was quarantined in a Florida hotel last July before the N.B.A. resumed its season, which had been paused because of the coronavirus pandemic. She was seeking career guidance from Adam Mendelsohn, the adviser and political strategist who works closely with the Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James. The phone call was accidentally captured on camera and uploaded to a server at the company’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn., then quickly spread widely among ESPN employees.

It was, in fact, in that setting that Nichols made the disparaging comments which lie at the heart of the newly inflamed turmoil at ESPN.  She did, in fact, make disparaging comments during that phone call, as did the highly-connected person with whom she was speaking.

But at whom were these disparaging comments directed? Therein perhaps lies the rub! Also, therein perhaps lies the heart of our rapidly failing nation's current cultural moment.

On Monday morning, Draper's initial report about Nichols' disparaging comments received huge play at the Times. That same morning, a lengthy report from rural Gore, Georgia appeared on the paper's page A1—on the Times' overall front page.

Each report concerned attempts to come to terms with consequences of this nation's brutal racial history. That said, Draper's report about ESPN has touched off a bit of a storm. The report from farm country in rural Gore, Ga. will never be mentioned again.

For today, let's get clear about the setting in which Nichols—and her interlocutor, Adam Mendelsohn—made their disparaging comments. As reported by Draper and disputed by no one, the basic background is this:

The comments were made during a phone call which was believed to be private.  

Nichols believed that she was speaking in private to a friend and associate. Somehow, though, the phone call was  "captured on camera and uploaded to a server at the company’s headquarters in Bristol, Conn.," after which the videotaped recording of the phone call "quickly spread widely among ESPN employees." 

Just for the record, the videotaped recording of the private conversation "quickly spread widely" at ESPN because one or more ESPN employees made a point of making that happen. When Nichols' phone call was somehow recorded, one or more of Nichols' colleagues made sure it was spread all around!

For the record, we've seen no one dispute the idea that Nicholas thought she was engaged in a private phone conversation. Yesterday, we did see a former ESPN employee laugh at Draper's apparent assessment, in which Draper has advanced the claim that the phone call was "accidentally" recorded.

That claim was ridiculous, this observer said. He seemed to believe that someone at ESPN deliberately activated the equipment which allowed the phone call, made in Nichols' hotel room, to be recorded.

For the record, this former ESPN employee identifies as black. He spoke as part of a maddening, 50-minute conversation on  The Dan Le Batard Show, a maddening conversation to which Draper himself had linked in yesterday's report.

(You can watch that program here. The program carries this title: "An Honest Conversation About ESPN, Rachel Nichols & Maria Taylor.")

We watched that maddening conversation after clicking the link provided by Draper. Draper didn't mention the fact that the three former ESPN employees engaged in this conversation openly ridiculed his own reporting during their maddening confab.

How did the private phone call fall into ESPN hands? We don't have the slightest idea, and that doesn't necessarily strike us as the principle question here.

In our view, the principle question would be this:

It's true that Nichols—and Mendelsohn too—made some "disparaging comments" during that pirated phone call. But who was disparaged by their remarks? At whom were their disparaging comments directed? 

Very late in the maddening show, Le Batard and his guests got to the heart of the matter. The disparaging comments in question weren't necessarily aimed at Taylor, they correctly noted. Quite plainly, the vast bulk of the disparaging comments had been aimed at the "conservative," Trump-voting, white-boy bosses who run things at ESPN!

The white-boy bosses had been disparaged—but then, in stepped the Times! 

Had Maria Taylor been disparaged at all? We would be inclined to say no. But with a promise to return to the serious questions surrounding matters of justice in Gore, Ga., we'll tackle that question tomorrow.

Eventually, we'll also talk about the growing discussion concerning Nikole Hannah-Jones. Also, we'll discuss CNN's recent attempt to discuss critical race theory and the schools, an attempt which went several stages past Mickey Mouse to something we'd call "peak (and embarrassing) Goofy."

At the end of the day, these various situations are largely of a piece. In all these cases, a rapidly failing nation is trying to figure out how to deal with the legacy of "the world the slaveholders made"—the world our nation's benighted ancestors left us.

The treatment of major media stars will of course burn up Twitter and receive most of the ink. The homeless of Gore, Ga. will quickly be set to the side.

That's part of the problem we all live with too. It comes from the world the slaveholders made, but experts say that such acts of deference, to big pampered stars, may also be bred in the bone.

Tomorrow: Yes, but who was disparaged?


65 comments:

  1. "Kevin Draper—no relation to Don"

    Don Draper is fictional, not only in real life, but his persona on the show is also a fiction.

    Somerby is being cute, but his association of fiction with the news is a subtle knock on journalism too. And the reference is gratuitous. Don Draper is an unpleasant person with some serious flaws. By linking him with this other Draper, some of that rubs off and tarnishes a man who may not deserve that treatment. And this is how propaganda works.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, your brain-dead comment is how you wish to make proganda work, however, you have no effect on the thinking of anyone who isn’t insane too.

      Delete
    2. Anonymouse 11:34am ( no relation to normal people).

      Delete
    3. Cecelia,
      I agree that 11:16 has a bright future in Republican politics, if 11:16 wants it.

      Delete
    4. Nah, Anonymouse 11:53 am, you can keep him/her.

      Delete
    5. Looky here, Cecelia is the keeper of the Republican propaganda mill.

      Delete
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      Delete
  2. "now known as Disparagementgate.

    (That's been shortened from the name initially given to this alleged scandal. Initially, experts had called it Disparagingcommentsgate.)"

    Google yields no hits for either disparagementgate or disparaging comments gate. Somerby is making this up but attributing it to so-called experts who do not exist.

    Why does he do this? Perhaps to show that anyone can lie blatantly and get away with it, or perhaps to show that things written with a tone of authority need not be true. It doesn't make Somerby's words any less false. I see a problem with getting people used to accepting falisties as cute embellishments to prose or "humor" (none of which is particularly funny). Fiction needs to be signaled as fiction. That's why novels tend to have the word "a novel" underneath ambiguous titles.

    Somerby has no respect for truth and he encourages us to abandon our regard for it too, with this daily nonsense. And it is very hard not to see that as his purpose here, given that he seems to have no other reason to be posting most of the shit he types.

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    1. Right. You voice an understanding that it’s an obvious rhetorical device alluding to the progression of the blogger’s own thinking, but, what the hell… you’ll still call it lying.

      Delete
    2. That's what it is.

      Delete
    3. Where is that written? Of course it is not literally true, which makes it untrue and a lie. The question is what purpose Somerby's rhetorical devices serve. They don't make anything clearer, on the contrary, they confuse matters. They aren't funny or clever. They do permit Somerby to avoid taking responsibility for his own ideas and options, by displacing them onto so-called nonexistent experts, deflecting possible criticism. But at the cost of truth. And thereby Somerby shows that he has no respect for truth and no respect for his readers, as long as he covers his ass, emotionally speaking.

      Delete
    4. options = opinions

      Delete
    5. You may not like Somerby’s rhetorical device that he uses to express his inner dialogue with himself, but it’s an obvious device to portray his considerations as you have admitted. It’s not an attempt at deception or an appeal to some name-withheld authority,

      We can all live with the fact that you don’t appreciate the technique. It’s the way you accompany that beef with a simultaneous attempt to paint it as nefarious that makes you ridiculous.

      Delete
    6. An essay is not an "inner dialogue with himself." It is a form of communication with others. And yes, it is a deliberate lie. He has consulted no experts, just as he has no "analysts" who express the responses he himself doesn't want to own. And yes, he is doing it on purpose and for a reason.

      I not only don't appreciate the technique, but I find it deceptive, manipulative, and dishonest. His name is on this blog. He must own whatever he writes here.

      If Somerby were uncomfortable with expressing his own ideas, he could write under a pseudonym, as many others do online. There is no reason for him to falsely assert that he has some stamp of approval from unnamed experts when he routinely disparages expertise. That makes his references to experts a form of mockery of them. It is ugly and offensive when we have all just been rescued from this pandemic by a bunch of experts.

      Why do you work so hard to defend Somerby from valid criticisms? If I were a liberal, it would make me wonder what I was doing wrong if I were being defended by the likes of you and Glaucon X.

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    7. As though an essay can’t include the progression of the essayist’s thinking as revealed via an illustrative dialogue between the essayist’s impulses and higher self.

      Yeah, we know you hate everything he writes, but his rhetorical device is not deceptive or covert in the slightest.

      Delete
    8. Somerby does not describe those "experts" as his higher self. You are making things up to justify his idiocies.

      I not only hate everything Somerby writes, but I hate everything you write too. That should tell you something.

      Delete
  3. Ha-ha, thanks for the laughs, dear Bob, and, as always, for documenting liberal-hitlerian atrocities.

    ...incidentally, dear Bob, are you at all concerned about the Washington press corps never discussing the mental state of The One Controlling The Nuclear Codes?

    Here's Howie Carr describing the mental state of The One In Control Of The Nuclear Codes:

    Howie Carr: Joe Biden would have Founding Fathers rethinking independence

    Are you at all concerned, dear Bob? You were really - really! - concerned last year, remember?

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    1. Mao,
      Can you provide the link to where Carr plagiarized this from?

      Delete
  4. "Deliciously, Taylor is black! This was the stuff of the scandal."

    Taylor was attacked on the basis of being black. The disparaging comment called her a diversity hire. That is a reference to her blackness. THAT is what makes this a racial incident, not Taylor's blackness (which Taylor cannot in any way change). When you criticize someone for a trait they were born with and cannot help, that is racist.

    Somerby pretends there would be no scandal if Taylor had not been black, but actually, there would be no scandal if Nichols had not disparaged Taylor because of her blackness.

    On the other hand, people who work in the same organization are expected to play well together. They are supposed to behave as a team. Making a public criticism of a coworker is problematic in any organization. It doesn't have to be Disney-owned ESPN (why does Somerby supply that info?). No company would tolerate public statements criticizing another member of that company. It is bad for business. Nichols is lucky not to be fired, and that has nothing to do with whether Taylor was black or not.

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    1. Nichols as being in the same camp as Taylor when it came to the network’s treatment of women and minorities.

      “I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world—she covers football, she covers basketball,” Nichols said in the audio obtained by The New York Times. “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity—which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it—like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else."
      "You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away," Nichols added.“

      Delete
    2. Well, if a company institutes a diversity push, the hires black people, they were hired partially because they were black. So, that's the whole reason for a diversity push in the first place, so we should be celebrating it. But, if someone says, well, they were hired only because they were black, that's disparaging for sure. But, simply saying they were hired because they were black isn't a bad thing. I can imagine black colleagues saying that in private about a black hire in the context of a diversity push, either as a positive, or negative thing.

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    3. This illustrates a misconception about how diversity pushes work. It means you advertise the jobs where more black applicants will see them, that way you get more qualified black applicants. It doesn't mean that you hire a less qualified person just because you want more diversity in your organization. The belief that someone black must have been hired because they were black and therefore be less qualified than a white person, is racist because it ignores the reality of how diversity pushes actually work. It is illegal to hire someone because of their race just as it is illegal to not hire someone because of their race. And yes, saying that someone was hired because they were black IS a bad thing because it implies they are not qualified for their job on their merits.

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    4. Nichols never suggested that ESPN went and hired the first black chick they saw in the lobby that day.

      She suggested that as a female she had personal experience with “crappy” treatment at the network and well understood the network game of caring about the appearance of diversity.

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    5. It isn's surprising that a plea for sympathy by Nichols, on the basis of being female in the sports world, might seem disingenuous after she smeared a female colleague (and competitor).

      This dynamic in which women pull down other women in order to get ahead on the job is about as far from feminism as you can get. Next you'll try to argue that Nichols was being supportive of Taylor. Hah!

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    6. Nichols was trying to keep her gig. The one she had gone thru some crapoy times in order to obtain.

      That’s racist only if you’re very determined to make it that way.

      Delete
    7. If there are 2 equally qualified applicants, one white and one black, in the context of a diversity push, and the black one is chosen, it is not racist to say that the black one was chosen because he/she is black. Given the diversity push, and equal qualifications, skin color was the deciding factor.

      Delete
    8. Yes, it is still racist to say that. Skin color is not permitted to be the deciding factor. Diversity pushes are intended to remove obstacles and barriers to qualified black applicants, not to rig the hiring process.

      Diversity pushes are an abuse of the process too. The idea is that removing such barriers should be an ongoing part of organizational procedures, not a one-time or special campaign to meet political goals or address external criticism. In fairness, ensuring fair access should be ongoing and built into hiring and promotion, as long as the company remains in existence, because it is the right thing to do. And that applies to all of the forms of diversity. It means eliminating discrimination on non-job-related characteristics, not giving an edge to blacks or any other group. That such an edge has long existed for white males is the problem that is trying to be corrected.

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    9. The company wants to hire more black people, so there's a diversity push. Two equally qualified applicants for a job, one white, one black. The company's goal is to hire more black people. It has to be a factor in hiring, because the company has said it is. That's what a diversity push is. So, the diversity push, a new or one-time thing, is illegal because it results in this case, in hiring someone because of skin color. In that case, it would be illegal to hire the black person because of skin color, but it would not be racist to say that he or she had been hired because of their skin color.

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    10. This is the same comment you made earlier. Did you not read the response to it?

      Delete
  5. "As such, the hackwork occasionally seen on each network leads back to Mickey Mouse!"

    This is ridiculous. Disney has nothing to do with the reporting or with Nichols' behavior. Disney does expect people to get along and to treat the public with respect, because they know they are in the entertainment industry. The reference to Mickey Mouse is a cheap shot that Somerby quite laboriously set up, to no good purpose, so that he can imply that Draper is a hack? Mickey Mouse was a good decent person, despite being a mouse, and doesn't deserve such abuse, and neither does Draper.

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. If some obscure white woman in Georgia can give her assets to Black people as reparations, so should the Disney corporation for harboring racists within its owned subdivisions. I propose that we should boycott Disney/ESPN until they give the corporation to Black people as reparations.

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    3. Glaucon X,
      Making it illegal for anyone to give assets to Black people as reparations, would fit your ideology way better.

      Delete
    4. Meh. The slaveowners' party should pay the reparations.

      ...and its sponsors, we suppose. And Disney is certainly one of them, right? So, yes, sure.

      Delete
    5. Don't worry about boycotting Disney, Glaucon. They don't let white supremacists into their theme parks because their weapons can't get past the security screening. Saying "I didn't want to go there anyway" is a bit Peewee Hermanish.

      Delete
  6. "Just for the record, the videotaped recording of the private conversation "quickly spread widely" at ESPN because one or more ESPN employees made a point of making that happen. When Nichols' phone call was somehow recorded, one or more of Nichols' colleagues made sure it was spread all around!"

    Clearly, the phone call was not private. Further, there is no assurance when you talk to anyone, that the person you have talked to won't repeat your comments. And those comments reveal an attitude that suggests Nichols was not a team player and that is why other people spread her words around. Aside from this supposedly private conversation, Nichols has an attitude that was most likely apparent to others and would have motivated what happened to her. Nichols doesn't appear to have been very well liked by her peers at ESPN. She comes across as a viper in a viper pit and such people tend to deserve what they get.

    Little girls learn at the age of 9 or 10 not to say ugly things behind their friends' backs to others, because it will surely get back to them. These social dynamics are taught on the schoolyard, around the same time that little boys learn that it is not manly to cry. Nichols had no reasonable expectation of privacy in such a phone call. She was being manipulative and furthering her own interests and she got caught doing it. This is called comeuppance.

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    1. Some ESPN people didn’t repeat what Nichols said to them in a conversation, they made public an actual recoding of her conversation with someone else,

      Evidently, some former black employee went on record as to saying that he doesn’t think the recording of the call was an accident on the part of Nichols, but that someone deliberately recorded her.

      Who are you arguing against here? The former employee or Somerby for relaying his remarks?

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    2. If it wasn't "an accident on the part of Nichols" then it implies that Nichols recorded herself, not that someone else did it.

      I am arguing that Nichols had no expectation of privacy when she said racist things to a coworker, whether she was recorded by him or by anyone else, or whether he simply repeated her remark to another person. She should have known better because such words always have a way of coming back to you. I am saying Nichols engendered dislike among employees by her other behavior, exemplified by stabbling Taylor in the back on that phone call, and that's why she was targeted using her own recorded words.

      I am specifically disagreeing with Somerby, who seems to be arguing that if she was recorded without her knowledge then it doesn't matter what she said.

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    3. But what you’re arguing is specious because it’s not the scenario as painted by the former employee of ESPN or any unintentional recording of herself by Nichols.

      How would an intentional recording of Nichols before there could be any foreknowledge of her remarks be folks just repeating stuff as usual?

      That action would be plotted and to say that Nichols should have considered such a plot or should have been less than candid when speaking with a good friend on the phone is nonsense and not even slightly representative of what went down, whether she was being recorded or accidentally recorded herself.

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    4. There are quite a few people who routinely record their phone calls.

      How did Linda Tripp and Lucianne Goldberg get recordings of Monica Lewinsky?

      I didn't suggest that she recorded herself. I said that she must not have been well-liked, probably due to her own actions, in order for someone to spread negative information about her once acquired. People who are well liked get treated differently than those whom no one likes much.

      Delete
  7. "For the record, this former ESPN employee identifies as black. "

    Somerby implies that it is a black plot against Nichols when she got caught saying racist things about a coworker, because black people all look out for each other and are out to get white people, when they have the opportunity. And Nichols was set up, even if her disparaging racist remarks about Taylor were voluntary and wouldn't have been made by a less racist person. If you get caught doing something wrong, it is the fault of the person who catches you, not the person doing something wrong, according to Somerby. White people should be allowed to say racist things in private without consequences, because that is part of white privilege, and if black people overhear, it is their fault for listening.

    How can Somerby not see how bankrupt his thinking is?

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  8. Mostly white-owned corporations like Disney/ESPN are part of the USA system of systemic racism. I wouldn't surprise me if BLM calls for boycotts and riots and burning stuff until they give their entire stock portfolio as reparations to Blacks. Wokesters: Break out your dashikis. Now!

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    1. The religious right tried that tactic against Disney over Disney's support for gay rights. It didn't work. Further, Disney cleaned up its act long before today's wokeness with respect to race, so it is not high up on the list of companies to target. This brouhaha is an example of the LACK of tolerance of bad racial behavior, not a furtherance of it. Somerby is the one defending racism today, not Disney.

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    2. It's a white-owned company that built Disneyworld in the heart of segregated Florida in the 1960s. Can't get more racist than that. That's unforgiveable.

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    3. Florida was desegregated in the late 1950s:

      "In 1954, the Supreme Court decided to end school segregation. This decision brought with it changes that swept across Florida."

      Wade-ins to desegregate Florida beaches began in the 1940s but gained national attention in the early 1960s.

      https://the-disney-elite.tumblr.com/post/157588725485/q-were-black-folks-allowed-in-disneyland-in-the/amp

      And then there is this:

      "Also, remember that “it’s a amall world” was built in the mid-1960s. It’s a weak example, but if their goal was to treat other races as second-class citizens, they probably wouldn’t have set up a MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR attraction (it was an E-ticket when it first opened, had its own TV specials, and a big huge grand opening) which suggested the complete opposite."

      And then there is this:

      "Floyd E. Norman (born c. 1936) is an American animator who worked on the Walt Disney animated features Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone and The Jungle Book along with various animated short projects at Disney in the late '50s and early '60s. After Walt Disney's death in 1966 Floyd Norman left Disney Studios to co-found the AfroKids animation studio with business partner animator/director Leo Sullivan. Norman and Sullivan worked together on various projects such as the original Hey! Hey! Hey! It's Fat Albert television special which aired in 1969 on NBC. (not to be confused with the later Fat Albert series made by Filmation Associates.) Floyd Norman returned to Disney at one point in the early 1970s to work on the Disney animated feature Robin Hood. More recently he has worked on motion pictures for the Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, having contributed creatively as a story artist on films such as Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. for Pixar and Mulan, Dinosaur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame for Walt Disney Animation among others. He continues to work for the Walt Disney Co. as a freelance consultant on various projects. Norman had his start as an assistant to comic book artist Bill Woggon who lived in the Santa Barbara area that Norman grew up in. In the 1980s he worked as a writer in the comic strip department at Disney and was the last scripter for the Mickey Mouse comic strip before it was discontinued.[1] Floyd Norman has also published several books of cartoons inspired by his lifetime of experiences in the animation industry : Faster! Cheaper!, Son of Faster, Cheaper!, and How The Grinch Stole Disney . He is currently a columnist for the websites JimHillMedia.com and AfroKids.com. He was named a Disney Legend in 2007. In 2008, he appeared as Guest of Honor at Anthrocon 2008 [2] and at Comic-Con International where he was awarded an Inkpot Award."

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    4. Your statement is filled with lies. Florida public schools were not desegregated until the 1970s. Even public beaches and hotels were segregated well into the 1960s

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    5. Systemic racism at Disney!

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_The_Walt_Disney_Company#Ethnic_and_racial_stereotyping

      Over the years many scholars, film critics, and parent groups have been critical of Disney for the stereotypical portrayal of non-white characters, which they attributed to Walt Disney being racist.[2] For example, during a story meeting on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he referred to the scene when the dwarfs pile on top of each other as a "[N-word] pile" and during casting of Song of the South he used the term pickaninny. Other examples cited included the short Mickey's Mellerdrammer where Mickey Mouse dresses in blackface, the stereotypical "Black" Bird in the short Who Killed Cock Robin, Sunflower the half-zebra/half-African servant centaurette in Fantasia, the film Song of the South which depicts an idealized version of the lives of former slaves, the depiction of Native American 'Indians' as savages in Peter Pan, the cunning and manipulative Siamese cats Si and Am in Lady and the Tramp and the poor and uneducated crows in Dumbo.[2]

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    6. They were officially desegregated by that supreme court decision. Desegregation was implemented later but it was implemented. Disney never had a policy prohibiting admission by African Americans at its parks.

      The protests against segregation began in the 1920s in Florida and were continuous after that, according to the NAACP.

      https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/content/florida-wade-ins-end-racial-segregation-public-beach-and-pools-civil-rights-movement-1945-19

      If you are going to call me a liar, post some evidence. I have provided cites for my sources. You need to do the same.

      Delete
    7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_massacre

      Disney rewarded a state that did this. Unforgivable!
      Pay up Disney execs for your crimes!

      Delete
    8. Something bad happened in Florida in 1923 so Disneyland cannot be built there in 1955? That's pure nonsense.

      Delete
  9. Somerby needs a better editor. He says:

    "In our view, the principle question would be this:"

    That is incorrect usage:

    "Evidence of confusion between principle and principal can be found even in publications overseen by professional editors. To keep these words straight, remember that principle functions only as a noun, and in its most common uses refers to a basic rule or law, as in a guiding principle or a matter of principle. If you are looking for an adjective form of this word, you must use principled, as in taking a principled stand. Principal functions as both a noun and an adjective. The noun has various meanings referring to someone with controlling authority the school principal or in a leading position the ballet's two principals , but also has meanings relating to finance, law, and architecture. As an adjective, principal typically means "most important," as in the principal reason. "

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  10. "If you get caught doing something wrong, it is the fault of the person who catches you, not the person doing something wrong, according to Somerby."

    Right in line with "pointing out racism is the real racism".

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  11. If all present-day USA whites are totally responsible for all the racism of all the whites of the past, then Disney executives are certainly responsible for present-day racism within their corporation. They must pay the price for their crimes! And that means massive financial reparations, paid by them, immediately, to Black people. Disney executive's mansions in Palm Beach and elsewhere must be turned over to Blacks immediately!

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    1. Mocking the idea of reparations by presenting it as a threat to white property seems like a transparent fear-mongering tactic. No one here is fooled by you, Glaucon.

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    2. Heaven help anyone who wants to help those who are struggling in our society. Glaucon wants to say that the problems are just too too big, so why try!

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    3. Reparations are a complete non-starter. That will never happen in our current plutocratic system.

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    4. Why don't you ask your boss George Soros to pay them?

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    5. ...come to think of it, why not finance the reparations with the proceeds from selling Hunter's outstanding paintings?

      Plus George Soros' billions, of course.

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  12. More proof Somerby hates women. And blacks and episodic television.

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  13. ‘The treatment of major media stars will of course burn up Twitter and receive most of the ink. The homeless of Gore, Ga. will quickly be set to the side.’

    What is Somerby complaining about? His blog is devoted to ‘major media stars’, and not the homeless of Gore, Ga.

    As if to prove that point, he promises to continue tomorrow to examine the question of whether Maria Taylor has actually been disparaged. It’s so important that a single blog post won’t do.

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  14. 'The treatment of major media stars will of course burn up Twitter and receive most of the ink. The homeless of Gore, Ga. will quickly be set to the side.'

    Somerby is a hypocrite of brobdingnagian proportions. He has devoted literally thousands of posts over 20 years complaining about media stars. And almost as many posts complaining about the treatment of Al Gore, but not Gore, GA.

    Somerby is lying as usual. His gripe is simply that the media is not like him, and does not worship DJT, and defend DJT, Roy Moore, Ron Johnson, Devin Nunes and Matt Gaetz. In short, the media he complains about is not full of Trumptards like Somerby. [ Of course, he doesn't complain about the media like OAN that is full of Trumptards, because he is a hypocritical, lying, Trumptard.

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  15. Glad to be here i found it so amazing, Thank you for posting such a great information ……. lulus Return Policy

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