Fearless: The Maria Taylor-Rachel Nichols catfight exposes Taylor as too fragile for the racial conflict she advocates
ESPN host Maria Taylor is winning the Victim Olympics.
No one in corporate media can match the 34-year-old's ability to be perpetually racially offended and to express that offense in the pages of the New York Times or on an ESPN platform.
In June 2020, Taylor launched her Jesse Owens-like run of feigning offense when she pretended that New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees hosted a Klan rally by expressing support for the national anthem. During a finger-wagging and head-bobbing appearance on Stephen A. Smith's ESPN debate show, Taylor clubbed Brees with memories of Rev. George Floyd King Jr., the fentanyl activist-turned-race martyr.
It was a gold-medal performance.
She followed that effort with a July 2020 story in the New York Times, smearing fellow ESPN colleague Dave Lamont as racist. Lamont, who is white, was overheard on a conference call complaining to his wife that the conference call was a gripe session for black employees.
"It was such a slap in the face," Taylor told the New York Times. "When I was in it, that was horrible. But now, looking back, it was an awakening moment. This is part of our culture. There are people that feel this way."
According to media reports, ESPN nearly fired Lamont because he offended Taylor. Long before Taylor endured Lamont's vicious racism, Lamont and his wife helped raise a black young man. But that pales in comparison to pointing out that black employees at a sports network hijacked a conference call so they could share their emotional reaction to the death of Rev. George Floyd King Jr.
It was another gold-medal performance from Maria Taylor.
And now, on the Fourth of July, Taylor took Victim Olympics gold one more time. The New York Times published Taylor's latest horrifying brush with systemic racism. In a leaked, private, off-air conversation, Taylor's alleged ESPN broadcasting ally Rachel Nichols complained to a high-profile NBA source that Taylor had received an assignment Nichols wanted because ESPN executives were under diversity pressure.
"I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball," Nichols said in an accidentally recorded video in July 2020. "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."
Taylor was so traumatized by this bit of commonplace and private work gossip that, over the past year, she has refused to speak to or appear on camera with Nichols.
The Times obtained and published an email Taylor wrote to ESPN executives, including the network's chief officer Jimmy Pitaro.
"I will not call myself a victim, but I certainly have felt victimized and I do not feel as though my complaints have been taken seriously. In fact, the first time I have heard from (human resources) after 2 incidents of racial insensitivity was to ask if I leaked Rachel's tape to the media. I would never do that.
"Simply being a front facing black woman at this company has taken its toll physically and mentally."
Gold. Absolute gold.
Taylor stomped out Drew Brees in the 100-meter dash. She smoked Dave Lamont in the 200 meter. She long-jumped (the shark) Rachel Nichols. Taylor's last hurdle is securing an $8 million contract similar to Stephen A. Smith's.
This is a Victim Olympics run that would make Al Sharpton blush in envy.
Taylor is in the final three weeks of an ESPN contract that pays her around $1 million. According to New York Post media columnist Andrew Marchand, Taylor is demanding a $7 million raise.
If she doesn't get the raise, I have a suggestion for her. She's the next Robin DiAngelo, the author of the book "White Fragility." Taylor can write "Black Fragility: Why It's So Hard For Black People To Talk About Racism."
The book could delve into the hypocrisy of the Victim Olympics. Maria Taylor and all of her enablers have grown accustomed to attributing any success white people have to white privilege. Black and white people are applauded daily via social media for asserting this.
In a conversation not meant to be made public, Rachel Nichols politely suggested that part of Taylor's success was attributable to Taylor's dark skin. In private, Nichols did what Taylor and friends have been doing publicly virtually every day.
The New York Times framed Nichols' comments as a workplace hate crime, headlining its tabloid-style gossip piece "A disparaging video prompts explosive fallout within ESPN."
If Nichols' insinuation is disparaging, no wonder America is in racial chaos. Corporate media and social media traffic in disparaging, anti-white race-bait videos that prompt an explosive fallout. No one should be surprised that Nichols and others are starting to push back privately and publicly.
There's no room for fragility in a race war. Taylor should turn in her victimhood gold medals and woman up for the racial fight her actions promote.
