Sports Media Silent On Rashard Mendenhall Anti-White Tweet, Calls For Neo-Segregation | Bobby Burack

​​ Few industries purport to have a lower tolerance for racism than the sports media.

The industry created specific jobs -- be it ESPN's at Andscape, USA Today, and NFL Network -- to cover the intersection of sports and race.

Pundits like Robert Griffin III, Jemele Hill and Mike Freeman have jobs specifically to call out racism in sports.

Yet actual examples of racism are scarce. Hence the rise of manufactured scandals, such as the BYU-Duke volleyball scandal, the Bubba Wallace Garage Gate, and the idea that NFL teams still discriminate against black QBs.

But Monday presented the race hustlers with a real story to cover.

Former NFL running back Rashard Mendenhall posted on X that white people are not good at football, that he wishes whites would stop talking about football, and that the NFL should segregate the Pro Bowl:

Mendenhall's post is ignorant. It promotes neo-segregation on the football field. His post is racist.

However, none of the usual suspects in the sports media denounced his post. Nor have the anti-racist traffic officers condemned the message.

The sports journalists who dug up Josh Allen's old tweets on draft night, simply to frame him as racist and derail his draft stock, are silent.

Deadspin claims to be so exhausted by racism that it falsely accused a little boy of "hating black people and Native Americans" last month. Yet Deadspin has yet to provide any coverage of Mendenhall's obvious disdain toward white people.

In fact, CBS analyst J.J. Watt and ESPN host Pat McAfee are the only notable media members to comment on Mendenhall's post thus far.

The likes of Stephen A. Smith, Mike Florio and Shannon Sharpe have not.

But neither Watt nor McAfee criticized Mendenhall during their coverage. Instead, they made light of his proposal to separate white players from black players:

We are not knocking those who make jokes about idiocy. We certainly have.

And humorous it is that Mendenhall claims white players cannot ball when he's best known for fumbling the ball in the Super Bowl at the hands of a white player.

However, it's a combination of telling and cringe that the corporate media's only way of covering the story is by making it a joke.

They wouldn't dare hold Mendenhall accountable for an obviously racist tweet.

Mendenhall's comments would also be funnier if his opinion wasn't shared by other athletes. Yet they are.

The idea that white players are inferior has crept back into the mainstream discussion of late.

Last year, ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins claimed black players in the NBA feel that white players like Nikola Jokic do not possess the skill set to win the MVP award unless white voters grade them a curve.

Perkins not-so-subtly revealed that some black players are territorial about sharing a league with white players.

Former guard Gilbert Arenas was more direct. Last week, he encouraged Draymond Green to "take out" white European players and send them back to Europe because they are coming for "their league."

In different tones, Mendenhall, Perkins, and Arenas each made the same case: white athletes have no place in black spaces, like the NFL and NBA.

Rule of thumb: if you are in support of segregation, you are not the anti-racist. You are the racist.

And the media should hold you accountable for that opinion, even if you are black and spewing racism toward white people.

Skin color doesn't define racism. Actions do. Words do. Unfortunately, the sports media doesn't see it that way.