Did We All Think This Anyway?
By: Tommy “Tj” Sotomayor

Stephen A. Smith voiced what we’ve all thought about Jason Whitlock

OPINION: The ESPN commentator took Jason Whitlock to task for all his sins in a nearly 40-minute rant on his podcast Wednesday evening. 

Stephen A. Smith, left (Screenshot/”The Stephen A. Smith Show” via YouTube); Jason Whitlock (Screenshot/”Fearless With Jason Whitlock” via YouTube)

Jason Whitlock is a disgusting human being and a disgrace to the Black race.

He adds absolutely nothing to the culture or the community, and every time you see his name in headlines or trending on social media, it’s because he’s yet again done something coonish or buffoonish. 

He is an attention-seeker, a click-baiter and the kind of dude you would love to see get his ass kicked publicly as many times as possible because he deserves it. 

Wednesday night, that ass-kicking showed up in a video rant, and the person kicking his ass was none other than Stephen A. Smith. 

In case you missed it, the ESPN commentator and “First Take” host spent nearly 40 minutes on his YouTube podcast, “The Stephen A. Smith Show,” flame-broiling Whilock — who he referred to as “a fat bastard that has gotten away for far too long talking his bullshit.”

“You wanted some? Fine. I’m happy to give it to you, you piece of shit,” Smith said in the opening of his show. 

Smith was responding to a column Whitlock published on a right-wing website last week in which he accused Smith of being an industry plant that Disney and ESPN installed “at the top of sports media because his inadequacies as a journalist make him easy to control.” 

Whitlock also alleged that Smith did not write his own 2023 memoir, “Straight Shooter” and directly accused Smith of making up some of the stories in his book, including one about how he got a basketball scholarship to Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. 

I’m not going to give a play-by-play of what Smith said because in those 40 minutes, he said so much, and it was all delicious, so I highly recommend you check it out for yourself because it is well-worth the watch. 

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6CZuNuchnqk%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den-US%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent%26enablejsapi%3D1%26origin%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fthegrio.com

If you know me, you know that I am not a huge fan of Stephen A. Smith. I think he is an obnoxious loudmouth, and I called him out in 2022 for defending Jerry Jones when the photo of Jones watching Black students being blocked from integrating his Arkansas high school surfaced. 

Smith’s Whitlock rant gave me a new level of respect for him. He fried that man, and it was well-deserved because as Smith said, Whitlock has gotten away with his particular brand of chicanery for far too long. 

Whitlock is currently a right-wing media darling who makes money being anti-Black and saying things about Black people that white people wish they could say without getting the brakes beat off of them. But he was anti-Blackness long before he donned his red vest and fez and bashed his cymbals together for the white right-wing checks. 

He is and has been the poster child of self-loathing, internalized anti-Blackness and racism. He is Candace Owens-levels of cringe, and the lengths he will go to in order to receive a pat on the head and a check from racist white people know no bounds. 

As my friend and colleague Michael Harriot once wrote about him, “his function in life is to serve as a funnel through which anti-Black white scorn disguised as ‘commentary’ can freely flow.”