Let me channel my inner Kanye West for a moment.
Stephen A. Smith doesn't care about victims of domestic violence.
That fact became even more abundantly clear over the weekend as SportsCenter put out the following interview with convicted domestic abuser and professional boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr.:
"You live and you learn." From where it all started to possibly fight of the century, Floyd Mayweather shares it all. http://t.co/YH9zTmaxKa
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) April 27, 2015
Smith acts as Mayweather's hype man, parading around his obscenely lavish house like it's an episode of "MTV Cribs."
As the interview progresses, Smith asks Mayweather why he drives different colored cars in different cities, and Mayweather responds that he's a "spoiled brat."
You took the words right out of my mouth, Floyd.
Then, as somber piano music plays in the background, Smith asks Mayweather in a far softer tone about his experiences going to jail for domestic violence.
Mayweather then calls his conviction a "minor setback for a major comeback," to which Smith responds by asking what he learned from everything that he went through, as if it's some form of adversity. Mayweather goes on to say that "you live and you learn" and that his conviction was "just an obstacle" that was in his way.
Stephen A., I'll speak to you and Floyd personally: Beating women is not a form of adversity.
Floyd Mayweather did not "come out" or "survive" a conviction for domestic violence. His victim barely survived the blows that Mayweather dealt to her in front of their children. She was carried out on a stretcher. Mayweather treated her like a punching bag, as if he was training for a fight.
ESPN's "Outside the Lines" examined Mayweather's history of domestic violence in an investigative piece, one where it found five instances of Mayweather being accused of beating women:
This most recent interview isn't the first time that Smith, ESPN's loudest talking head, has brushed off the issue of domestic violence, as if the perspective of the victim does not matter. When Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens was accused of domestic violence, later proven by the infamous elevator video, Smith went on ESPN's "First Take" and said, "We also have to make sure that we learn as much as we can about the elements of provocation."
Women do not provoke domestic violence. Gutless men like Floyd Mayweather enact it.
ESPN is equally at fault for all of this nonsense. It continues to employ a buffoon like Smith on one of its most popular (and sensationalist) programs in First Take, and it promotes this interview through its flagship program: SportsCenter.
Journalism is defined as the act of gathering the facts and reporting them in such a way that the audience can understand. By giving priority to the interview between Smith and Mayweather, rather than the OTL piece that presents the hard facts about Mayweather's criminal wrongdoings, ESPN is no less of a puppet than the Nevada State Athletic Commission — spitting in the face of journalism.
Just as the money Mayweather brings in matters more than what is morally right to the NSAC. The viewers and clicks brought in by painting Mayweather as someone who fought through adversity matter more to ESPN than acknowledging his wrongdoings for what they are.
Floyd Mayweather is a disgusting human being. He is a serial woman beater and a self-obsessed, greedy monster. He is not a role model. He is not successful. He is not a legend. He is rich, and he is good at hitting people. Often, those people are the women he claims to love, and they don't get paid $50 million to get beaten to a pulp like one of his opponents.
Mayweather said in his interview with Smith that it didn't matter what people said about him, and that he's a fighter.
"I'm just in a ring outside of a ring," Mayweather said.
Exactly.
Reach the columnist at rclarke6@asu.edu or follow @RClarkeASU on Twitter.
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