Sports Out, Feminist Poetry in at ESPN

Strike three, you're out!

It’s really bad over at failing ESPN. The former sports network fired 100 employees this week, which includes most of its on-air talent, and subscribers are bailing big league as the talk turns liberal.

The latest example in how an unapologetic ESPN is keeping politics at its forefront was published at ESPNW, a section aimed at women. The website posted "new feminism" poetry from a variety of sources, but it’s one of those sources that was quite troubling.

It was a poem by African American studies Professor DaMaris B. Hil who is on faculty at the University of Kentucky. In her poem entitled Revolution, the author states:

Revolution is the taste of honey

and the revenge of the hive,

there is never enough time to watch

the swarms die. Revolution ain’t got sh–

to do with facts. It is all faith!

Revolution is not a sweet-tooth craving;

It is a long fight clouded in fear; it is

hundreds of hornets

and family hunting you

The poem is dedicated to Asatta Shakur, who is known among Black Lives Matter and other black power groups. However, according to HeatStreet, Shakur is also on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list with a million dollar bounty:

She was convicted in the U.S. of killing a New Jersey state trooper, assault and battery of a police officer. After she escaped from prison in 1979, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro granted her asylum in the country in 1984, where she resides to this day.

ESPN editors obviously got wise to who Shakur really is and removed the poem from the piece: “An earlier version of ‘Five Poets on the New Feminism’ featured Revolution by Dr. DaMaris Hill. We have decided it is not an appropriate selection for our site, and have removed it from the feature.”

But there’s still plenty for sports-loving feminists to chew on in the other poems, with lines like: “I know my black women working as maids. One would teach me - Don't let those white girls turn you into a mammy. You are not there to take care of them, get yours.”

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Photo credit: ctrouper via Foter.com / CC BY

 

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