While we may agree with the people we argue with, it is the fact that they are willing to hear your argument and are passionate about what they feel that we tend to respect. This week, we saw an example of that involving Bomani Jones, Domonique Foxworth, and Will Cain.
On Wednesday, Cain made his final appearance on First Take before heading to FOX News as he discussed his tweets about NASCAR’s handling of the Bubba Wallace investigation of a noose from Sunday, June 21 at Talladega Superspeedway. The FBI determined it was not a hate crime and the garage’s pull rope was fashioned like a noose long before anyone knew which garage stall Wallace’s ten would be assigned.
After that appearance, Jones decided to call into The Will Cain Show on ESPN Radio to give his take and dive more into the racial divide in the country. You can catch that full conversation by clicking this link.
On Thursday’s episode of his podcast, The Right Time with Bomani Jones, Jones talked about the process of going on Cain’s show and how he felt that it was best to address the topic on the radio rather than on Twitter. So, he asked to call into the show and Cain agreed.
“I was going to tweet about it, but then I was like nah, I don’t think that’s the best way to go about it. I didn’t think it would be appropriate. The reason I did that is because I knew Will would agree to have be on. He ain’t no punk in that way. Will is willing to have an exchange of ideas back-and-forth. I appreciate that and I respect that…. I think Will does deserve a little bit more credit because most of y’all know damn well that if I called up your radio show and said I want to talk about it, you would s*** your pants.”
At the beginning of the segment with Jones and Foxworth, Jones flashed back to 2016 when Cain filled in for him as the host of his show the Monday after Colin Kaepernick did not stand for the national anthem. He explained how he was getting phone calls from people, including Foxworth, to get Cain off the air. Jones did say that he is okay with Cain before discussing the First Take segment.
“I had made a resolution to myself that I didn’t really want to do a lot of radio or television with Will and that’s not because of any animus I had toward him, but I didn’t really want to wind up with is people trying to turn this into some kind of cage fight debate sort of thing.”
Foxworth echoed the same sentiments in terms of wanting to address the disagreement on Twitter, but instead Cain wanted to call him and hear his thoughts himself.
“After I saw that tweet, I’m about to roast him on the Internet. I realized in myself if I was doing it on Twitter, I would do it only to perform, I texted him and was like, what you said is wrong, are you okay if we do this on Twitter? He texted I will call you in 20 minutes. We had a conversation about it and I felt better after the conversation.”
Jones did bring up an example of when Colin Cowherd was on ESPN and how Jones wanted to call in to give more information on the topic. It did not go over well.
“When Colin worked here, Collin once did a segment that was based on something I said on television. He’s talking specifically about the things I was talking about. I called the board and I was like let Collin know, we can talk. Whoever was working the phones hit me back and said ‘Collin doesn’t want you on.’ See, Collin’s thing was if you want to talk about it, you can talk about it on your own show.”
Even though Cain is no longer at ESPN, you can tell the respect he got from his colleagues. He may have had differing viewpoints, but he was always willing to discuss them, which is what Foxworth and others respected.
“I love Will Cain for that. So many people who are on the air have similar feelings but are afraid to say them. I appreciate that Will is not afraid to say them and is willing to engage with them.”
