Jason Whitlock did not mince words in his column today for Outkick.com. Over the weekend, he penned a piece saying Maria Taylor owed her standing at ESPN to physical beauty. In that piece, Whitlock called Nolan out for also benefitting from physical beauty, saying that it transformed Nolan “from bartender to seven-figure personality, Emmy Award-winner and the darling of aroused bloggers and TV critics willing to ignore her pedestrian humor and inability to execute live television.”
Nolan came out swinging on Twitter. She said that Whitlock came “*this close* to making an actual point” and insinuated this is not anything Whitlock would be brave enough to say to her face.
Whitlock fired back on Monday morning with a column for Outkick that squarely targeted Nolan. In it, he calls her “the epitome of white privilege.” He also calls out several of his former colleagues and friends at ESPN and FOX for allowing people like Nolan to thrive in the sports media.
“Jemele Hill, Bomani Jones, Dan Le Batard, Sarah Spain, Pablo Torre, Shannon Sharpe, Nick Wright and countless others love to bloviate about the white privilege, racism, sexism, homophobism, trans-race-sex-phobism of people hundreds and thousands of miles away from their television or podcast studios.”
Whitlock writes that by tweeting a response to his column, Katie Nolan “cast herself as a victim when she’s the most pampered and protected person in sports media.”
That assertion related to Nolan’s tweet can be debated, but the ESPN personality was much more in attack mode and has since locked her Twitter account. Fans cannot retweet or embed her content, which is something Outkick made its own story.
Whitlock tied Nolan to another of his favorite targets, the Black Lives Matter movement. He compared her success to the phrase “hands up don’t shoot.” It was shouted by protestors in Ferguson, Missouri in reference to Michael Brown being shot by police in 2014.
“Nolan is Michael Brown, hands up don’t shoot. We all know it’s a lie but we continue with the facade because it’s not worth the backlash.”
In 2015, the DOJ noted that no one ever heard Brown say the words “don’t shoot” nor did any witness to his killing ever say he had his hands up.
Whether Nolan responds remains to be seen. Given her history on Twitter and willingness to clap back at critics, it’s easy to imagine her having some sort of answer to Whitlock calling her “lazy and spoiled” and saying that she and other ESPN personalities “don’t want to compete in a meritocracy.”
It must be a real slow sports day if you guys have to do but rag on each other I think you should grow up and stop the bullshit and go to work on sports at least do it in a way where you dont drag the public into your shitty columns i personally dont want to read your nonsense your boss should tell you to stop the crap and write something intelligent at least send an email so the public dont have to see your half witted crappy column let me ask 1 question to both of you how long does it take a sportswriter to get out of 2nd grade anyway do us all a favor at least start acting like a 3rd grader including the boss
I Concur!
Ego is a hell of a drug.