Stephan A. Smith --The Man Who Had To Work Twice As Hard Because Of His Skin Color
June 23rd 2022
Today, I’m writing about an American hero, Stephan A. Smith… and his journey to the top of the journalism profession.
And as some of you may know… Stephan A. Smith was hired by Disney in the year 2003 to work at ESPN, Disney’s sports affiliate marketing company that broadcasts live sports and sport’s talk radio. However, before his hiring by Disney Stephan A. Smith graduated from Winston-Salem College and played basketball at the Division 3 level. Nevertheless, 19 years later Stephan is still an extremely charismatic TV personality and a NYC native who still represents blue collar work ethic on TV and nation-wide talk radio. But to go beyond just representing minorities in sport’s journalism Stephan A. has also come to symbolize the journey of the under-privileged striving to achieve social mobility in America and along with Brian Windhorst… he has now come to represent hypocrisy.
But what do I mean by that? Well… in 2003 when Stephan was first hired by Disney he too owned a political blog that was similar to CiviliansNews.com. However, infamously Stephan was asked by Disney to delete his blog during that hiring process to which Stephan A. quickly bent over and quickly deleted his prose from the internet. But why? What? What happened to Stephan's blog? And when confronted by Disney during his hiring process in 2003, regarding his political blog, which I have never read because along with Barack Obama’s diary it is now omitted from the web (*and I can only imagine why), he took it down and ESPN hired him that year. Whereby, according to Stephan he was told that he had to either choose between ESPN or his personal political blog, which I can only assume contained, “civil right’s era politics,” and it surely contained some absolutely ingenius writing.
However, I pose the question today… would Malcolm X have taken his blog down… to work for ESPN? And I can only speculate being a white male who has no understanding of these racially charged issues. #FakeNews
And are there outlets better than journalism to discuss issues like race and politics, like say music? Whereby, again… I’m not credible enough to answer that question.
Regardless, one quote from Stephan, perhaps one of the most recognizable journalist’s in American history, has stood out to me over the years and that quote was, “I had to work twice as hard as my contemporaries because of the color of my skin, to get to where I am today.” Or maybe 5 or 7 times as hard, maybe 12 times as hard? Maybe 34 times as hard? Maybe 78 times as hard? Maybe 159 times as hard? Maybe 1000 times harder? Maybe 2593 times harder? Who knows?
And ever has he… to get to where he is today. Whereby, with an estimated net worth of 15m dollars and an annual salary of 8m dollars per year according to my sources, in the year 2022 Stephan A. Smith is now one of the most successful journalist’s in all of American history, if not world history. So, I just want to take a moment to shine a light on some of the amazing work that Stephan has done despite facing countless racial epitaph’s and endless degree’s of racial injustice, which has been hampering him down throughout his journalism career.
Oh what is this? The Stephan A. Smith archive on ESPN.com.
Well, look for yourselves… at the face of injustice. Well earned Stephan, amazing perseverance and you earned it.
-William Larsen, CiviliansNews.com Founder
PS: Check ball…