Jason "50 Cent" Whitlock Has Put The Woke Media On Notice
When Hip-Hop mogul 50 Cent released his controversial single “How To Rob” in 1999, it turned the industry inside out. A newcomer to the game, he braggartly namedropped 48 high-profile musicians and celebrities, poking fun at them in a bully-in-a-grade-school-cafeteria type of manner. Music critics and fans alike enjoyed the then-underdog slinging arrows at the heavyweight elites, many who feel like they cannot be touched.
Fast forward to the present, Jason Whitlock, though not a newcomer, finds himself in a similar situation. Whitlock, an award-winning sports journalist at the Kansas City Star and former personality at ESPN and Fox Sports, has been kicking hypocritical asses and taking names. In an OutKick.com piece earlier this week about the Maria Taylor/Doug Gottlieb Twitter dust-up, Whitlock writes:
“Beauty, most especially in television, has a privilege that trumps virtually all other privileges. Beauty intoxicates TV executives, bloggers and journalists, and it masks a lack of accomplishment, qualifications and skill. Beauty transformed Katie 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”.
This snowballed into an avalanche of criticism as Twitter zealots called Whitlock “sexist”. He wrote another piece continuing his keyboard assault on Katie Nolan along with a host of other liberal wave-riding sports personalities.
The overarching theme of Jason’s rants is the martyrdom women wallow in and the simps, I mean, men that allow them to do so. In an article titled “Zendaya, Maria Taylor and The Martyrdom of Black Women”, I mention that every news story and interaction is being looked at through the microscopes of race and gender. Gottlieb and Whitlock are not misogynists for their legitimate criticisms of Maria Taylor and Katie Nolan respectively. Prominent voices in media usually do not criticize a nobody. Hefty criticism is a barometer of success. I hope to one day be as widely-criticized as Jason Whitlock is. In his 2007 song “Follow My Lead”, 50 Cent puts it bluntly, “I like you a lot, I don’t wanna hurt you/But I call a square a square and a circle a circle/So if you act like a bitch, I’ll call you a bitch”.
Much like Fiddy, Whitlock will not hold his tongue about blatantly obvious practices. Beauty is a driving force in television. I can tell you from experience that beauty is a driving force in radio. There are many people who are elevated to positions in media because they have the right look. You can teach someone about the finer intricacies of television and broadcasting. You cannot teach beauty.
Fox Sports personality Joy Taylor is an example of this. She does have a resume in radio and television, from co-hosting a successful morning drive-time show on 790 AM The Ticket in Miami to being the news break correspondent on Fox Sports Radio and FS1’s The Herd. However, her sports takes are pedestrian and sometimes regurgitated Colin Cowherd talking points. Her delivery is far from smooth, bordering on awkward at times. Her body of work has elevated her, but her looks (and the fact that she is a “woke” warrior) have helped. She might have caught some of Whitlock’s smoke had she not been on Cowherd’s show, which would have put his friend in a tricky situation.
All of last generation’s participation trophy winners are now adults. Some of them are in high-profile and very visible spaces in the media. They are not used to people calling them out on their shortcomings and mistakes. Furthermore, very few are willing to call others out. This is why people like 50 Cent and Jason Whitlock are pivotal influencers if our culture is going to shake out of its matriarchal trance.
