CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Like many black women in media, Gayle King was attacked for doing her job

The New York Daily News - 2/8/2020

Gayle King, the CBS “This Morning” anchor, was dragged across the internet for daring to discuss Kobe Bryant’s life and legacy. All of it.

Over the course of a wide-ranging interview, the veteran journalist and broadcaster asked retired WNBA superstar Lisa Leslie about her feelings on the recently deceased NBA star’s 2003 rape case.

Leslie said she didn’t believe Bryant raped his accuser and gently chastised King for bringing up this painful part of her friend’s story, telling her “the media should be more respectful at this time.” But, Leslie’s next claim justified King’s decision to ask the tough question and do her job:

“It's like if you had questions about it, you had many years to ask him that,” said Leslie. “I mean, it went to trial.”

But, Bryant’s rape case didn’t go to trial. His alleged victim didn’t testify. Knowing Kobe’s role in her choice not to testify matters. When King attempted to correct the record, Leslie countered, “And I think that’s how we should leave it.”

Numerous stars agreed with Leslie, including rappers Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent, singer-songwriter Ari Lennox and Lakers star LeBron James. The entertainers hopped on social media to vent about King’s line of questioning, rapidly forming a consensus that her journalistic inquiry was nothing more than a betrayal of her race.

“Why are y’all attacking us? We [are] your people,” Snoop asked King, seconds before threatening the 65-year-old broadcaster and calling her a “dog-head bitch.” In one of Snoop’s many followup posts ridiculing King, Snoop shared a meme comparing King to the Star Wars character Chewbacca. The post was littered with support from prominent athletes, including sports icons Deion Sanders and Ken Griffey Jr.

Lennox accused King of being “self-hating” and a “coon” while “tearing down the legacies of so many phenomenal, beautiful black men.”

LeBron, who liked many of Snoop’s Instagram posts ridiculing King, tweeted “we are our own worse enemies.”

James was more right than he knew. On Friday, media mogul Oprah Winfrey -- a longtime friend of King’s and an incidental target -- told “Today” show hosts Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager that King received death threats and was traveling with security.

Black women in media are used to being portrayed as the enemies of black men, especially of those with status or prominence that rivals Bryant’s.

“If you're a black woman journalist writing about black men, it's not unusual to be accused of some sort of racial betrayal,” said Soraya Nadia McDonald, a columnist at ESPN’s The Undefeated.

McDonald, who has reported extensively about legendary prizefighter Floyd Mayweather’s history of domestic violence, told the Daily News she’s been accused of "tap-dancing for the man” and has been called a “bitch” and “c--t” over email and social media for past critiques.

“Black women journalists face more vitriol due to mistaken definitions of freedom and equality,” continued McDonald. She believes that for many black men “equality looks like being able to commit the same abuses as white men with impunity and get away with them. It means black men and white men are equals in a society that is fundamentally patriarchal.

“When black women challenge that because it's a vision of freedom that doesn't regard us as full humans, we're accused of being race traitors.”

Writer and cultural critic Jamilah Lemieux said, “I’ve been accused of hating black men essentially my entire adult life."

Lemieux, who helped chronicle Grammy-winning artist R. Kelly’s assault allegations in the Lifetime docuseries “Surviving R. Kelly,” placed Kelly in a more severe category than Bryant due to the decades-long pattern of accusations. However, she believes the vitriol and harassment she’s received is similar to King’s blowback.

“When you’re either publicly critical or even just raise a question about ... a celebrity or an entertainer or an athlete, there are so many people who feel that it is their duty to protect that person.”

Lemieux believes that some black men weaponize the legacy of racism they’ve experienced to stop black women from interrogating violence against women.

“We know that black men are subject to certain disparities in education and employment. We know that they are targeted and funneled into a system of mass incarceration. We know that the hostility that they experienced at the hands of racism is palpable,” said Lemieux. “But, so often we're not given a space to talk about our own experiences.”

McDonald recalled routinely being asked, “Why don’t you report on 'X' white man who has also been accused of sexual abuse?” as a means of undermining her work. She likened the dynamic to one Snoop displayed by posting two photos of King smiling alongside film producer Harvey Weinstein, the obvious implication being that King was a hypocrite.

Though any relationship to Weinstein, who is currently on trial in a Manhattan courtroom charged with five felony counts (including rape and predatory sexual assault), is worthy of scrutiny, had Snoop paid closer attention to the pictures he might have noticed both photos were taken three years before the Hollywood heavyweight was publicly accused of assaulting multiple women.

“There's this long-standing expectation that black women remain silent about our own abuse and that of others if the person accused of committing it is a black man,” said McDonald. “It's hurtful and frustrating and it's deeply rooted in misogyny.”

Though LeBron, Lennox and Snoop’s rage is inextricable from longstanding bigotry against black men, those stars and their fans employed the truth of America’s history with racism to halt King from discussing Kobe’s history with his female accuser. King’s conversation with Leslie was difficult and uncomfortable, but it was also her vocation.

Even still, King’s critics continued the all too familiar dynamic of punishing black women for doing their job when it threatens the reputation of black men.

The criticism even took an absurd twist when the 82-year-old Bill Cosby tweeted his frustration with “successful Black Women...being used to tarnish the image and legacy of successful Black Men, even in death.” He asked if women like King were “in need of fame, ratings and/or money?”

Cosby, or whoever runs his social media account while the disgraced comedian serves his prison sentence for sexual assault, thanked Snoop for defending the legacy of black men accused of harming women. He added the hashtag #EnoughIsEnough.

Yes, enough is enough. It’s time to support black women, especially when they’re just doing their job.

___

(c)2020 New York Daily News

Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.