Stephen A. Smith dug himself into a hole Monday when he made insensitive comments regarding Los Angeles Angels phenom Shohei Ohtani.
Smith did himself no favors when he doubled down, insinuating it’s hard for Ohtani to be the face of Major League Baseball when he speaks through an interpreter. He later apologized via Twitter, and began Tuesday’s episode of “First Take” with another apology.
Let me be the first to stand up and say that I want to express my sincere apologies to the Asian community and the Asian-American community. I am a Black man. I religiously go off about minorities being marginalized in this nation. I instantly go off, repeatedly bring up the fact that if you are a member of a community that feels disenfranchised in any way, that’s something we need to battle, we need to fend off to the best of our ability as a nation.
These are the kinds of things that I bring up, and the reason why I bring up my Blackness is because of this: on many occasions, what I have said when people have said something that is offensive, in any way, to the minority community, it’s not about how you feel. It’s about how they feel. And the reality of the situation is that you have Asians and Asian-Americans out there that obviously were very, very offended by what I had to say yesterday. I want to extend my apologies, that was not my intent at all.
You can watch the full clip below:
They always tell you to think before you speak, so maybe Smith will take that to heart before spewing more hatred.
