Yet another Black TV anchor has been booted from her widely successful show with no public explanation. It happened to journalist Jemele Hill when following GOP outrage for calling former President Donald Trump the white supremacist he is, she announced she would be parting ways with ESPN’s SportsCenter.
"I wasn’t a good fit for the SportsCenter culture. Definitely not a good fit for the management that was overseeing 'SportsCenter' at the time," Hill said in August on ESPN host Kenny Mayne's podcast, Hey Mayne. “And I got tired. I got really tired of fighting every day to be myself.”
Now a similar situation has unfolded in the case of former MSNBC anchor Tiffany Cross, whose popular weekend show, Cross Connection, was inexplicably cut four days before midterm elections.
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“From the beginning, we were intentional about centering communities of color, elevating issues and voices often ignored by the mainstream media, and disrupting the echo chambers,” Cross wrote in a statement on Nov. 4. “As a result, viewers consistently made The Cross Connection MSNBC’s highest rated weekend show.
“Fresh off the heels of a ‘racial reckoning,’ as so many have called it, we see that with progress there is always backlash.”
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Journalist Sarah Ellison took to listing some of that backlash for The Washington Post. Every example on it consists of Cross calling out someone else’s racist, sexist, or bigoted action. Ellison wrote:
Over the summer, when Alyssa Farah Griffin — a former Trump White House communications aide who has since condemned the former president for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, riot — was a finalist for a co-hosting position on “The View,” Cross referred to her as a “tawdry turncoat Trump loyalist” who “quickly morphed into an opportunist after voluntarily taking jobs with the Trump administration” and said she “rode his wave of open xenophobia and racism all the way to network television.”
In October, Cross also referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as “Justice Pubic Hair on My Coke Can” — a reference to a detail from Anita Hill’s sexual harassment complaint against Thomas that she aired during his Senate confirmation hearings 31 years ago.
Conservative podcaster Megyn Kelly responded by calling Cross the most “racist person on television.” Cross in turn called Kelly “the blackface expert,” a reference to Kelly’s own on-air controversy, when she defended blackface as a Halloween costume during a stint as an NBC morning host.
Tucker Carlson, Fox News’s most popular prime-time host, dedicated an opening monologue to Cross, suggesting that her commentary about racism was likely to foment an anti-White movement akin to the Rwandan genocide.
Ellison also included on her list Cross’ appearance on popular radio and TV host Charlamagne tha God’s Comedy Central show.
When she was asked which state Democrats could stand to axe in the midterms, Cross said "let's castrate Florida," using “a vulgarity to describe the shape of the state,” Ellison noted.
I laughed, but fine. I can understand if others would prefer more PC language. Even still, Cross said nothing in any of the provided examples that should have warranted her being fired. I cannot even justify Carlson’s offensive and seemingly hyperbolic monologue with a response.
The takeaway for me from Ellison’s report, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of negotiations involving Cross and MSNBC, is a single sentence: “But MSNBC’s decision to cancel her show was not tied to any single statement.”
So please, MSNBC, do explain why Cross’ show was pulled. Because to the Black journalists and fans who felt Cross well represented our voices, this looks like the racist business of exclusion as usual. Only this time it’s under the regime of MSNBC President Rashida Jones, the first Black woman to lead a top cable news network.
More than 40 Black journalists and leaders sent a letter to Jones requesting a meeting to “discuss a path forward that is restorative to the reputation and dignity of” Cross.
Authors of the letter include Hill, political commentator Angela Rye, journalist Roland Martin, Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson, and President and CEO Melanie Campbell of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation.
Martin read the letter during his YouTube web series Roland Martin Unfiltered.
“Given the undeniable rise of fascism and persistent threats to democracy we face in the current moment, NBC should be an unrelenting force for truth and a safe harbor for voices like Ms. Cross as well as those with whom she shared her broad and popular platform,” the leaders wrote. “While other networks give voice to election deniers, Ms. Cross featured voting rights champions. Where other shows spread disinformation, The Cross Connection spotlighted justice.
“Where other outlets catered to the country’s worst instincts, Ms. Cross elevated the discourse and taught audiences how to protect democracy.”
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