ESPN host of “NBA Today” Malika Andrews is being held accountable again, and for a good reason: She appears to be culturally choosy when selecting negative news. Often facing criticism for dissecting negative aspects of Black NBA players’ and coaches’ careers while not holding their white counterparts accountable, the people wanted to understand why Andrews wasn’t all over the Josh Giddey alleged underage dating scandal.
Former Dallas Cowboys star Dez Bryant held the reporter accountable in a way that only Bryant can, which had Black X, the social platform formerly known as Black Twitter, ablaze.
Dez Bryant Goes In
“@malika_andrews you went out of your way to crucify Brandon Miller on draft day over something he didn’t even do
“Why haven’t you said nothing about Josh Giddey
“I advise you not to make this a black and white thing
“Your parents really raised you wrong, and just because you went to a private school doesn’t make you better
“You appeal, and I know your kind
“You’re just a puppet
“I don’t know how a former or current nba player could sit there across from you and look at you with some kind of respect,” Bryant posted.
Unpacking Andrews
There is much to unpack from the post because each rung has an entire storyline.
When current Charlotte Hornets player Brandon Miller was in the 2023 Draft, Andrews described the Alabama product as a “cooperating witness” in the shooting death of 23-year-old Jamea Jonae Harris on Jan. 15, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, even though authorities did not charge Miller with a crime.
Although pundits like Stephen A. Smith felt that Andrews needed to bring up Miller’s precarious circumstances under the auspices of unbiased journalism, many still felt that without an actual or even pending criminal charge, it was rain on his Draft parade.
Many people feel that Malika’s mixed-race heritage and current reported relationship with a white man who works at ESPN might skew her perspective toward reporting positively on Black men. Bryant’s attack on Andrews’ upbringing might stem from her keeping it real about the early parts of her life. When Malika was 14, she “shunned her family” and stopped studying, per her interview in 2020 with The New York Post.
Her mother is Jewish, and Malika even had a Bat Mitzvah.
Culturally Cancelled
After having an eating disorder that was “more anorexia than bulimia,” her parents sent her to a year-round therapeutic boarding school in Utah when she was 14 years old after she was kicked out of Oakland’s Head-Royce School in eighth grade. Malika eventually enrolled at the University of Portland.
For many, Andrews is not culturally acclimated enough with her Blackness to use discernment in her reporting about NBA athletes and personnel. The negative storylines she discusses, usually during positive moments for Black men in the NBA, like Joe Mazzulla’s collegiate domestic battery when he was being named head coach of the Boston Celtics, never seem reciprocated for their white counterparts.
Malika Andrews finally reported on the controversy with Josh Giddey, but her lateness and monotone delivery gave detractors more fuel to ignite the theory of her selective outrage.
The barbershop generally agrees with Dez Bryant, and Malika Andrews is riding the wave toward cancellation in the culture.
