Ryan Clark Chose the ‘Community' over His Family in ESPN Dispute | Jason Whitlock Harmony

**Jason Whitlock** (0:00)
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Jeremiah 17 verse nine. Ryan Clark can't know his own heart. He can't even decipher his own layoff. This is a man who built a career telling you what's wrong with the color of RG3's wife, what's wrong with Aaron Rodgers, what's wrong with everybody's manhood.
And he couldn't diagnose the one situation sitting in his own mirror.
Let's watch.

**Shemeka Michelle** (0:35)
Right.

**Ryan Clark** (0:36)
What I'm dealing with is, in truth, a first-world problem.
And they probably like the way I represent the community. Yeah. I wouldn't change anything. Because that means the world to me, you know, or like.

**Jason Whitlock** (1:18)
First-world problem. His words. And then two minutes of tears.
Let's get into it. The self-proclaimed best football analysts in the world.

**Ryan Clark** (1:29)
That a company who's going to have the Super Bowl this year, who truly wants to put their best foot forward to the entire world, have the best people talking about football, wouldn't fire, in my opinion, this is my opinion, and it seems to be the opinion of many others, the best football analysts in the world.

**Jason Whitlock** (1:52)
Yeah, that guy could not decipher his own work situation, couldn't read the room he was standing in.
Think about that. If you can't figure out why ESPN soured on your race-obsessed commentary, why it had no interest in renewing your contract, your contract, the one document with your own name on it, why on God's green earth should I trust your read on the authenticity of Lamar Jackson's blackness on Aaron Rodgers?
It's an embarrassing lack of discernment. The best in the world got out-schemed by a mid-level executive. He says he never even met. That's not racism. That's a performance review.
ESPN paid Ryan Clark to talk about football. That's the job. That's the whole job. And Ryan Clark couldn't do it.

**Ryan Clark** (2:49)
I knew for lack of a better word, I couldn't be too black.

**Dre** (2:56)
This is that fire.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:57)
Grab your popcorn.

**Jason Whitlock** (3:01)
Ryan Clark, smartest man on TV, smartest football analyst ever, the greatest to ever do it.
Ryan Clark, not that smart. Not that smart at all. He just couldn't leave the football on the field. He had to add in a forced baby Malcolm X impersonation. Crying Ryan couldn't leave the racial idolatry to Louis Farrakhan. He had to chase the applause of black Twitter, the community.
Being black enough, by his definition, required Ryan Clark to hold court on issues he was completely unqualified to talk about. To judge everybody else's authentic blackness while admitting on tape, he couldn't be too black himself. Did you catch that contradiction? He appointed himself the referee of a game he refused to play. And when it blew up in his face, watch how fast the layoff becomes a crucifixion.

**SPEAKER_6** (4:04)
To me, it seemed like it was almost like buck breaking.

**Ryan Clark** (4:08)
Slavery term.

**SPEAKER_6** (4:09)
You know, where you're the outspoken one, you're alpha, let's embarrass him so everybody else gets in line.

**Jason Whitlock** (4:17)
Buck breaking. Slavery. Over a TV contract at a sports network in Bristol, Connecticut.
There are men who actually suffered. Ryan Clark and Channing Crowder just borrowed their pain to explain why Disney gave Clark's chair to somebody else.

**Ryan Clark** (4:38)
I thought I got to a point where I'd be picked. But I mean, it's like I say, though.
Just because I wasn't picked, that don't mean I ain't chosen.

**Jason Whitlock** (4:53)
No, no, no, no. Ryan Clark, you weren't chosen, you weren't picked, you were let go. There's a word for that, and it isn't martyr.
Now, and here's what they want you to, and they want you to know this. It was never, according to Clark and his crew, it was never about money.

**SPEAKER_4** (5:12)
We've seen numerous occasions where we've had opportunities on this show to make X amount of money, and you help us understand that it's not about the money. It's about the quality of the work that we have to put out, and the lives it's going to touch.

**Jason Whitlock** (5:29)
Let's say it again for the cameras, okay? And then minutes later, Fred Taylor reframes it, and Clark brings the point entirely home.

**Ryan Clark** (5:40)
It helps us, right? My kids get to live a certain way.
I get to take care of my parents. I get to help, you know, my brothers and my brother and my nieces and my nephews and so many people because I'm in a place to where I can have excess because of what I can do so good. And to have that taken away, you know, for whatever.