Al Sharpton said Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has a “plantation mentality” in a news conference Tuesday where he called for ESPN to reinstate anchor Jemele Hill, who was suspended two weeks for violating the company’s social media policy, reports USAToday.
“We found the suspension of Jemele Hill to be outrageous at best and insulting in fact,” Sharpton said outside's ESPN's offices in New York. "To suspend someone for tweeting an analysis of what Jerry Jones did to act as though somehow desecrates the name of the company seems to us to be a bridge too far."
Hill, who last month rankled ESPN execs and others over a tweet where she called President Trump “a white supremacist," was suspended Monday for writing on Twitter that people should put pressure on the Cowboys by "not patronizing" the team's advertisers.
Jones has stepped up his criticism in recent days of players' national anthem protests meant to draw attention to racial inequality and has pledged to bench players who refuse to stand during The Star-Spangled Banner.
"Jerry Jones' decision in many ways smacks of a plantation mentality," Sharpton said.
Mesanwhile, Jerry Jones admitted Tuesday President Trump drew him into taking a hardline stance on national anthem protests, as it pertains to the Dallas Cowboys. That Jones is now suggesting he's actually doing his players a favor by threatening to withhold playing time is one of the most Jerry things he could possibly do.
"I want them to have the ammunition to tell anybody that asks them to do anything otherwise or demonstrate during that period of time, that 'I don't get to play if I do that,'" Jones said on his weekly radio show on KRLD 105.3 The Fan.
"This is a workplace issue. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding as to where I want the personnel of the Cowboys to be when we're at the No. 1 workplace we have, which is the field and the sideline on gameday. I want to do everybody a service, as I should in leading the team, and let's be really clear about what our expectations are."
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