Rachel Richardson’s false race accusations against Brigham Young volleyball fans have been debunked by police investigators, but USA Today race writer Mike Freeman says the Duke athlete is now the victim of a “right-wing conspiracy theory.” Just like QAnon or mass voter fraud.
Freeman’s idea of “proof” that Richardson’s recent claims of racial taunts and threats from BYU fans comes in the form of a post-match phone call to her dad. His logic is that she didn’t seem her normal self, so the right-wing doubters and the police could not possibly be correct in their opposition. “After the game, she called, and this was a different call,” her father, Marvin, told CNN. Not exactly compelling enough to overturn a thorough police investigation of what turned out to be Richardson reporting a fake hate crime.
Marvin’s comment led Freeman to make three additional points:
“Say, just for argument’s sake, that Rachel Richardson made up this story. You have to believe that she did knowing she was putting not just her volleyball future at risk but her college future as a student at Duke. She’d be forever tarnished as a liar. One of the worst liars.
“You have to believe she then lied to her dad. Which is possible. Kids lie to their parents, but about this? But also…
“You’d have to believe she would then let her father go on CNN and repeat that lie.”
Richardson is still a member of the Duke volleyball team. Her volleyball career is not at risk, despite her dishonesty. Yet Freeman’s email in-box is full of people backing the right-wing conspiracy angle. It’s just the type of email tripe a perpetual race alarmist would be expected to receive. If a black athlete cries “race,” then, by golly, it’s just got to be true.
Additionally, the right-wing conspiracy angle has to be real just because Freeman believes Rachel Richardson was telling the truth. And so does South Carolina basketball coach Dawn Staley, who quickly canceled a two-game series with BYU’s women’s basketball team. Solid evidence there, all right!
The Richardson story is all about race and black people needing to constantly prove they are not criminals or liars, Freeman says. “We blacks don't commit mass voter fraud or get jobs based on affirmative action. We have to prove, as Richardson does, that we heard what we heard. That we saw what we saw.”
Doubting Richardson is remarkable because most of her skeptics are practically card-carrying members of the “right-wing media ecosystem or have MAGA in their Twitter bios,” Freeman alleges before totally losing it with this comment:
“These are the same people who for five years ignored facts. They believe that Hollywood liberals eat babies. Or the Parkland students were crisis actors. Or that JFK is alive. Or is it RFK? Something or someone with a "K" in it. They ignored the 30,000 lies told by the man they worship. They believed the Russia investigation was a hoax. That COVID was. That global warming is.”
The MAGA people have “Scooby-doo” forensic powers. And black students at BYU in years past didn’t feel safe on campus. Racial incident happened at Utah Jazz NBA games and at the University of Utah in the past. By Freeman’s standards, these are additional facts proving Richardson was not lying.
Freeman sarcastically contends Richardson is accused of lying to her teammates, coaches, the BYU coaches and athletic director, police, her godmother and father, the world and ESPN.
The USA Today leftist forgot one important item that would have made his race-hustling attack against the Right even stronger. Outkick reports that several South Carolina lawmakers took exception to Coach Staley’s decision to cancel Brigham Young. The South Carolina Freedom Caucus sent a letter to the South Carolina athletic director and Staley in opposition to its “ill-advised overreaction to an apparent [sic] erroneous claim.”
The race-baiting sports writing beat has indeed slowed down since the Black Lives Matter madness of 2020. Freeman is trying to resuscitate it with this hard-hitting and off-target race blast.
