Cleveland newspaper flooded with racist names for Lebron James baby

Stop “asking” people for idea over the internet, it’s gonna go left!

Cleveland Paper Gets Racist Response To Lebron James Baby Naming Piece

Via Clevescene

One of the consequences of our daily newspaper going #DigitalFirst is more posts where they have to pretend like the internet commenters matter, like their opinion is valued and deserves a forum to be heard, to show readership for potential advertisers when circulation figures are no longer what they highlight. Sometimes that’s ok — some reporters get it right — and then sometimes they explicitly ask anonymous internet commenters to come up with baby names for the unborn daughter of LeBron James and his wife.

The headline is “LeBron James and wife Savannah Brinson are expecting a baby girl: What would you name her?”

Let that sink in: they are actually prompting notoriously racist and ignorant anonymous internet commenters to come up with a baby name for a black man they hate.

It was published at 9:13 this morning. As I was writing this post (and not long after it was criticized it on Twitter) cleveland.com took it down some time before noon.

What kinda of bigotry, hatred, and disrespect did the fine folks in Cleveland come up with, welp…

A better headline to the piece would have been “The guy you once adored but then chose to passionately hate is raising a family in a stable and loving environment: What overtly racist insults can you come up with to disrespect his unborn daughter? (Bonus points for implying Delonte West f***** his mother and his wife, too)”

Their original is probably more SEO-friendly, but whatever.

The outcome of it is obvious. it had more than 20 comments by the time I stumbled on it, and most had to do with racial stereotypes or Delonte West. One of the first comments embedded a video called “Top 60 Ghetto Black Names” where the people in front of the camera mockingly rattle off names like “Fo’Landra,” “Sha’Nay Nay,” “Elephantisha,” “Koolaidria,” “Watermelondrea,” and “Fri’Chickenisha.” Top quality entertainment there.

Other suggestions from the commenters — preserved from the since-deleted post thanks to screenshots — include “Alimonee,” “LeGitimate,” “Mi-lion-alrequa,” “Gloria-Delonte” and “Le’Traitor.” One rattled off five: “Tameeka,” “Moeesha,” “Lexus,” “Mercedes” and “LeQuanza.”

Keep it classy, Cleveland. SMFH.

Image via Reuters