ESPN senior writer and NFL analyst Mina Kimes clapped back at a troll on social media, who questioned how she got her job at the network.
The troll, who refers to themselves as "Randy" online, called Kimes a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hire, and in their comment, they shared a bunch of laughing emojis.
They said, "DEI hire trying to talk football."
However, Kimes wasn't having it. The sports analyst shared a video of her responding to the comment online. First, she played some audio of a viral interview that Pedro Pascal did with Vanity Fair in 2022. The actor, who has no kids, said he refers to himself as a "daddy" because "daddy is a state of mind."
While playing an audio clip of that moment in the interview, Kimes showed herself placing an Emmy that she won on her bookshelf.
On TikTok, she captioned the video, "New addition to the bookshelf #petty."
"Let them know! 🔥," ESPN commentator Chiney Ogwumike wrote in the comments.
Someone else said, "Now this is how you flex on em."
On Bluesky, more people commended Kimes on her clapback.
"Mina Kimes is the best at what she does. And Randy, whoever he is, is a clown," a Bluesky user wrote.
Another said, "lol, Randy in shambles."
However, this isn't the first time that Kimes has responded to a hater calling her a DEI hire. In January, she responded to a comment that said the "only" reason she's at ESPN is "because she's a woman."
In a video, Kimes talked a little bit about her career and said that's not the case.
"I saw this comment, and I wanted to address it, because, look, I get called DEI, all day, every day, as of like, the last year or so. And no, there was no edict from anyone at ESPN saying, 'Oh man, you know what we really need? An Asian female NFL analyst. Got to just find one! That's what the people are clamoring for!' So I was not hired in that way," she explained.
However, Kimes noted that she does think the "concept" of DEI applies to her "initial hiring at ESPN" in 2014.
"I was a business journalist, investigative reporter for Fortune Magazine, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, but I also loved football, and I wrote a personal essay on football. And the editors at ESPN magazine reached out to me and said, 'Hey, we're trying to think outside the box and expand our scope for the types of people we hire because we want some different viewpoints and to find talent in different places, places we hadn't considered. Would you ever consider switching to being a sports writer?'" she recalled.
Kimes said she took the job and worked her way up in the company to be a sports analyst. But no matter how much she's achieved, she said she noticed that people keep calling her a DEI hire as "a slur."
"That is what diversity, equity, inclusion is all about. It's been twisted into a prerogative like a slur. It's been derogative to say people are unqualified, when in fact, it's to find people who are actually qualified but haven't been considered or given the opportunities," she said.
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