ESPN’s Sage Steele Made A Very Bad Instagram Post About Airport Protestors And The Internet Isn’t Happy

This past weekend saw protests at almost every major airport in the United States, as people gathered to show support for Muslims who had been detained in the wake of President Donald Trump’s “extreme vetting” executive order. These gatherings began Friday and continued after a federal judge halted the ban Saturday.

It was a weekend that showed how many good people can give a voice to the voiceless and how a peaceful, non-violent protest can counteract even the most detrimental and hateful orders by the most powerful person on the planet.

But it also showed how it could make someone that wants to get to the Super Bowl in a timely fashion sad!

ESPN’s Sage Steele was just trying to catch a flight from L.A. to Houston on Sunday when she was inconvenienced by all the people that were trying to protect the freedom of a marginalized and demonized group of American citizens that were being held unlawfully against their will.

So THIS is why thousands of us dragged luggage nearly 2 miles to get to LAX, but still missed our flights. Fortunately, a 7 hour wait for the next flight to Houston won’t affect me that much, but my heart sank for the elderly and parents with small children who did their best to walk all that way but had no chance of making their flights. I love witnessing people exercise their right to protest! But it saddened me to see the joy on their faces knowing that they were successful in disrupting so many people’s travel plans. Yes, immigrants were affected by this as well. Brilliant.

She uses a form of the word “sad” so it reads like parody at first. But no, she is truly sad about her two-mile walk. Let’s unpack everything here that I think is enjoyable and noteworthy.

• The all-capping of this. THIS. The disdain is evident in the second word even though she goes into spin mode as she continues.
• “Dragged luggage nearly 2 miles.” So 1.5 miles? Based on my drama-to-distance calculator, I put her walk at a mile, tops.
• How does she know the parents with small children and elderly missed their flights too? Did she go with them to their gates? Was she walking exclusively with this demographic? How many people? Four? Eight? Fifty? Were there no single men or single women that packed light and made their flights? She’s got me picturing Moses walking through the desert but it was probably just her and like five other people.
• Also, seeing how this had been news for two days, why are you not allowing more time to get through everybody at the airport for your flight? How late did you leave where a 30-minute walk (tops) caused you to miss your flight?
• Not only is Sage a travel expert, but she has studied the ways of human facial expressions and deemed that protestors, whose purpose of being there was to free the detained Muslims, took joy in her having her travel plans disrupted. Really? How did they know they were successful, anyway? Just by looking at you? There’s a lot of assumed feelings here based on looks.
• “Yes, immigrants were affected by this as well.” Oh, Sage. Yes, being held without food for like 20 hours while some drunk-on-power TSA agent stalks your social media accounts is the same as an immigrant missing his or her flight. Let’s weigh each inconvenience and see which one comes out on top.

Of course, Sage offered the classic response of people with bad opinions.

“I guess only YOUR opinion is allowed” is the argument of someone with a bad opinion.

People pointed out the disparity in inconveniences to Sage.

But it turns out that Sage is one of those people that likes protests but just wishes they weren’t inconvenient for her. Sorry, not for her. She’s upset on behalf of others.

Every other sentence from Sage contradicts the other one. She’s not mad about her seven-hour delay; she’s mad for everyone else’s delay.