Thursday, March 28, 2024

ESPN Host Jemele Hill: ‘I Let My Colleagues Down with Trump Criticism’

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*ESPN host Jemele Hill is still feeling the heat from the fallout over her Twitter comments earlier this month in which he referred to Donald Trump as a white supremacist. On Wednesday, she opened up about feeling like she let her colleagues down.

“I had not felt that way since … until two weeks ago when I was sitting in ESPN president John Skipper’s office having the most difficult conversation of my career,”

She wrote for the Undefeated that “It was the first time I had ever cried in a meeting. I didn’t cry because Skipper was mean or rude to me. I cried because I felt I had let him and my colleagues down.”

“Since my tweets criticizing President Donald Trump exploded into a national story, the most difficult part for me has been watching ESPN become a punching bag and seeing a dumb narrative kept alive about the company’s political leanings. . . .”

OTHER NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: Racial Justice Group (Color of Change) Condemns Trump Comments on NFL Owners Being ‘Afraid’ of Players

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Hill also wrote, “Still, Twitter wasn’t the place to vent my frustrations because, fair or not, people can’t or won’t separate who I am on Twitter from the person who co-hosts the 6 p.m. SportsCenter. Twitter also isn’t a great place to have nuanced, complicated discussions, especially when it involves race. Warriors player Kevin Durant and I probably need to take some classes about how to exercise better self-control on Twitter. Lesson learned.”

“Also, let me be clear about something else: My criticisms of the president were never about politics. In my eyes, they were about right and wrong. I love this country. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want it to be better. . . .”

Meanwhile, some in the NFL protest fear the message is being lost.

“As Week 4 of the NFL is set to begin on Thursday night in Green Bay, Wis., the question in locker rooms on Wednesday was simple: What next?,” Lindsay H. Jones wrote Wednesday for USA Today.

“More than 200 players took a knee or locked arms during the national anthem before games on Sunday and Monday, a united front in response to comments from President Trump that attacked individual players and the game at large. . . .”

Jones also wrote, “When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick became the first player to protest during the anthem in August 2016, he did so with the intent of using his platform to raise awareness about police brutality and other social injustices. Other players, such as 49ers teammate Eric Reid, Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, Denver Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall and Miami Dolphins receiver Kenny Stills, joined him in either kneeling or raising a fist during the anthem.

“Now some of those players are concerned that Trump’s comments, including those made on Wednesday when he said the NFL business would ‘go to hell’ if the league didn’t change its rules regarding protests during the anthem, have obscured the meaning of the protests.

“ ‘We can’t get lost in what Trump’s said,’ Marshall told USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday. ‘We have to try to change the narrative back to what the original message was about.’

 

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