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espn's Jemel Hill calls Trump a white supremacist. White House wants her fired

The white house getting involved and crying for her to be fired is fucking petty and nonsensical. She has the right to say what she wants, however like most all other Americans who work for a living you often times represent the company you work for (whether you like it or not). People are fired for a lot less, every day.

If ESPN as a whole decides her comments are bad press and bad for business and decide to fire her.. thats the bed she made herself and she'll have to live with those consequences.
 
Nah. Sage Steele and Stephen A Smith talk hella shit about black people, nevermind some of the others.

I don't hear none of this about them.

Lane Kiffin was on a straight up, "Speak English" tip about a multi-lingual speaker, enough to get Bomani Jones and the rest of the people on his show heated.

Heard none of this.

ESPN, at best, is wholly inconsistent about this. At worst, they got a stance. And it ain't good.

ESPN is entirely about "don't upset the status quo." The status quo happens to favor white supremacy, they just don't care to acknowledge that. So if you speak out about how inappropriate it is for black athletes to dance, well that's just hunky-dory. But if you point out that an administration is explicitly supported by white supremacists and refuses to disavow the activities of white supremacist groups, well now you're just being political, and we can't have that. Their position is consistent, it's just a position that is virtually impossible to justify.
 
Where are the free speech advocates? Shouldn't they be defending her?
As an ardent free speech advocate, I'll defend her. She has every right to call a spade a spade, and as I've said before, as long as her speech doesn't materially impact her work product or work environment, her employer shouldn't act on her personal exercise of her civil rights.
 

mjp2417

Banned
When the White House starts making a request for what your workplace should do, that's a pretty troublesome entanglement that I don't think is as simplistic as that.

It's weird that then POTUS Barack Hussein Obama never called for NBC to fire a certain media personality that was peddling a racist conspiracy theory about his presidential illegitimacy. Weird.
 

D i Z

Member
So it's basically

Say the N word = not a racist, free speech

Call someone a racist = should be fired

Same as it's always been. These observations need to be end capped with a stamp of "Hypocrisy" every time this needs to be illustrated for people.
 

Jeels

Member
I was going to make a thread on this. Nothing in her tweets was untrue and ESPN still sided with white supremacists. Wtf espn. They should be called the fuck out and boycotted. I hope this gets tons of press.
 
Why should she be fired?

Donald Trump IS a White Supremacist.

Pardoning Sheriff Joe, as well as his extremely mild rebuke of the KKK/White Nationalists/etc.. .after Charlottesville and the "both sides" bullshit is a pretty big heap of evidence in her favor.
 

Wood Man

Member
What exactly about her actions were inappropriate? I didn't see a single lie in her tweet chain.

When you're a professional journalist you really don't want to do stuff like this unless it's your job to do so. Remain unbiased for the face of the company. That's were the "inappropriate" comes from.
 
ESPN is a chicken shit company for throwing her under the bus instead of backing up their employee who said things that are objectively true.
 
a little more proof that our sitting president is a white supremacist to shut up any "give more reasons" types, not that they'll probably actually be convinced but still


He called for the death penalty of the central park 5 even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...tral-park-five-are-guilty-despite-dna-n661941

He settled with the Justice Dept. over accusations of rase based housing discrimination

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html


The time he didn't denounce white supremacists or well known KKK leader David Duke, as if never heard of him or the kkk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9geYl9J_Mc

Then there was the whole birther movement where Trump questioned whether Obama was born in the US... Basically there's tons of evidence of Trump being a white supremacists, it's not like he's trying to hide it.
 
While I see what you are saying, you might be a little disingenuous here.

Jemele Hill and Michael Smith had a lot of runway to critique and have positions on social issues on both 'His and Hers' 'Numbers' and 'SC6'.

The problem this time is, she "put it on wax" and Twitter feeds tend to spread a lot faster than clips from the show.

Had she not tweeted this, I don't think anyone would care about her on TV comments either.


Sage's stuff was on social media too. Namely instagram.
 

Allforce

Member
I feel like we're about 18 hours away from ESPN reversing course and just firing this lady, and all hell will break loose over it.
 
The WH saying what they said is separate to whether or not someone who is an outward facing personality for a company can/should expect to be protected by the First Amendment to say what they please.

Especially when those words can be tethered to said company.

Not at all. The focus on first amendment is government action. If the government punishes someone for their speech. First amendment is triggered.

If ESPN fired her because of White House officials requesting they did so, there's a constitutional question worthy of analysis. ESPN can do whatever they want, that says nothing about how the White House may attempt to suppress dissent.
 

Zubz

Banned
So I think we all feared the attempted silencing of journalists was coming, but it's weird seeing how petty this is.

At least they didn't take any steps to directly silence her, but it's just one part of a chain of national humiliations to see the White House call for someone to be fired. Let alone a sports newscaster.
 

studyguy

Member
So I think we all feared the attempted silencing of journalists was coming, but it's weird seeing how petty this is.

At least they didn't take any steps to directly silence her, but it's just one part of a chain of national humiliations to see the White House call for someone to be fired. Let alone a sports newscaster.

I'd imagine they'd likely have enough sense to not direct attacks against a larger, more established reporter from a source that actually handles news instead of sports media. ESPN was probably seen as an easy enough target from the admin with enough clout from angry sports fans to back them so they could goad ESPN with less pushback. Still issues it sets up if ESPN pulls the trigger on firing her due to this pressure is worrisome. If ESPN folds, who is to say someone larger who actually deals with news won't.

It seems like an incredibly petty and weak attempt to censure.
 
That a sitting president is demanding someone be fired from their job for voicing their first amendment rights scares the piss out of me.

No calls for Richard Spencer to be fired huh? Disgusting.
 
a little more proof that our sitting president is a white supremacist to shut up any "give more reasons" types, not that they'll probably actually be convinced but still


He called for the death penalty of the central park 5 even after they were exonerated by DNA evidence

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/20...tral-park-five-are-guilty-despite-dna-n661941

He settled with the Justice Dept. over accusations of rase based housing discrimination

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/28/us/politics/donald-trump-housing-race.html


The time he didn't denounce white supremacists or well known KKK leader David Duke, as if never heard of him or the kkk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9geYl9J_Mc

Then there was the whole birther movement where Trump questioned whether Obama was born in the US... Basically there's tons of evidence of Trump being a white supremacists, it's not like he's trying to hide it.

But but Hillary kissed a former Grand Wizard that one time.

Sorry that tends to be the stupid response by morons who don't realize they guy changed and fought ardently for equality post being a monster.
 
Sage's stuff was on social media too. Namely instagram.

Yeah and eventually, she was removed from NBA Countdown.

Not at all. The focus on first amendment is government action. If the government punishes someone for their speech. First amendment is triggered.

If ESPN fired her because of White House officials requesting they did so, there's a constitutional question worthy of analysis. ESPN can do whatever they want, that says nothing about how the White House may attempt to suppress dissent.

I agree that it sets a horrible precedent but until she is fired as a result of the WH requesting it, we are speculating.

I was just saying that First Amendment doesn't allow for people to speak their minds when representing a company.
 

Mahonay

Banned
Always really liked Jemel Hill. Never afraid to spit truth. And she's right here as well. Fuck the Whitehouse. It is 100 percent a white supremacist administration right now. ESPN needs to grow some balls and stand next to her. ESPN is pretty trash though. At least she wasn't fired.
 
Her tweets were factually correct. Trump was investigated by the federal government for practising racism against Black renters.
His own employees said he didnt want Black dealers on his casino floors.
The head of his own party was forced to condemn him for racist remarks.
 

Mahonay

Banned
Her tweets were factually correct. Trump was investigated by the federal government for practising racism against Black renters.
His own employees said he didnt want Black dealers on his casino floors.
The head of his own party was forced to condemn him for racist remarks.
Yep. Jemel is absolutely in the right here. Fuck Trump.
 
I thought ESPNs statement was chicken shit yesterday, and she's dead on with her criticism of Trump and how he's enabled the right wing racist extremism.

I don't have much respect for ESPN but if they fire her I'll be pissed. Like, as if any Trump supporters actually watcher her show, followed her Twitter feed, or anything else.
 

VariantX

Member
Always really liked Jemel Hill. Never afraid to spit truth. And she's right here as well. Fuck the Whitehouse. It is 100 percent a white supremacist administration right now. ESPN needs to grow some balls and stand next to her. ESPN is pretty trash though. At least she wasn't fired.

Easier to throw her under the bus for telling the truth than to even slightly offend a portion of their audience by simply casting fucking light on them.
 

MIMIC

Banned
The hell is the WH doing watching ESPN punditry?

Oh yeah. Not doing their jobs and watching too much TV.

edit: Oh, she said it on Twitter? I thought it was on TV.
 
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