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“Hitler” & “Lynch him”- Sports channels need to provide history lessons

By Carmen D. on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008, 8:35 pm Comments

Well it’s Wednesday, which means another sports journalist has been suspended for lacking the most basic understanding of historic atrocities and their present day reverberations. Jemele Hill, in her zeal to utilize thundering hyperbole *cough* compared supporting the Celtics to being a Hitler apologist. See for yourself:

ESPN’s Jemele Hill wrote a column Saturday that said rooting “for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim. It’s like hoping Gorbachev would get to the blinking red button before Reagan.” SOURCE

Hill’s analogy doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s beyond the point I guess. Initially ESPN just edited the offending passage out of her article, but thank God for blogs! Readers caught the original version and demanded ESPN take stronger action than the standard, mealy mouth, “we apologize if anyone was offended.” Jemele Hill has been suspended.

ESPN issued this statement:

“Both Jemele and ESPN.com apologize. The column, as originally posted, made some absolutely unacceptable comparisons. We’ve spoken with Jemele, and she understands that she exercised poor j”udgment. She’s been relieved of her responsibilities for a period of time to reflect on the impact of her words. Within hours of its posting on Saturday evening, the inappropriate references were removed from the site, but our system of checks and balances failed Jemele and our readers and we are addressing that as well.” SOURCE

Checks and balances? Who is her editor? Who is her editor’s editor? What stinks about all this mea culpa after the fact, is that it is highly unlikely that Jemele posted the article with no one else seeing it. In that case her editor had little problem with it initially. And that is a problem in and of itself. It’s not complicated really. “Hitler” is one of those names you just don’t toy around with. Unless you’re Larry David.

Also, notice the tone of Hill’s post on her blog. Although she’s dead on about being called a racist n-word, I’m not sure she gets “it.” What do you think?

  • pteranodon
    Wait a minute, isn't this the same Jemele Hill who condemned the Vogue/LeBron James cover? What goes around comes around.
  • I'm a fan of Democracy, but not mob rule. There again, a fine line distinction, but one that needs to be made. The marketplace did not decide this issue, a few squeaky wheels made this happen, and that's too close to mob rule for my taste.

    And this is sports for crying out loud. People in sports should be allowed to say some dumb stuff, and just blame it on all the adrenaline and testosterone in the atmosphere. Have you ever listened to the 2 Live Stews? They denigrate fans of teams they don't like all the time. If I had to stand behind every vile thing I've said about the Celtics, I would be issuing retractions and apologies for days.

    Let me put it another way. Saying that liking the celtics is the same as liking Hitler is not trivializing what Hitler did. It's just a creative way to say how much you despise the Celtics.

    Well, in any case, I won't beat this dead horse any longer. too bad the sister got her income interdicted in this incident.
  • Hello Exodus Mentality! Welcome to the conversation. Glad to see you here.

    You bring up an interesting point. These are different situations for sure. The lynching comment was actually put forth as a dumb,joking, suggestion about hurting a black man in a heinous way. Here, Hill denegrates any reader who support the Celtics and trivializes the Holocaust by putting team loyalty in the same sphere as sympathy for Hitler.

    Exodus, this is about money, sponsors, readers, clicks. Remember, ESPN did not care about the comment until readers got angry. Audience anger can lead to a lower bottom line, hence the suspension. That aspect is the same in both cases.

    The marketplace now decides where "too far" is.
  • Hello there spear sister. My first time in your space.

    I ask a lot of questions, and my question here is this. Is it an automatic calumny to even mention Hitler's name now? This is just Celtic hater, rhetoric, it's a metaphor. It doesn't even attempt to paint Hitler in a favorable light, which is usually the crux of the problem with people who refer in some way to Hitler.

    The comparison to the lady on the Golf channel who use the lynching metaphor is only slightly different, in that I can readily see that she was in a position to understand the historical reference of her statement. But I also can't discount the fact that lynching was a phenomena that did happen to people who weren't Black, especially out west.

    I understand sensitivity, but is this not taking it a bit far. In other words, I'm not sure if I get it.
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