Jemele Hill, an African-American woman who co-hosts an ESPN show called SC6 with Michael and Jemele has been reprimanded by the network for a string of tweets calling United States President Donald Trump, and his supporters, "white supremacists".
He loves black people so much that he pandered to racists by using a flag that unquestionably stands for dehumanizi… https://t.co/kTsOBvGp91— Jemele Hill (@Jemele Hill) 1505163471
@DonnyParlock @demillz84 @JayG34 Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.— Jemele Hill (@Jemele Hill) 1505174080
@DonnyParlock @demillz84 @JayG34 The height of white privilege is being able to ✌🏾ignore✌🏾his white supremacy, beca… https://t.co/G4KGFtlS6P— Jemele Hill (@Jemele Hill) 1505174140
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in response to the tweets:
That is one of the more outrageous comments that anybody could make and certainly is something that is a fireable offense by ESPN.
White House says actions of ESPN host tweeting against President Trump were a "fireable offense." Read more:… https://t.co/rWsCX0PXwD— NBC News (@NBC News) 1505361605
There's a few problems with this response.
The first being that the Republican Party and the White House haven't, to date, called for that response to white, male journalistic critics:
Nor for white, male celebrity critics of Barack Obama for inflammatory statements:
In fact, it's a standard Trump himself fails:
👇🏽 a tv star says the president is a racist. Fireable offense? https://t.co/pVry05fwVX— Sunny Hostin (@Sunny Hostin) 1505361904
A statement from ESPN read:
The comments on Twitter from Jemele Hill regarding the President do not represent the position of ESPN.
We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate.
There's a rather large backlog of statements from the White House we're waiting on for Mr Trump's twitter behaviour...