Jemele Hill tweeted a picture of a hate letter ESPN received about her, and unfortunately hate letters infested with racial slurs is nothing new for the African American columnist.
As much as we would like to believe that racism is a thing of the past, a hate letter sent to Hill is just proof that we have a long way to go.
ESPN received yet another racist letter about Hill after she appeared on Colin Cowherd’s show “The Herd.”
The author of the hate mail called Hill an extensive list of derogatory names and even stated that she needed to be taken off the air before she “back-slides into some Ebonics-laden inarticulate mumbo jumbo tirade.”
“…I don’t like women broadcasters to begin with, yet alone b***h ‘Jungle-Bunnies,’” the hate mail read.
Being ever so creative with their racial slurs, the author of the hate mail also referred to Hill as a “spear-chucker” and a “thick-lipped gorilla.”
Even Jemele had to admit that the angry viewer pulled the “hat trick of racial slurs.”
Racially charged comments about the black female newscaster happen so often now, that Jemele wasn’t even shocked by the slurs in the letter.
“I don’t want to downplay the seriousness of it but I’m called something derogatory on a daily basis,” Hill explained after she revealed her first reaction to the letter was to laugh. “But that’s usually via email or Twitter. The fact that this occurred through snail mail makes it unique.”
The handwritten letter is unique, but it certainly wasn’t the worse she’s gotten throughout her career.
“I had a situation a couple years ago where I had to contact the US Army, because someone had sent me a vile racist and sexist letter on one of their email accounts,” Hill told Poynter. “I probably wouldn’t have bothered to contact them, but this person scared me a little because he made reference to physically threatening me if he saw me in person. I wanted them to be aware. They investigated and someone from that email account responded, claiming that their account had been used by another person and apologizing.”
The letter also called the ESPN personality out for not liking golf – as if that is the key to being a great sports journalist.
Hill’s response to the letter? “I still don’t like golf.”
Meanwhile the post has received several likes and comments on Facebook of people supporting Jemele and displaying their disgust that someone would say such racist things.
Others who saw the letter, however, are just upset that the letter’s racism prevented the real message from being seen.
“Even though this is a racist letter, it doesn’t change the fact that Jemele Hill sucks,” someone commented.
Although you can’t ignore the fact that plenty of sports journalists have had opposing teams about who can beat who and have never received such racially driven letters. Another person commented explaining that they are equally as disgusted with the racial slurs in the letter, but also agreed that Hill simply isn’t a good sports broadcaster.
“The racism is shameful and disgusting, and unfortunately it is going to take away from the legitimate position that Jemele Hill is TERRIBLE,” another person commented on the photo of the letter. “It saddens me that anyone would be subject to that kind of ignorance that is demonstrated in these letters, but it doesn’t change the fact that she is not good at her job (which is not unique to her among her colleagues at WWL, although she does seem especially bad to me), and that has nothing to do with her race.”
Well if the racist author of the hate mail thought his note would get Hill fired, he more than likely has prevented that from happening any time soon.
“I don’t rlly like Hill either, but they cnt fire her now,” one sports enthusiast tweeted. “If they let her go now it looks like they did it cus of her race.”
In other words, even if producers were on the verge of letting Jemele go, doing it now would only appear as if they did it because of the racist letter – well that’s the theory on Twitter anyway.
At the end of the day, however, the ignorance and pure hatred displayed in the letter is shocking and repulsive and someone needs to take action if the racially charged hate mail continues.
