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 U.S. Army, because someone had sent me a vile racist and sexist letter on one of their email accounts,” Hill told the journalism group 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.”
Read more: Popular Critic
