ESPN reportedly tried to keep Jemele Hill off Wednesday's episode of The Six amid calls from the White House to fire her following her tweets where she called Donald Trump a white supremacist, according to ThinkProgress. Hours before last night's show aired, the Worldwide Leader in Sports wanted to find a replacement for Hill, but faced pushback from her co-host Michael Smith, who refused to show up if they went through with their plan.
ESPN reached out to two of their black hosts, Michael Eaves and Elle Duncan, in an effort to have them fill in for Hill and Smith, but both rejected the offer. When the network was left with the ultimatum of getting Hill and Smith back on the show or finding two white hosts, ESPN went with the former.
The show went off without a hitch, and Hill never addressed the matter on air. She did, however, post a message on Twitter later that night.
Donald Trump has, from the beginning of his public life, trafficked in racial stereotypes and engaged in discrimination. And he has no hesitation about calling other people (or television shows) racist. But whenever you are the slightest bit critical of Trump, the administration immediately plays the martyr card.
If Trump didn't want Hill or anyone else to assume that he's a white supremacist, he should've immediately denounced their actions, instead of trying to impress upon us that they are "very fine" people. It's as simple as that.
