ESPN.com’s Jemele Hill Suspended For Comment: ‘Rooting for the Celtics is like saying Hitler was a victim’

ESPN Columnist Jemele Hill was outraged by the image suggesting the publication depicted James as a savage and Bundchen as the damsel in distress. Her scathing article on ESPN.com caused a great bit of heat for Vogue. Well now it appearts that now Hill is in her own hot water. She has been suspended following a piece where she equated fan support for the Boston Celtics in their NBA Finals series to that of Hitler. In her column entitled “Deserving or not, I still hate the Celtics,” Hill wrote:

“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.”

The two offensive statements were taken out of her online column hours after it was posted, but not before a torrent of negative feedback was unleashed by ESPN.com readers, as well as Celtics fans and other sports columnists.

Hills comments have agitated the public in a number of different ways from ESPN.com readers, Holocaust survivors, Celtic Fans, other columnist and sports talk radio hosts.

The major problem facing Hill, WHO I ABSOLUTELY LOVE as a knowledgeable sports writer is that we’re living the post Don Imus/ Rutgers hoops squad era. After the radio jock who was dismissed for referring to the Rutgers woman’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos” many Imus supporters viewed his firing as a double standard and have been waiting for a BLACK journalist to slip up to illustrate their point. So although she’s only expected to be suspended, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets made an example out of.

Hill has issued the following apology however:

“I deeply regret the comment I made in a column Saturday. In expressing my passion for the NBA and my hometown of Detroit I showed very poor judgment in the words that I used. I pride myself on an understanding of, and appreciation for, diversity - and there is no excuse for the appalling lack of sensitivity in my comments. It in no way reflects the person I am. I apologize to all of my readers and I thank them for holding me accountable. This has been an important lesson for me and illustrates that, like many people, I still have a lot of growing and learning to do.”

Clearly she effed up but my question is if editors are reading these columns shouldn’t they be held accountable for allowing the material to go to press? Its like its only controversial if the public says so. Although her comments were later edited online it wasn’t until after ESPN had received hundreds of emails from disseminated and outraged readers.

Comment by J-Reala on June 20, 2008 at 10:06pm: She got what was coming to her. She seem to always say things like that to get a response out of people. She was the same one who wrote how Kobe was better than Jordan and started that whole Lebron vogue cover mess. She never liked KG anyway, she was just talking crazy and this time it came back to bite her.

Comment by Mikeno on June 20, 2008 at 10:09pm: Imus's whole career is based on sayin fucked up shit.. so to say he made 1 comment makes you sound fuckin stupid.. hes been warned before.. and then you try an downplay it by sayin "he made 1 COMMENT" give him a break already boo hoo..

O yeah this was directed at Mitchs stupid ass..

Comment by Florida boy on June 21, 2008 at 6:12am: this shit allwayz happen when an educated black person makes comments like those but oh well she'll learn it was a good series i knew boston was going to be the better team !

Comment by Torin on June 21, 2008 at 10:27am: I'm not sure bout comparing the Celtics and their fans to Hitler (that's a little extreme). I mean i will admit as KG fan i've seen how some of the boston fans get a little stupid. But honestly i just think she was a little upset about Detroit losin' and she expressed that the wrong way, messed around and something she shouldn't have (or at least in the wrong way). And like it or not they really might make an example outta her. But if they don't, she HAS to find a better way to get her point across without callin' that type of attention to herself. Because if they don't make an example out of her this time...next time you can bet they will. Eh but a good point was made at the end of the article....why didn't the editor say somethin' like "is there another way you can put this" instead of letting her just flap in the wind. Cuz whoever it was had to know there would be backlash to that comment. To me that's kinda effed up.

"T"