A Conversation with Jemele Hill

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jammel Hill is a well known journalist, author, and media personality.
She celebrated for her outspoken commentary on sports, politics, and
social issues, particularly issues of race, gender, and equality. She
gained prominence during her time at ESPN, where she co
hosted Sports Center and contributed to The Undefeated. Since leaving ESPN,

(00:24):
she's continued to build her platform with projects like her
podcasts Jammel Hill Is Unbothered and her memoir Uphill, which
details her personal journey and perspectives on navigating a career
in media while advocating.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
For social justice.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
She's also been active in broader cultural and political conversations,
often using her voice to call out injustice and uplift
marginalized communities. And she is our guest today. Welcome to
Civic Cipher as we podcast on location here in Los Angeles, California.
I am your host, Rams's joh.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I am Q and while we are broadcasting from Los Angeles, California,
here we are in the presence of someone I consider royalty,
and I don't mean that hyperbolic. I mean that literally.
I was lucky enough to get a copy of uphere

(01:19):
and to see that journey from a purview of somebody
that grew up where you grew up, you know, almost
literally in the same hallways where we went to high school,
and knowing the journey. For some it might look like
because you landed on your feet, that you had this
master plan and that you had it all figured out.

(01:41):
Ramses and I have a similar story. You know, we
were radio DJs on the hip hop station in Phoenix, Arizona.
You know, we're giving away Migo's tickets, You're playing CARDI
b having a good time, and then something happened where
we had to use our voices to speak up for
our people, and it put us in the crosshairs. I
like to tell people, I got us called to the
office because of my big mouth. I couldn't stay quiet

(02:04):
about what we were seeing going on outside, you know,
people protesting in the wake of George Floyd's murder, and
the news called us, you know, vandals and said we
were terrorizing the city. But we were at protest with
our kids. I had my two year old, he had
his I think six year old at the time or five,
and we knew that that wasn't true. And as you know,
the bullhorn only goes so far, it only reaches so

(02:27):
many people, and Rams was like, man, we have to
do more. We can't just show up for the protests.
We got this large platform, we got to say something.
And you know, eventually that led to the station just
flatly telling us, you know, we don't want to do
a black show on the hip hop station. And we
were the only black on air personalities in the entire

(02:49):
state of Arizona. So being told by the hip hop
station they didn't want to do black, Rams just quit
for both of us and then called me on the
phone and told me, hey, we quit. In the position
that you've been in throughout your career, you know, you
have to be responsible with your advocacy because you have

(03:09):
a living to make, You got bills to pay. How
do you balance showing up for us? You know, navigating
like objectivity and advocacy as a journalist, how do you
navigate that space?

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well?

Speaker 4 (03:23):
For one, and first of all, thank you both for
having me on the show. Really appreciate speaking to you all.
And of course, you know, any opportunity I get to
fellowship with somebody else from Detroit, especially from Mumford, Yes, indeed, yeah,
that's always very important and special to me. But much
like you guys knew when that moment came, the moment

(03:45):
shows you and you were just ready for it, right,
And so I think it's been the same for me,
is that there are a lot of concessions that we
have to make, and especially if you're black in the
media space, really in any corporate space, there's gonna be
concessions that you make, but you can't let the place
you're at or the job you're doing change the integrity
and the fabric and the DNA of who you actually are.

(04:06):
And I told people this about ESPN when I got
there in two thousand and six, and told them throughout
my time there for twelve years, is that you should
go into any place you have to know who you are.
The place can't make you, because if that's the case,
you're gonna see a lot of inconsistency in how you

(04:27):
behave and how you treat the platform that you're given.
So for me, when those moments came where I felt
like my voice or more emphasis was required, that moment
kind of chose me and I sort of knew, like, yeah,
this is the right thing to do. And you also
know that you're okay with the consequences of how it

(04:48):
turns out, you know, you all made a courageous choice
to quit rather than subject yourself to clearly a situation
that did not value you and did not understand the
power and the.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
The need for your voice, especially during the time like that.

Speaker 4 (05:06):
And I think when we run into those situations, we
just innately know no more, I can't. I know, we
have got to draw a line in a saying right here.
And the great thing about the way my career tri
trajectory has gone is that I've had much more authority, empowerment,

(05:27):
and leverage in this stage of my career, and I
use those and.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
Weaponize those.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
As I feel like I should for the betterment and
the empowerment of us, you know, because it's not just
really about me anymore, because I've been able to do
some really amazing things in my career. And while yes,
there are plenty of other things I'd love to accomplish,
but those really take a back seat to this general
principle of I have of this business needs to be
better for us than what it was for me. And

(05:58):
listen to the OZ that took a lot of you know,
abuse and had to deal with a lot of stuff.
They did it so that my walk was a little easier,
and I think that's the way we should all approach
this business. We got to make the generation coming after
us or younger journalists, younger media folks like we got
to make that path a little easier for them. And

(06:19):
so that's kind of more my mission these days than anything.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
I'm going to ask something of you. I I vaguely
remember when everything went down with ESPN, but famously on
our show, our listeners know on the Black Information Network,
our listeners know their Q certainly knows this. I'm more
of a music guy than a sports guy, you know.
And you know, I don't watch a lot of sports shows.

(06:46):
I don't watch a lot of sports games. I don't
know the names that you guys were talking about earlier.
It sounds I like the fact that you guys are
so excited about it, but I don't, you know, it's
just just I just basking the energy, right And there
may be some people out there who are kind of
like me. Now. I know, because I was aware when
this happened that it's quite a compelling story. But would

(07:07):
you do our listener as a favor and kind of
fill in just a Cliff Snotes version of actually what
happened to you and that critical moment going from you know,
working to having to stand on business as Q put it.

Speaker 4 (07:19):
So, I got to ESPN in two thousand and six,
and it was the longest job I've ever had.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
It's the best job that I ever had.

Speaker 4 (07:26):
And so I sort of made my way up the ranks,
if you will, and I started doing daily television, had
my own show starting in twenty thirteen. It was called
Numbers Never Lie. Then they changed the name of it
to His and Hers. Me and my television partner and friend,
Michael Smith. We were co hosts, and then in twenty
sixteen we got a pretty big promotion. They asked us

(07:47):
to host the six pm Sports Center, which is a
legacy job in the business. It's a great job, you know,
hosting Sports Center for those in sports media and even
those who are fans, they understand the importance of that.
The sports brand is ESPN's baby, it's its legacy and
being able to host that it was a tremendous opportunity

(08:08):
for us. And in twenty seventeen, you know, as you know,
we President Trump was in office then and this was
right after Charlottesville, and we saw, you know, to refresh
some people's mind. In Charlottesville, we literally had Nazis marching
on an American city saying the Jews will not replace us,

(08:31):
all sorts of just hideous chants and staking their claim.
And Trump, who was president at the time, he held
a news conference. He was asked about this because while
racism has never died, he certainly awakened the bolder aspects
of it with some of his language, with some of

(08:53):
his demeanor, and frankly with the things and the people
that support him. And so, you know, he held a
press conference about it, and he was asked about, you know,
what his thoughts were on it, and he said, there
were very fine people on both sides, who you know,
there were no there wasn't very fine people on both sides.
There was Nazis on one side and everybody else trying

(09:14):
to stop them on the other side, Okay, And he
tried to make a false equivalence between the two. You
had a young lady, a young white woman, the Heather Higher.
She'd lost her life because a Nazi plowed into a
crowd of people with their car because they were the
counter protesters to this very awful moment in our history,
and So the thing about when you do sports, and

(09:36):
especially at the place like ESPN, you know, when you
see these things happening around the world, you're limited in
the way that you can talk about them because your job.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Is to frankly entertain people. You know, people love sports.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
A lot of people looked at sports as something that
distracts them or at least takes their mind off the
real day to day life issues of their own lives
and what we're experiencing as citizens. And and you know,
hearing that defense was just sickening to me. And on
social media it was somebody who tried to defend what

(10:11):
he said, and I was going, I was in a
back and forth with it with this person, which sometimes
never yes, and it did something we try to avoid it,
but sometimes today ain't the day and I ain't the one.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
So that was one of those days. Nor am I
the two.

Speaker 4 (10:27):
I'm not the one, order two or one of your
little friends, any of those three, right, And so in
this back and forth, I gave my honest assessment of
the then president are about to be our president elect
as of this recording, and I just said, like he's
a white supremacist, and he surrounded himself with a lot
of other white supremacists, and he is unfit to lead

(10:51):
this country, period.

Speaker 3 (10:53):
And that's what I said.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
And honestly, people always ask me like, oh, wow, did
you know that it would create such an international firestorm.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
It was like, nah, because I thought we knew.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
I thought you could tell thought obviously. I thought it
was pretty obvious.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
I didn't.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
You know, it's one of the most unoriginal things I've
ever said, because I thought it was just that obvious.
But when you're anchoring the six PM Sports Center, which
is the evening news of sports, you know, much like
you saw the evening news on CBS or NBC. When
you're in that position, that's not where they expect that
kind of realism to come from, especially about politics. And

(11:31):
lo and behold, uh my comment got blown up everywhere.
Of course, it was all over Fox naturally Fox News,
and then it just kind of took on a life
of its own. ESPN they decided that they would put
out a statement saying that hey, that's how she feels,
that's not how all of us feel, or you know,

(11:51):
trying to make the separation between those are her political
views and got nothing to do with us. And I
put it out that muss that that statement was a mistake,
because you then you're gonna take it off of Fox
News and the conservative echo chamber, and it's gonna be
on CNA now because you've legitimized the criticism by saying, like, oh, yeah,

(12:13):
we know what she said.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
It was probably not right, but that ain't us. That's
exactly what happened.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
And next thing I know, I go into work because
you know, I tweeted this when I wasn't at work yet,
And I go into work and my friends. I have
friends who cover politics, and a couple of them were
texting me from the White House Press brief freing room
because of the Press Secretary at the time, Sarah Huckabe Sanders,
who's now the governor of Arkansas. She says she thought

(12:39):
I should be fired for that, and it takes on
another life of his own. Then next thing you know,
Donald Trump is tweeting about me, saying, I'm dragging the
ratings down at ESPN and I need to apologize for
what I said. And so what was to me a
meaningless reply suddenly is an international news story, and I'm
being talked about on CNN and miss NBC and local

(13:01):
news and national news, and all these stories are being written.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
So it is a firestorm.

Speaker 4 (13:07):
And really, the thing that was also obvious is that
for as many people who may have supported Donald Trump,
there was a whole lot of people who did not.
And much to my surprise, a lot of athletes, many
of whom I did not know personally, began to speak
up on my behalf, Kevin Durant, Lebron James, Colin Kaepernick,

(13:30):
who I did know, like a lot of entertainers, celebrities,
like they just the black folks mounted up basically, and
I think, yes, we formed a vultron. And I say
this often and it's true. It's like I credit that
for I don't know how close I was to just
being fired, but I credit them speaking up on my

(13:51):
behalf for the reason at least ESPN if they were
thinking of that, they said, I don't know, I don't know,
we want I don't know if we want this.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
You know, And so.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, it was a very eye opening time for me.
And eventually, you know, that happens. And I think in
ESPN's mind they were just like, you know, you kind
of need to chill out and lay low, because I mean,
I was getting It was so much of a firestorm
that like I couldn't open like Twitter or anything because
it was just bombarded with people just you know, I

(14:22):
had to kind of they had to shut down my
voicemail at work because people were calling leaving death threats.
I mean, it was just crazy, you know, and I
had to have security at some point, Like it was,
it was wild. And then fast forward, uh, maybe a
couple of weeks after this all happens, and ESPN decides,
you know, they weren't going to suspend me, they weren't

(14:44):
gonna do anything because frankly, they didn't.

Speaker 3 (14:46):
Know what to do.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
The the Dallas Cowboys, it was after Trump had called
the NFL player's sons because they were kneeling in protest. Really,
this was about Colin Kaepernick, you know, him deciding to
take a knee to protest and bring awareness to racial oppression,
police brutality, you know, things we.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Should all agree are bad.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Him doing that had a rub off effect on the
other player, so the other players started to do the
same thing, and Trump saw this. It was a political
opportunity for him, so he goes off and calls them
sons all this kind of stuff, and the NFL takes
a quote unquote stand. But then Jerry Jones, the owner
of the Cowboy, says that if any of his players

(15:30):
Jerry Jones, who donated a lot of money to Trump's campaign,
who was friends with Donald Trump, says that if any
of his players took a knee, he would cut them.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Now, this is the same dude.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
Okay, just to yes, Jerry Jones, same dude who gave
Greg Hardy a job. Greg Hardy who was once convicted
of domestic violence for choking out his girlfriend in the bathtub. Right,
that same dude was more than okay, we're giving Gregready

(16:00):
another chance after an eleven game suspension from the NFL
for some very serious domestic violence charges. And but for him,
the line is, if you kneel on behalf of humanity,
then you're not worthy of being a cowboy. And I
thought that was crazy, and a lot of people, because
the thing is, in our discourse when we were talking

(16:21):
about sports or anything, there's one set of people whose
opinions get elevated and they become sort of the default, like, oh, well,
we have to adhere to this opinion. And then there's
a whole lot of people who feel opposite, you know.
For there's a lot of black NFL fans, a lot
of black Cowboy fans, and they were outraged that Jerry

(16:43):
Jones said this, and they were just they were crushing
the Cowboys players about it, like Dak Prescott and all
these guys, and they were just like, I can't believe
you guys would play for somebody who said this about you.
Where's your sense of dignity, where's your sense of respect there?
You let this white man talk to you like that.
You know, there was a lot of that, And I said,

(17:06):
I was like, listen, last I checked, because you know
these players and this is not to absolve them, and
I get that when you're in that position, you made
a lot of money, you have the comfort of speaking
up in the way others do not. But at the
same time, you can't ask the players to constantly risk
it all.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
Well, all you got to do is turn your remote
to another channel.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
Anybody putting a gunny your head telling you to watch
the Cowboys or the NFL like nobody. So what I
said on Twitter was that if you all feel this
strongly about what he said, then you need to make
you need to make a stand.

Speaker 3 (17:38):
Wich a wallet.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Stop watching the NFL then, or stop watching the Cowboys.
They all got advertisers, stop patronizing them, Like why are
the players the ones that have to risk it all?

Speaker 3 (17:47):
And y'all can sit there in the comfort of your
home and risk nothing, right.

Speaker 4 (17:51):
That was that was what I said. I was like,
you go after the advertisers. There you go, and the
history of boycotts, that's usually what works.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
That's all I said. Next thing, I know, big Fox
News headlines. Big headlines arewa man.

Speaker 4 (18:07):
They did, because at this point, if I would have
just said, hey, I like to tie my shoe, that
would have been a news story. It doesn't matter, and
so big headlines Jameel Hill, ESPNS Jabel Hill calls for
boycott of the NFL, and I was like, oh god,
the NFL and.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
ESPN are business partners, right.

Speaker 4 (18:23):
They have a billion on billion on billions deal for
Monday night football, and now you know, ESPN is getting
a Super Bowl in a couple of years, so they
have financially a lot of stake. And so you have
now one of your most prominent personalities saying, hey.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
Y'all need to just stop fooling with this league.

Speaker 4 (18:40):
If you feel like that needless to say, my boss
say is we're quite unhappy, very unhappy. And this time around,
they considered that another violation of their very nebulous social
media policy, and I was suspended, and I was suspended
for two weeks. And it was that that firestorm that

(19:05):
started to kind of die down and came roaring right
back to life.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
And it was then in that moment that I knew.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
But I knew before I got suspended, honestly, you know,
and people thought I was crazy for saying this. I
really wasn't tripping about the suspension. I've been in this
business long enough to know that when you start messing
with the church's money, it's going to be a price
to pay.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
It's okay, I'm alright with paying that price. I'm fine
with it. They did what they had to do. I
did what I had to do. It's just that simple.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
However, the part that really bothered me throughout this whole ordeal,
which lasts, you know, together with the between these two
incidents we're talking about a month, is that I came
up with the type of journalism background. I worked in
newspapers for a decade before I got to ESPN, and
there was just this understood code that you never let

(19:52):
city Hall come after your reporters. You stand up for them,
you fight for them.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
You don't. The whole the way.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
This democracy works is because of a free press, we
have the right to criticize the government.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
That is what that is.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
So for all the people who always want to holler
freedom of speech, that's what that is. Protecting you from
retaliation from the government. Right, And so it's not about
you know, people wrongly think that free speech means I
could just say anything to you. You can't do nothing. No,
it's protecting you from government retaliation. That is the difference, stupid,
correct exactly. So you run up on the wrong one

(20:28):
and you get popped in the wind.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Right, Well, that.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
All the right one, the wrong one or the right one.

Speaker 4 (20:34):
So at any rate, when Donald Trump came after me
and ESPN didn't do anything, that to me is when
I knew our relationship was over. And I said mmm
to myself, I was thinking, like, yeah, where the way
I was brought up in this business, you don't do that, Okay,
you got to say something even if you know, and

(20:55):
it's it was disheartening because being at a place that long,
of course, you build relationships, it becomes personal to you,
even though it's a transactional relationship.

Speaker 3 (21:04):
I provide talent to you, you put me on air.
That's the way it works.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
But it did give me some sense of, I don't know, relief.
I guess because I met with the president of ESPN
the day before I was coming off suspension, and he
apologized to me, John Skipper, He apologized to me for
not speaking up and at the very least defending me
against Donald Trump. But even still, when that happens, I

(21:30):
was like, yeah, I don't think this relationship is gonna
make it. I did a lot of great stuff at
ESPN plus on top of that, and this is not
a small thing. I also did not enjoy doing Sports Center.
It was a constant fight, like those battles that I
know you all fought in the position you were in
in Arizona, same ones, you know, And I got tired

(21:54):
of fighting to be me every day.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Got really tired of that on Sports Center.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
And because that's a different thing than when we hosted
our previous shows, where we had a lot of creative control.
You know, we could be who we were Sports Center,
as my co host used to famously say, a lot
of cooks in the kitchen, but don't know, nobody know
how to make a meal.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
And that is what we had.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
And when once the political blowback came, it put the
show in a compromising position because suddenly, you know, we
have right wing and conservative think tanks or think pieces
on us, and it's like the show the success of
it moving forward with me in particular, just didn't seem great.

(22:40):
And I wasn't enjoying being on there. I don't think
they were enjoying me being on there because this is
their biggest property and here we have all this smoke
we got to deal with every time she says anything.
And in my contract, I had the equivalent of a
no trade clause where I had to do Sports Center.
And the only way I could not do Sports Center

(23:03):
is if I asked to not do Sports Center. And
I was just one year into a four year deal
was not enjoying it, and so I asked them if
I could leave Sports Center. I didn't ask to leave
the company that was a few months away. I was like,
I want to leave Sports Center because however much time
that I have left here DESPN, I don't want.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
To be doing that. And as they told me flat out.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
Typically we don't pay people the kind of money we're
paying you to do what you want to transition into.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
But we'll do it.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
And I know they were going to do it because
they had just as much ve interest in me being
off Sports Center as I did. We were aligned, and
you know, so I went back to writing for The Undefeated,
which has now since become Ndscape. Writing is always my
first love. And I went to doing different shows, you know,
highly questionable and around the Horn and you know, just

(23:57):
really kind of picking my spots Sports Nation when that
was still going. And then I got to about you know,
this is July of twenty eighteen, and I'm like, I
don't have anything else I want to do here, Like
I'm kind of done, and again I'm just one year
and two a.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Two year deal or to a four year deal, excuse me.

Speaker 4 (24:18):
And I met with the president and his second in command,
the president of ESPN, who was a different president by
that time, and you know, I was just like, I
think we both have a vested interest in me leaving.
You know, I don't really want to be here. I
don't think y'all want to be here. I'm fine to
be the first one to say we broke up, it's okay,
and like we had a good run. You know, a

(24:40):
lot of people don't last that long at any job,
so to be there at a network like that for
twelve years. So I left and it was great for
me because for the first time in a really long time,
it made me reassess what I wanted to do with
my career. It made me think about what this third
act is going to look like. And frankly, it got

(25:02):
me out of a little bit of complacency. Like when
you wind up at a place like ESPN, like people
are in those jobs forever, like they don't leave them,
you know, But if you have other things that you
want to do, it kind of wind up, winds up,
stunting that a little bit. Because you make a good money,
you're on TV. You know, you could just hit cruise
control then you're good. You're still working hard, but finding

(25:25):
the thing that you want to do that kind of
scares you a little bit, a little harder to do
when you're in the comforts of a studio and making
a lot of money. So there's a there's a very
long winded answer of what happened with you?

Speaker 2 (25:37):
I want to add something right here. I appreciate that because.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
When we were in a position to have this conversation,
when your name first came up, I had not made
that connection yet. I know that story, well, I knew
the cliffs Notes version of that story, but I knew
of the story. I just didn't know that you're because
you're an activist to me, which.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Is crazy because I would never describe myself that well
but at all.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
This is why I wanted to make sure I said
this before you take the next question or the next
round cue to me, that's what you are. And I
knew that you kind of came from, you know, the
ESPN or Sports World or whatever sports center, and you know,
that was just kind of a part of the story maybe,

(26:30):
but it just kind of exists in sort of the
mental sort of fog or whatever. But every time I
see the name Jamel Hill, it's on some activist stuff.
So that's the stuff that I share on my stories
or the stuff that you know gets retweeted, or the
stuff that we use as source material for our program.
And so when I finally did make the connection to

(26:53):
the actual story, I was like, Oh my god, that's
who we're going to talk to. So that we had
a whole. We had a whole this was this was
weeks ago, but we have the whole thing. So when
we say it's an honor to sit and talk with you,
I really do mean not because to me, you you
come from a you know, when you was saying that
we're sitting in the presence of royalty and he said
it before, I don't want to speak for you, but
it's like she doesn't even know how much of a

(27:14):
hero she is of mine, you know what I mean.
And so I'm like, yeah, right, so anyway, yeah, go ahead, you.
I just want to make sure I got that in.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, thank you. That was that was more than I deserve.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
It's an interesting world when being yourself becomes provocative and
you say benign things like the white supremacist guy is
a white supremacist and it's a headline that has to
be confusing.

Speaker 4 (27:37):
No, but it does let you know something that I
don't think most people, and not even us as black people,
that we realize that our very existence is political. Yes,
it's political, and because our existence and our humanity has
always been a question. So that's why it's like innately posive,
you know, we show up somewhere we could say nothing.

(27:57):
It comes out of our mouth, and there's going to
be some people in the room who are wary, are
trying to figure out how we got in there, or
what's happening, What are you doing here. It's like, we
always have to defend our right to exist constantly, and
so because of that, we don't We may not ever
even voice a political opinion, but people just inherently consider

(28:20):
us political.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Yeah, so you mentioned Colin Kaepernick. You guys got a
chance to work together, right, We did tell me a
little bit about that.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
So ESPN funny how things come full circle.

Speaker 4 (28:33):
So Spike Lee is directing Colin's documentary that goes through
the entire bones of his protests, why things that happen
behind the scenes that people don't know about that are
very compelling.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
It's a phenomenal story.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
And then not just about the protests, but also his
early life, like a bunch of different stuff. But so
Colin to give you an idea of the kind of
person that he is, He's one of the most principal
people I've ever met. And Colin and I knew each
other loosely, very loosely, very casually. I'm a forty nine
Ers fan despite being from Detroit. It's not a terribly

(29:14):
interesting story.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
And we'll talk to her about it.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yes, yeah, well we'll get to that bybe at some point.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
But so obviously, you know, he was once my quarterback,
and I came there at first know him that way,
and then at a couple of social functions, you know,
we talked and by you know, real cool and of course,
you know, when I was going through my drama with
Donald Trump, he went through his drama with Donald Trump.
So and when he was protesting, I was obviously on

(29:40):
an air at ESPN, and I always defended his right
to protest and the way that he did it and
calling out the people who were trying to hijack what
he was talking about and make it about patriotism when
it was never about that. So we sort of had
this little history of like sticking up for each other
and not knowing each other. And one day, this was

(30:03):
a couple of years ago, he called.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
Me and.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
He said, hey, listen, I just wanted to talk to
you because you know, he has some offers on the
table people who wanted, you know, his documentary, and you know,
he let me know who that was, and He's like,
you know, ESPN is one of them, and I don't
want to do anything that would undermine your mission or

(30:27):
seem like I'm in opposition to the things you stood
for against them. He's basically like, you know, I don't
want to ESPN can basically be off the table for
me because of what you went through. And I was like, wow,
we don't even know each other. Like that said right,
it was, And I was so floored by this, And
I was like, Colin, if you would have if you
would have never made this phone call to me, and

(30:49):
I wake up and read in the trades that ESPN
is doing your doc. I was still watching and support
it like it would have never. My personal drama with
ESPN has nothing to do with you, but I appreciate
you willing to being willing to stand in solidarity, which
let me know Yodas dude is for real, Like he's
a real dude. And so we get to talk, and

(31:10):
I said, listen, I went through a very specific situation
with them. Of the twelve years I was there, eleven
or so we're good. We went through a very rough
last year and I still left there with more friends
than enemies and more people who liked and respected me
than not, and including a lot of people you know,

(31:31):
kind of at the top. So I was like, it's fine,
We're in a we're in an okay place. Are things
awkward to some degree, yes, but we're fine. And I
was like, evaluating all the offers that you have, based
off the information you've told me, ESPN is the best platform.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
It's like they have.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
You know, they wanted to make it part of his
thirty for thirty collection, which we know, I mean they
want to ask her for with the oj maide in America.
So they have a very definitive, excellent history with being
able to do projects like yours. And you know, frankly,
I was a little surprised that ESPN was interested, not
because it wasn't a good story, but mostly because you know,

(32:06):
this was a very polarizing issue for a lot of people,
and you know, ESPN had been under attack for being
too liberal and too political and.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
All this other stuff.

Speaker 4 (32:16):
So I was kind of surprised they were willing to
kind of stand in the pain and do something like
this because eventually, part of his story is the NFL's
behavior and terms of exiling him from the league. So
you have to call them out and part of that,
and that's your billion dollar business partner. So I was
a little surprised, and I was like, I think they're
the best deal. And he appreciated my input, my insight,

(32:39):
and I also added that like, plus your presence there
for a lot of the black people who work there,
like your presence will be very uplifting, it will be
very inspiring, and you know, I think that's going to
have like a real trickle down and rub off effect
on everybody else. Just knowing that Colin Kaepernick has decided

(32:59):
to be in partnership with ESPN. So he was like, great,
appreciate it. Then maybe thirty minutes later, he calls me back.
He said, you know what, I think you're right about ESPN.
But I tell you how I can What would really
make me feel good about this. He's like, you have
to be my executive producer. I'm like, I was like,
don't threaten me with a good time. Yes, the answer

(33:21):
is yes. I had talked it by agent anybody. I
was like, yes, I will do it. I don't even
know if there's any money involved.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Yes, I will do this.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
And so so, and he hadn't even picked a director yet,
so he hadn't picked Spike Kid, and you know that
came along as part of the process, and you know,
we started filming and just being able to work with
Colin and to really see who he is. There's a

(33:50):
lot of people, so many people that owe him an
apology and getting to know not just him but his
wife Nessa, like they're marg yeah, yeah, okay, yes, she
spent some time him and that's that are married.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
I don't think I let the cat out the bag
there because it's been on social media.

Speaker 4 (34:11):
They posted it because they have a beautiful daughter too
as well.

Speaker 3 (34:16):
But they're just really amazing people.

Speaker 4 (34:19):
And it's been my honor to be to play a
role in telling a story that so many people got wrong.
And so I'm just excited for people to see it.
Ask for when I know this is probably will be
a next question. It's like, uh, we're still figuring that
part out, but it's done, so that's a good thing.

(34:39):
It's done, but we're still figuring out exactly when. And
so I'm I'm excited about everybody else saying it and
so they can understand just how egregious it was what
the NFL did to him.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
So this interesting thing happens in the wake of something
like that. You know it's now author, execut give, producer, director, host, talent,
scholar Jamail Hill, right, and when you get to this
point where you realize I'm no longer happy in this
place where I've always been. In your case, you landed
on your feet. You made a decision that was best

(35:15):
for you. And now in the eyes of us that
follow you, you're thriving. You know, we're looking at above
the fold, we're looking at politics, we're looking at executive
producing this documentary for Colin Kaepernick. And the moment when
you made that decision was it peaceful? Were you like
I'm out of there? Or were you like, oh my god,
what's next?

Speaker 4 (35:36):
No, it was very peaceful because I felt like it
was time. I was like, it's just time, you know,
like we my Everything that I was supposed to do
at ESPN, I did, and a lot of things I
never even saw a coming, never saw hosting Sports Center coming,
never saw frankly, I mean I went there as a
writer because I was They hired me to be a

(35:58):
columnist for ESPN dot com, So I had no intention
of having a television career. That just is something that
just kind of happened, and so I was grateful for
the experience for a lot of reasons, but mainly I
came in as a good journalism a good journalist.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
I left as a great journalist.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
Like it really in part because the great thing you
get to do at ESPN is that you get to
do a lot of things. So I started podcasting there,
did radio there, television, long form journalism, like every type
of thing I did while I was there, and that
gives you an incredible amount of knowledge, an incredible knowledge

(36:39):
base as you go out into the non ESPN world.
So that made my skills very transferable to do other things,
and you know, I wanted to get back to writing.
So I was able to strike this beautiful relationship with
The Atlantic, who I still write for, covering the intersection
between sports, race, culture, and gender, and I could write

(37:03):
about it at The Atlantic in a way that was
different than how I wrote about things at ESPN because
The Atlantic is not in partnership with any professional sports
rooks and they're also a political magazine, so you know
exactly what you're getting if you decide to read it,
Like I don't have to hear about stick to sports
because politics is what they do, right, and they were
still very much invested and serious about journalism and that's

(37:26):
getting harder and harder to find. And when it came to,
you know, doing television, I was able to be a
lot more, a lot choosier about what I decided to do.
I had the show with my good friend Carrie Champion
on Vice. We did that for a while. We're supposed
to have a show on CNN Plus that went a
little bit differently, that was above our pay grave.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
That was a whole merger happening that.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
You know.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
I often joke that's the best job I ever had
because I got paid for a year to do nothing,
So can't complain about that. And then of course writing,
you know, my memoir. So I was able to fulfill
all these other things that were always in the back
of my mind. But I was able to prioritize because
I wasn't at ESPN.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
And they're just the.

Speaker 4 (38:13):
Ability to be able to speak a little more freely,
to be more involved in certain things. I think that
was I got tired of also having to you know,
everything I asked to do turn into some colossal email
chain that like, I was so.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
Happy to be rifted to be rid of all that.

Speaker 4 (38:34):
You know, these days, if I'm presented with a project
or an idea or you know, an opportunity, do I
want to do it or not? That's the end of it.
Like there's no email chain, it's like do I like this? Okay,
I do cool, I'm gonna do it in the story
as opposed to being there. What it's like, Well, we
got to get this person to sign off in this person.
I do not miss that at all. And then I

(38:57):
think it was able. It made me reimagine what storytelling is. Yeah,
I thought about it purely journalistically because that's my background,
that's where I come from. But as I see now,
especially being in Los Angeles, it translates into being an
executive producer for a documentary or like I was a
producer for someone Biles vacuuseries, which is not on Netflix,

(39:20):
being able out.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 4 (39:22):
It's I'm not just saying that because I'm a producer,
but it's very good. And having some other production projects
of mine go forward and I started to understand like, oh,
it's all storytelling.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
It's just the only thing that's changing is the method.
So that's it.

Speaker 4 (39:39):
So but you know, make no mistake about it that
even though I have autonomy and freedom, I can live
where I want to live. Finally, you know, got married.
All these great things that happened, it's still a grind.
I mean, it's still a hustle. It's just it's just
a different kind of hustle. I often joke that I
traded one job for fifty.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Two jobs, right.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
You know, it's like you're still you know, I feel
like some days a bit of a mercenary because it's like, Okay, you.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Want to hire me to do what? Okay, Yeah, I
like it. Sure, let's go. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
So you it's just but you're just a little bit
more in control of what you do. But you know,
it is, the media business in general is hard. I mean,
it's just hard. And so I'm thankful that I've been
able to really turn this, you know, into something. But yeah,

(40:32):
there's certainly been days, especially with this strike that was
going on out here, where I was like, what did
I do? You know?

Speaker 3 (40:40):
So, but those days are few and far between.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
I know that autonomy is freeing like no other, being
able to just make the decisions that you want to
make and before Rams just followed up with you. I
said this really fast, and I don't want it to
seem small. Politics and above the fold. Those are new,
so a lot of our listeners will hear in those
terms for the first time. You tell us a little
bit about that.

Speaker 4 (41:01):
Sure, So, as you all see, I have a lot
of experience in the sports and political space, sports, political culture,
gender space. So I thought, in an election year, why
not start a political podcast. So I have a podcast
on iHeart and it is sports and politics, politics, and

(41:22):
so I think looking at politics, cultural issues, social issues
to the lens of sports is very helpful because sports
is one of the few things we actually do together.
We're a very segregated society by and large. But even
though Rams is not in this in terms of the sports.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
I used to play football when I was in high
school and then I got into music.

Speaker 4 (41:45):
But music has the same It has the same effect.
It's like, you know, it brings together people of different races, genders,
social economic backgrounds, regions, all that. If you all are
Laker fans, you're all Laker fans, you're all Pistons fans,
you're all you know whatever. Same thing with musicians, you know,
you're all Michael Jackson fans like, right, And so because

(42:05):
of that, that lends itself to an opportunity to discuss
the political world through the lens of sports. So as
an example, you know, in terms of one of my episodes,
like a recent one I did, was about the state
of American basketball, which in a weird way, it's just
kind of immigration.

Speaker 3 (42:26):
Right.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
So on opening night in the NBA, there was a
record tying one hundred and seventy five international players on
NBA rosters and representing I believe it's something like forty
something countries might have been more countries than that, And
the last six NBA MVPs have all been foreign players.
And there has been a lot of conversation at the

(42:49):
grassroots level and even reaching beyond all that about whether
or not development of you young basketball players in America,
how it's falling behind, and a lot of people that
are you know, really knee deep in the basketball world,
coaches whoever, they will say that they feel like the

(43:09):
European system of development is much better now than it
is in the in in America. And I was caught
by I was sort of it caught my eye when
Gilbert Arena is the former NBA player when he said
on his podcast, and Gilbert says a lot of wild stuff.
This is kind of on brand for him, where he said,
if they want the NBA ratings have not been good

(43:31):
this season in particular, and.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
So one of the things he said, and.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
Last year's final was like the finals was like one
of the lowest rated finals they've ever had. He's like,
you know, if you they want to see more people
interested everyonet the game to come back, so to speak,
they need to kick out all the Europeans, right, And
he wasn't joking, and you know, and I made a
joke like so I was like, Gilbert supports mass deportation.

(43:57):
But the whole point, though, is that there is this
sort of cultural divide that's happening with this. There's a
lot of coaches who frankly think the AAU system is
failing kids, you know, like.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
These days.

Speaker 4 (44:15):
I mean they've always said that about AU, and frankly,
I did consider a lot of the criticism before now
to be about the fact that it doesn't allow college
coaches to have as much control as they would like,
because at the grassroots level, you have local folk that
are having these teams that you know, with these star players,

(44:35):
and they become access points.

Speaker 3 (44:37):
So no, the college coach can't just show up in
the living room.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
It's like you got to talk to somebody, You got
to talk to somebody's uncle, you got to you know,
there's a system there in place. A lot of college
coaches don't like that, and so I understood it from
that standpoint, kind of those earlier criticisms au, but the
criticisms now are different. This is about development. And what
people are noticing is that at these tournaments. Number one,
they're quite expensive, and not just expensive for the people

(45:03):
in them, they're expensive for the people going to them.
Where you're charging for parking concept and it's like fifty
dollars the park. It's like, you know, just crazy amounts
of money being that you have to spend to do this.
And then they're playing a lot of games. And because
they're playing so many games, the winning isn't really important
because if you're playing four or five games game, four

(45:23):
or five games a day, what do you care if
you lose one or two? Right, and so these and
now that you have nil money, name, image and likeness,
money that you can make off, just that the money
has corrupted the system to the point where the development
is not the central idea. And so anyway, that's the

(45:46):
way to merge sports and politics. And one of the
people I talked to about this was Michelle Obama's brother,
Craig Robinson, and also Lavelle Molten, who is the head
coach of NC Central. So looking at things issues through
that lens, I think, you know, it allows people to
sort of critically think about it a little bit differently.

(46:07):
The episode as of this recording that's coming out this
week is about the.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Conflict in the Middle East.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
Always the light stuff with me, and one of the
feature guests is if Dehaj Mohammad, who is the first
woman to compete in the Olympics in a Hjab, a
black Muslim woman who's great. She meddled and she has
been very vocal about her support for.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
Palestine and it's cost her.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
And there's been a lot of examples of athletes who
have expressed pro Palestinian group, pro Palestinian views, not by
the way anti Jewish views, I said, pro Palestinian, right,
So just because what's happening to Palestinian people is an
atrocity and it has been very damaging to their careers,

(47:02):
and so I just wanted to have this conversation.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
It's like, why is this the topic?

Speaker 2 (47:06):
I mean?

Speaker 4 (47:07):
And as black people, we understand this. We know that
for a lot of people, pro black means anti white,
not what we're saying, right, they intentionally conflate that, and
it feels like this is some this is a byproduct
of that. This is like sort of the same thing,
just questioning is it a good idea that we are
sending so much money over to Israel that is going

(47:29):
towards bombing hospitals and schools and is it an idea?
You know, just raising that question creates a lot of issues.
And so I'm hoping through the lens of sports, uh,
because I have two scholars that are on their one
is a both of which our jewishsue really give me

(47:49):
some great insight into what is a hundreds year old problem,
our hundred year old conflict. And so so yeah, like
I'm I'm hoping to use this podcast to do that.

Speaker 3 (48:00):
Now.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
Above the Fold is like sort of a that's on
True TV in the T and T Sports Family comes
on every Thursday, also streaming on Max, and that is
more of a nod to sort of traditional journalism. Uh,
the term above the fold is the old journalism term
when you you know, back when people physically got where

(48:21):
people physically read the newspaper. All the stories that are
above the fold of the newspapers are considered the most
important stories. And so you know, it'll be a combination
of my commentary. I guess if I you know, I
had to do that. In Hollywood, we do the elevator
pitches where you have to tell it what something is like.
So this is uh, this is probably uh like real

(48:43):
sports meet sports reporters, and a little bit of Jim
Rome is burning.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
So I want to I want to add something right
here from it, just because I think it's important for
our listeners to kind of understand that, you know, there's
even more to what you're saying when you talk about
and you mentioned it now you put it more succinctly
that people intentionally conflate pro black with anti white. There's

(49:14):
another level that a lot of our listeners may not
be aware of what we do specifically, Just so that
you're aware, we kind of work in the ally ship space.
We target hip hop stations. We try to because we
feel like there's the most potential.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
To reach folks who.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Have a predisposition towards supporting black endeavors right, black people,
black communities, black music, and you know, to your point
about intentionally conflating it, that is one half of what
we're working against, I would say. The other half is
that people intentionally demonize what we do or muddle the waters.

(49:58):
And it occurred to me this might have been two
or three days ago that so you know, for a
lot of what you were talking about with you know,
the media blowback from your original tweet and then some
of the other things you were talking about. You mentioned
the Muslim woman Luthi job. You know, obviously we went
through that same thing that with that whole media moment,

(50:22):
the white Lives Matter moment, Kanye West stuff, So we
understand that firsthand exactly what that feels, how overwhelming that
could be, the death threats, you know, people targeting my children,
not that sort of stuff.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Like it was.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Bad when we said black lives matter. When we collectively
black people in this country said black lives matter, the
answer back was a collective all lives matter, right, And
that I believe to be a singularly an issue that

(50:54):
singularly happens to black people because a matter of months
after that, there was a movement which we supported and
still support, which said stop Asian hate. And to date,
I haven't heard anyone say stop all hate as a
response to that movement. And so, in addition to people

(51:15):
being like intentionally obtuse about black people affirming their humanity
and their right to exist and their right to pursue
the American dream or at least try to cultivate a
relationship with this country that's a bit more equitable. You know,
that pushback always felt a little bit like it, and

(51:35):
you know that brings me to where we are now.
A lot of us have been dealing with the results
of the election of Donald Trump, and we're all looking
for answers, and we're all looking for a path forward,
and what we hear a lot from the highest tier is,

(51:56):
you know, keep fighting, and it's vague and it's you know,
it's just kind of and they're not saying nothing. I
don't want to be unkind to people who are their
backs against want really don't have any more options with
the Supreme Court, and as I famously say, a figure
four leg lock. But you know, as as a person
that I look to as you know, like a hero

(52:17):
tier activist, as a person that inspires me and inspires
this program. Maybe talk to us a bit about how
that felt. Maybe there's some some way that our listeners
can relate to you, because they certainly we've shared our
reaction initially. And then maybe if you can conceive of
what the next blah might look like, perhaps you.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
Know, well, you know, it's interesting that you mentioned how
you all operate in a space of allyship to you,
try to because if there's going to be among the
biggest differences that people are going to see over the
next however long this term lasts, and I know people
are like, it's four years, are we sure we.

Speaker 3 (53:00):
Don't know who?

Speaker 4 (53:01):
We don't know that if we're taking the President elect's
words at face value. And that's what's going to be
different about this time is that black people have collectively
checked out in a way I don't think i've ever seen.
You know, we've always been known as we should be
because there's so many reasons we shouldn't even be here

(53:23):
right now. We are resilient as hell, we have gone
through so much. And yes, there's definitely a sector of
black folks who are like, hey, We've been through a lot.
This can't be the worst thing, right, And that's true,
clearly historically that is true. But the difference is, I
think because we saw other groups of people that we

(53:45):
have collectively stood for fail in this moment and decide
that it was more proximity to whiteness was more important.
That's what we've checked out. We're like, oh, y'all got it,
y'all got it? Yeah, what are we trying to make
this umbrella movement work for?

Speaker 3 (54:07):
Y'all got it? And I know it wasn't everybody.

Speaker 4 (54:10):
I know it wasn't the majority, but like just in talking,
you know, just in group chats and talking with my friends,
they were really they really felt betrayed by saying the
number of Latino voters vote for Donald Trump was betrayed.
And because and it was the comedian and actor as Simona.
She told me this a couple of years ago, and

(54:31):
it always stuck with me. He said, listen, don't make
any mistake about it. He said, all the rest of
us that are now feeling empowered to speak about our
rights and you know, to go forward with any kind
of movement building, we were just seed on the email
that black people wrote okay, and he like him no,

(54:53):
he broke it down and he was just like, we
just got se seed. And it's true because like when
you go back and look at the Civil Rights Act,
you know, one of the main components of that Act
was immigration. Okay, that was one of the main components
of when that got passed because America had a very restrictive,
targeted immigration policy where they did not want certain.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Groups of people in this country.

Speaker 4 (55:18):
And Martin Luther King and all of them fought for
that to be different. And so to see that in
real time, like hold up, So in this moment where
we need a collective brother and sisterhood, y'all are like,
you know what we value the proximity to whiteness.

Speaker 3 (55:35):
Black people are not going.

Speaker 4 (55:36):
To I think black people are going to be a
lot more strategic and a lot more choosy about the
things they decide to get involved with.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
The next however long forty years, you know, I think
it is.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
I think it caused it created such a rift that
I haven't really seen this before and I understand where
it comes from. So that's gonna be a lot different.
The allyship is not gonna look the same. You know
that moment and George Floyd when all the protests were
happening after his murder, where you did see a wide
collection of people who were out there protesting. I don't

(56:14):
know that we're going to see that for a long time,
and I don't I think Black people are going to
be a lot more They're gonna be a lot more
precious about who they allow into our movements, and so
I see that as being a byproduct of it. And
you know, it can be debatable whether that's good or bad.

(56:34):
So that'll be one thing and the other thing I
think about the selection, which I must say, I was
not surprised by the outcome in the slightest I actually
predicted this would happen because the groups of people that
it would required to frankly fight for a different direction
for this country. I knew they were not going to
show up. And the Latino vote, the numbers of it

(56:56):
surprised me. But when people we're saying that white women
were gonna show up and vote differently than they have,
I was like, have y'all not looked at the voting
trends the last sixty years? And so as people are
doing these numerous autopsies trying to figure out where the
Democrats went wrong, and they by not perfect by any means,

(57:19):
and there were certainly campaign mistakes that were made, his
mistakes made in every campaign.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
It happens.

Speaker 4 (57:24):
But the thing is when people want to bring up,
oh they lost the working class voter, Oh they lost
this kind of voter. They don't appeal to this kind
of voter anymore. How come that don't work with black people?
How come black people are working class? Black people live
in rural communities, black people check all them boxes that
they said they lost, So how did they not lose.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Us but they lost everybody else.

Speaker 4 (57:46):
That's what I'm trying to figure out, because it can't
be that. To me, it is avoiding the obvious. There's
a reason Donald Trump has beaten two women, and you
want me to believe this is the other thing I
couldn't believe. It's like, you want me to believe that
more white women gonna showup for Kambla Harrison, Hillary Clinton,

(58:07):
who is.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
A white woman.

Speaker 4 (58:09):
I mean, like they didn't, and more white women voting
for Trump this second time. So I'm just like, no,
they're not gonna show up because, as they have shown historically,
white women the eligible voting white women who so I'm
talking about that fifty seven percent that voted for Donald Trump.

(58:32):
Is like, the privilege of whiteness means more than gender,
and that is the reality.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
Jamel I said that this morning.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
He said on the show, all constant, those.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
That benefit from the misogynist, patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacist system
are not just white men. So all those people that
benefit from that system stand up and fight for it.
Even immigrants, even Latino immigrants, first generation who just got here,
who may have just gotten naturalized. They're very, very proud

(59:05):
to be American, correct, and they now see themselves as
a part of the system that they have to defend.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
They do and they you know, the one thing that
everybody understands that comes to this country, even other black
people from different countries, is that they need to separate
themselves as fast as possible from Black Americans.

Speaker 3 (59:25):
They all understand this.

Speaker 4 (59:27):
It is like it's like they get a blueprint or
a guidebook when they come here, and in the guy
book there's a saturate literally, oh by the way, you
got to be anti black.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Apes in the pamphlet.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
It's in the pamphlet.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
It's like so you know, having interesting conversations with you know,
with other Latinos. The interesting part to me is that
the ones that like a lot of the ones that
were born here, not everybody certainly, so I'm speaking in
sort of a rough generality, is that a lot of
them don't speak Spanish. And that's by design because you know,

(01:00:02):
as some of them have told me, is that you
know they are boilers.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
They are boilers.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
They did not want them to speak Spanish because they
didn't want that to be something to be used against them.
And that says a lot about how they perceive what
it means to be American and who they think is American.
And we've seen this happen historically. It's the reason why
it's no longer Irish Americans Italian Americans. And yes, we

(01:00:28):
know we have enclaves in this country where there are
Irish neighborhoods and Italian neighborhoods, but they traded in being
separated for the whiteness, right, and this is what it is.
It's like every group has gone through that. We're the only.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Group that can't. We can't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
A brief history lesson right here. I believe we shared
this on the show, So I'll give the cliff Stones version.
But the term black was created and I believe the
fifteen hundreds, sometime around then. No, sorry, the term white
was created around the fifteen hundred to delineate the non
slave class from the slave class. And prior to that,
to your point, there were Frenchmen and Irishmen and Scandinavian

(01:01:09):
people and so forth, and they were separated by countries.
But in order to again delineate the slave class, the
term white came about. So that meant that you were
not a slave, and black came about to suggest that
you were a slaver or at least a member of
the slave class. And that was tended to be into
perpetuity in that term in the fifteen hundred. Think how

(01:01:30):
long human beings have been around that term originating in
the fifteen hundred. It still has ripple effects today, I think,
to your point, you know, maybe Donald Trump doesn't stay
president for four years, maybe he dies tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
People can imagine all kinds of crazy stuff, right, Hope,
that's not crazy. You know, anything could happen, right, But
the ripple effects, like the term white, the ripple effects
of a Donald Trump presidency might echo into well and
to you know, our lifetimes of our kids graand.

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
I mean, we're still paying for paying for things Ronald
Reagan did, thank you, We're still so yes, the the
the legacies and presidents, you typically aren't able to assess
it in the four or eight years there in office.
You don't really see the damage of it until well
after the fact. I mean I bring this up all
the time with Ronald Reagan. He's the reason why college

(01:02:23):
tuition is what it is because they saw a liberal
movement here in California. They did not like the thought
it was breeding hippies and marijuana users and people who
are anti war and oh, by the boy, the people
who are against the Vietnam War all turned out to
be right, but they didn't like that, and so he
pulled the funding from colleges and that became the model that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Everybody else did.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
Like absolutely, Well, that's why education at every level is
under as you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Know, we know here and we're used to it, so
we can't even conceive the time when college was affordable.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
No, because college used to be basically free, like it didn't,
you know, in every state, and they wanted to change
that because also one of his main advisors, didn't like
the fact that education actually bred more equality. They were
trying to stop the accessibility to college because they only
wanted a college system where only certain people could afford

(01:03:21):
to go there.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Definitely didn't want a Jamail Hill to.

Speaker 3 (01:03:23):
Go to college, you know, anyone.

Speaker 4 (01:03:25):
Idiots just think he got an education. So it's like, yes,
you still wind up paying for it. So we have
to look at the fact that Donald Trump would likely
get two more Supreme Court appointments, and there's gonna be
a whole lot more judges and all these other things.
I mean, as it was, we're still trying to deal
with the remnants of its first presidency, right, So a

(01:03:47):
second one where I think he's probably more politically savvy,
he's gonna have more loyalists. We now have Elon Musk
as the first Lady. There will be I know claim
that as an original dog. That was Stephen Kig, the
author he got banned from x fort calling him the
first leg That's incredible, shouted out to Stephen king That

(01:04:10):
was I was like, ever since he said that, I
have been calling him the first lady because yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
Mean, you you put a billionaire.

Speaker 4 (01:04:18):
Oligarch in charge of slashing the government in America.

Speaker 3 (01:04:22):
I'm sorry, when did he growing up?

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
What what gives him the okay? So uh?

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
An immigrant South Africa's of all places? An immigrant in charge?

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
Yes, an immigrant in charge South Africa from a part
how South Africa exactly grew up steeped in that and
you could tell by his perspective that's the case. I wish,
for the love of God, black people please stop buying
that cyber truck.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Please please please stop buying it.

Speaker 4 (01:04:47):
Fight it, trust me, there's plenty of other boxing, ugly
truck to get it. Ain't got to be that way,
all right, But so yeah, I think black people as
a whole sense, we're regrouping right now. We're trying to
figure out because America has decided whether people want to
really acknowledge this or not. They've already decided the type

(01:05:08):
of country they want to be. That what was on
the ballot that's been on the ballot the last two elections,
really and they made a decision. Okay, since we all
know the decision that was made, we're trying to figure out,
as we often have, our best way to survive within
their decisions.

Speaker 3 (01:05:24):
Yeah, and so I do.

Speaker 4 (01:05:26):
I don't think people were going to necessarily give up
the fight, but I think a lot a lot of
black folks feel real defeated right now and feel like
we need to regroup and frankly, the only to maybe
focus more on our community and no one else's.

Speaker 2 (01:05:44):
I don't want to keep you forever, but I and
I also don't want this to be dooming gloom. But
I brought up Uphill before reading that book was a journey.
For people who haven't read that book, get it, believe
it or not. Life for Jamail Hill was not silver spoons.
And coming from where we come from, there's a unique

(01:06:04):
thing about growing up in Detroit. We got to see
black leadership, black political leadership, black police officers that were
not violent to us, black teachers, Black like Detroit very
very black for us, and our experience, especially in Northwest
Detroit in the hallways of Mumford High School, we also
got to see black greatness. I bring up Uphill because again,

(01:06:26):
this was not silver Spoons. You didn't have this laid
out easy path a black woman in this country and
black women on this planet. Ramses and I we might
be famous for this because we say it every time
a microphone is on. We spoke to the National Council
of Negro Women, We said, two thousands of women, reminding
them the closest thing on this earth to God is
the black woman, and we believe that to our bones.

(01:06:50):
So your journey as a black woman getting to where
you've gotten in your career would not be an easy
climb for anyone a male dominated, white, male dominated industry.
Where you have climbed to what many would say the pinnacle,
and again I'm not being hyperbolic, the six PM Sports Center,
as she said, the flagship of sports media journalism like

(01:07:12):
that was it to get there? Took a lot to
now have forged your own media imprint to now be
the captain and curator of all that you do. You
spoke about the free press. We talk about what we
collectively do for a living. And again I don't want
to be doing in gloom. But in the wake of
this election, can we still do our jobs? Can this

(01:07:36):
industry that we thrive in and that we feed our
families with, does it go away? Is it illegal for
us to talk? How we talk two months from now?
What is your thoughts on what this is going to
look like for all of us after January twenty twenty five.

Speaker 4 (01:07:52):
Those are very real and grave concerns because part of
the reason we're in this is because the media, the
media that journalism didn't do what.

Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
It was supposed to do.

Speaker 4 (01:08:03):
And this is not just in regards to Trump, but
it's just the fact that the whole mission of being
a journalist is to be a disruptor. You're not supposed
to go along with the system. You know, there's a
phrase that I learned as a young journalist that remains true.
Our job is to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

(01:08:24):
That's the whole point, right, and so we're there to
be the watchdogs to provide the check of power. And
seeing us in this moment already capitulating to what we're
supposed to be examining, putting under scrutiny, discussing, telling people
what's really going on. To see us capitulating to that

(01:08:45):
is heartbreaking. I chose to be a journales even though
I chose sports, I chose it for that reason. I mean, yes,
it's about telling stories about athletes and winning and being inspired,
but it's also about understanding how systems work. They don't
work any differently in sports, you know, and so holding
those systems in accountable. And my fear is that because

(01:09:11):
the president elect has in particular singled out media, as
his words, enemies of the state, that's going to make
some of the platforms that some of us work for
capitulate to the power.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
See when you study.

Speaker 4 (01:09:30):
The Nazi regime and you study how because a lot
of people ask this question when these regimes, these dictators
rise up, like what are the people doing? Like why
did they give in? Like what happened is death by
a thousand paper cuts. It's not one failed blow. It's
always little capitulations that happen that when you look up,

(01:09:52):
you find that all the things you were worried and
feared already happened. This is why voter apathy is so
it's so significant and very problematic. Just because the election
that just happened, half of this country didn't vote. So

(01:10:12):
that's telling you that it is very terrifying. So half
of the people in this country don't find a reason
to remain engaged in a system that affects everything they do.
And so I blame the media for not being great
at telling people what was at stake, not helping them

(01:10:33):
understand what exactly it is we're supposed to be doing.
And what I see already is media companies already switching up,
already doing it, and they haven't even been asked to
do it. And that is very frightening, because no, it's
not just media, it's going to be everything. I mean,
we see Walmart, Yeah, I mean so which only And

(01:10:55):
I said this when the Black Squares and twenty twenty
was here. I said this, then said, you know, that's great,
but now and standing up for standing against racial oppression
and police brutality and standing up for black people actually
doesn't matter in this moment. When it matters is when
you have something to lose. See, if the whole world

(01:11:18):
and the whole nation is agreen that what happened to
George Floyd was murdering is bad, I'm glad we could
agree on that, But there's no risk in saying I'm
gonna you know, black Lives Matter twenty twenty, it was
a cussword though in twenty fifteen when it was Michael Brown, right,
it was a cuss word then, and then fast forward

(01:11:40):
it was like, oh, no.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
Black lives matter. You got the NFL commissioner saying it.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
You can't say that it's still exile a player who
stood up against the things that you claim you support.
Now that means your support is only going to go
with what's trendy. And so right now, black people ain't
in We're not trending anymore. Supporting us rather is not trendy.
So you see not just them, but a ton of
different companies that all of a sudden announced that they

(01:12:05):
were rolling back DII initiatives, which means y'all didn't believe in.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
It to begin with. Thank you, You didn't believe in it.

Speaker 4 (01:12:12):
You were just doing it cosmetically, you were just doing
it because you wanted to look good. You were doing
it for the press release and not for anything that mattered.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
I think that's why a part of the reason why
this second election of Donald Trump was so hurtful, because
the ripple effect of it exposes just how vulnerable we've
been and just who our fair weather friends have been.
And some people live in food deserts where the only

(01:12:39):
place where they can get food is a dollar tree,
and a lot of people live in environments where the
only employer is a place like a Walmart. And then
now that Trump effect that the country chose him again,
and it gives those fair weather friends license to roll
back what it was that we thought was progressed, what
we thought was protections. How it feels to be a

(01:13:00):
black person on the ground. It's fundamentally different forever because
of that.

Speaker 4 (01:13:07):
And that's I think, No, that is the that's the
gut punch is that, you know, because the twenty twenty election,
because that happened the same year of George Floyd, I
think and Breonna Taylor and ott Arbury. Part of what
was driving in the pandemic and the pandemic, what was
driving people to the voting booth was wanting to make

(01:13:27):
a statement against the things that created those situations. And
it's just been four years and we saw the rollbacks
from what was promised in twenty twenty happened literally like
not even two years later. They couldn't even stand it
at that low, and I was like, that's fair yeah,
I mean, And so all these companies that are suddenly

(01:13:51):
and they're part of it is that like they're being
bullied into it, but part of it it's an easy
capitulation for them. Like nobody was asking, you know, Walmart
had a d I auditioned like no one knew, but
they were just like, tell you what before y'all come
for us.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
We're getting rid of this.

Speaker 4 (01:14:06):
And of course the Walmart family, anybody does a little
bit of research, they're big Trump supporters, right, so when
they even started one, I was like, oh, this is weird,
but okay, but what we will you know, find is
that that now because even though it was a slimmest
of majority, a slimmest of margins, because Trump has did

(01:14:29):
win the popular vote by let's I think he wanted
by the lowest margin in history. You know, it was
like less than two percent, he won the popular vote.
But they're leaning into that and saying that this is
a mandate that America wants to be more in the
image of what he is.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
America chose to vote, That's what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
That's what happened.

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
America chose not to vote, and America chose to dig
in further into the patriarchy, misogyny, and racism. So America America,
basically in America, and so that is going to impact
what we do because suddenly, unless you have some very

(01:15:11):
unless you have people who are willing to stomach this
kind of fight. We're going to see a lot of
people lay down before they've even been asked to. And
that is scary. That is how authoritarianism happens.

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
Well, you know what, I will say this, just because
you know Ecqu's right, we've taken more time than we
deserve from you. We on this show, on this program,
we do believe in allies and those who have chosen
to stay. You know, we make this show for you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
Collectively.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
We're all we have, and whatever path forward, it's going
to require all of us on it in agreement. I
don't ever want to be a part of anything that
is even remotely divisive in terms of humanities capacity to
come together. Uh, And I know that you feel the
same way. I'll speak for him in this moment, and
so we will never allow our intellectual property to be

(01:16:14):
used in that way, nor our images, nor our voices
or anything like that. So we're still here. If you're
still here, and if you're listening, then that means that
you're still here. I will say that whatever path forward, Uh,
it's going to take voices like yours, Jamail. We hope
that we are making a difference with what we're doing,

(01:16:35):
you know, being on one hundred and seven d.

Speaker 2 (01:16:38):
Radio stations that right feel like we.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Are doing something special. But you know, as you mentioned,
that could.

Speaker 4 (01:16:47):
Change, but it's more critical now.

Speaker 3 (01:16:49):
That you do it now.

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
Thank you, Thank you for saying that, because it doesn't
always feel. We felt a little hopeless, right you know
after the election results it was like a are we
making a different We do that for years and again.
The conversation that led us to having this conversation with
you was a communication from somebody at iHeart that said, hey,
you guys seem to have some shared ideas and I'm like,
we and Jamail have more than just shared ideas. There's

(01:17:14):
some history there. But you know, for I Heart extending
to us more radio stations and a much larger platform. Now,
at least someone over there heard what we were talking
about in since more people need to hear it so
important to say what's up to Tony Coles and Chris
Berrian and Chris Thompson and thank you guys for believing
in us and kind of elevating and amplifying this messaging

(01:17:37):
that we have.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Well, what I would like to do is, uh, you know,
forge your relationship with you as one of those voices
that you know, we might turn to your a brilliant mind.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
Call on me whenever.

Speaker 1 (01:17:52):
Yeah, I love to have you back on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
Oh, I would love to be back.

Speaker 4 (01:17:55):
This has been great because sometimes even though in this
moment where we're all just trying to regroup.

Speaker 3 (01:18:01):
It feels better to do it together.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Yeah, yes, what feels better to.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
Do it together. So this has been good for me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
It's they that's all right.

Speaker 3 (01:18:11):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
We could do that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
We could do that, but you know, if if it's meaningful.
I know that you kind of moving a different set
of circles and there's some very powerful people in your corner,
but we would like to be counted among the people
that are willing to amplify any messaging that you have
that you need to get out there and not just

(01:18:33):
pick your brain for our own sake, but just because
we feel like, again, you're the activist woman to me.
You know, you might talk about you know, I don't
know who up there is a basketball player on the sign.
You might talk about basketball people, but I know you know, well.

Speaker 4 (01:18:51):
I consider that to be a huge compliment. Sure, And
the only reason why I'm reluctant to accept it is
just because I have several of my friends who are
on ground activists.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
Yeah, we'll say are yeah, same, we remarkable people.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
Well before we go, we're we're DJs and Q obviously
every saying that that's where we come from. We're we're
we're radio personalities. As you mentioned, we was, you know,
stick around after these messages. We got your tickets coming
up and X.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
Y and Z will do whoop.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
And now we're here firmly in this space. And there
are people that know us from way back then and
they're like, man, it's so great to see how far
you've come. And then there's people that have no idea
you're a DJ and I'm all tattooed up and everything, like,
I'm a DJ.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
That's what I do. Give you a microphone and a party, man,
how to make it work?

Speaker 1 (01:19:35):
But anyway, yeah, so, uh, for whatever reason, we're all here,
and uh, you know, we we want to make sure
that that you feel like you have some supporters and
that you know, we feel like we can come back
to you and just kind of pick your brain because
you you know, you have a different vantage point and
so forth. You know, I'm a you know, I'm I'm

(01:19:57):
from I'm from down down the road there in Comptons,
So I'm not from Detroit, so you know you got
to say a proper goodbye.

Speaker 2 (01:20:03):
Q let her go. Just to everybody they got a
chance to hear this today, This conversation is a long
time coming. Jaml and I closer to family than associates professionally,
my cousins, my friends from high school, our friends from
high school, my friends from Michigan State. Like it goes
back from Aaron Hayten and Derek Mason to I could

(01:20:23):
be naming names all day. Shout out to Regina Bowie,
who is the reason I know Jamil's name. And I'll
tell you more about that story later. But author, producer
and to Ramsey's activist talk to me host of the
iheard podcast Politics Above the fold on in the TNT group,

(01:20:45):
and I can't wait to see this Colin Kaepernick project.
You got me really excited about that. We're very proud
of you, and like Ramsay said, you have not just
some supporters here, but some brothers who will you know,
stand up in front of you if we need to
like that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
Thank you.

Speaker 4 (01:21:01):
I know I know I'm dealing with some real ones,
So thank you all for you know this wonderful interview
and this time spending.

Speaker 1 (01:21:07):
Yeah, last thing before we go. I know that you're
very popular, but do us a favorite. Let everybody know
your social media how they.

Speaker 4 (01:21:14):
Can Oh, very simple, Jamail Hill. Pretty much everywhere. So
I'm on Blue Sky now for those who have made
the transition, still on Twitter, just a whole lot less.

Speaker 3 (01:21:26):
But yeah, Instagram Jamail Hill, threads Jamail Hill. So yeah,
you can catch me pretty much anywhere. I'm not hard
to find.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
And you can find me on a social media at
Rams's Jah.

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
I am q Ward on a social media as well.
And until next time, y'all peace,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}A Conversation with Jemele Hill