You know that desperate expression, “Women should be seen and not heard?”
Jemele Hill has simply been unbothered by it.
In fact, with a podcast of the same name, she has lifted her voice to the masses, following a standard set in her own life. In an all-new podcast, Jemele gives the Think Tank of Three a lesson on standing in your truth.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Hi, I’m Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris along with Julie Holton and Audrea Fink, and we are your Think Tank of Three.
Julie Holton:
And if you are a sports fan, then the name Jemele Hill should be more than familiar to you. She had a very successful 12 year run at ESPN before a chain of events led to new horizons.
Audrea Fink:
Now a writer for the Atlantic, host of the podcast, Jemele Hill is Unbothered, TV show co-host of Cari & Jemele (Won’t) Stick to Sports, and a principle in the production company, Lodge Freeway Media. Jemele is all about being seen and heard.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Jemele has earned every amazing step she has taken not to mention the negative pushback she’s had to walk through. She joins us now to talk about that journey and perhaps even what’s next. So Jemele, thank you so much for joining us here on the podcast.
Jemele Hill:
Thank you ladies for having me. Reischea, it’s just been too long.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
I know.
Jemele Hill:
Yeah, it’s been it far too long of a time, so glad to see you and glad to be with all of you ladies here on this podcast.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to have you here and to have your voice. Listen, let’s go to the beginning here. What got you into sports writing to begin with?
Jemele Hill:
Being a tomboy. That’s what got me into sports. I grew up in Detroit. Yeah, I was the neighborhood tomboy, so was always playing sports with the guys and I was an avid watcher of sports. And back in the golden days or the olden days, you actually had to read the newspaper to keep up with your sports teams. [crosstalk 00:02:18].
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Reading a newspaper?….
Jemele Hill:
A newspaper. What is that? Right? I feel like I just talked about how I grew up churning butter and making a fire out of two sticks. Okay.
Jemele Hill:
But that’s what it was. So I read the newspaper, so that kind of developed an interest in sports journalism. And I was one of the fortunate ones where I knew since 9th or 10th grade that I wanted to be a sports writer. And so everything I’ve done since then has been about writing, discussing, agonizing over sports. So I wrote for my high school newspaper, I majored in journalism, wrote for my college newspaper, had a bunch of internships.
I was working in newspaper for almost a decade before I even got to ESPN, who I often like to say to people, or at least let it be known for the record, ESPN did not hire me to be on TV. They hired me to be a sports columnist for espn.com. The TV thing just kind of happened. It was not a direction I was looking to go.
In fact, and Reischea, you know this, back sort of then … because I started as a professional in 1997. So there was a very clear line between print and broadcast. I affectionately called it Bloods and Crips because we just …
Julie Holton:
Yes.
Jemele Hill:
Yeah, print reporters, we did not have a lot of respect for TV people. And we used to kind of chide them and goad them a little bit and we considered ourselves the real reporters. So the idea of crossing over the TV was just not a thing at all like it is now. And so I was dedicated …
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Yeah. They called us the talking heads.
Jemele Hill:
The talking heads, that is correct. We were like, “Look at those pretty people in their fancy little makeup and suits all on TV.” So we thought … we looked down on actually being on television. And so everybody’s like, oh, “ESPN must have been your dream job.” ESPN wasn’t even on my radar. I watched ESPN as a sports fan and as somebody who wrote about sports, but I didn’t want to be there. My dream job was working at Sports Illustrated, because that’s where to me all the best sports writers went to work.
So yeah, I mean it was … they often say God makes plans … or you make plans and God laughs. And that really is what broadcasting was for me, it just happened to evolve. And I am not afraid to admit, and I tell younger journalists this all the time, I got into TV for the money. I didn’t get into it because I loved it. I just started …
The story I like to tell, it was Matt Lauer that changed my mind. I don’t know Matt Lauer, and I realize what he’s been associated with. But when I saw that report about him getting paid $25 million a year and not having to work on Friday, I was like, “You can make that kind of money and … ? I’m doing this wrong. I’m hustling backwards. What am I doing in print?”
So then I just kind of decided that I was more than halfway through my time in the ESPN. I was like, “You know what? If I want to stay here in particular and if I want to kind of take things to the next step in my career, I have to do TV and do it every day.” And so I just made a switch. I’d already done a lot of TV. In 2013, I got my opportunity to have my first show at ESPN.
Julie Holton:
Talk to us about the difficulties of carving out your voice in this male-dominated world. And we talk about this a lot on the podcast. We have a lot of women who share their stories in all sorts of different industries, but we’re talking here about journalism, which in and of itself is a male-dominated world. I come from a news background, and so I know from the news side, just journalism in general, male-dominated world. But now we’re also talking about sports. So what what was this like as you navigated and really … I say navigated, but really carved out your own path in this world?
Jemele Hill:
So most women … a lot of women work in male-dominated industries, but sports is different because that’s like the maleness of male, is to be in sports. And you get sent messages all the time, both big, little, and in between, that this is not where a woman belongs, and be it the makeup of the industry itself, which in newspapers was very white, very male … very similar in broadcasting. In many ways, ESPN is an exception because ESPN actually has, for on-air talent, a little bit more of a diverse picture than most networks have. Behind the scenes, it looks just white male. That’s pretty much what it is.
And so where I was fortunate is that as I was first getting interested in this business, I was very lucky because I had female mentors who gave me the sense of belonging. So as I mentioned, in 9th and 10th grade, that’s when I figured out I wanted to be a sports writer. I wrote for my high school newspaper. But two sort of life changing things happened at once. The Free Press, the professional paper in Detroit, which is the largest paper in the state, they had a high school apprenticeship program for Detroit high school students who were interested in journalism. I applied to the program. I got in. I think this was the summer before my 11th grade year. And you spent six weeks at the paper, they assigned you two mentors, and you learned about how to … what journalism was about, how to write a story, how to interview people, how to develop sources, those sorts of things.
And the two mentors I was assigned were two women, one of which is Johnette Howard, who later worked at ESPN as a sports columnist. She worked at the New York Daily News as a sports columnist as well. And the other was Rachel Jones, who at the time was a senior features writer, and then she went on to do public health reporting and a lot of international reporting and working in public health.
And so because I had these strong women, in addition to the other women at the newspaper who were always encouraging and encouraging me, supporting me, I never knew this was something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. And because I had that as a foundation, by the time I did see and did experience people feeling like I didn’t belong or I didn’t have a place or who was I to be talking about men’s sports, I already had too much confidence. So it was too late.
Audrea Fink:
I love it.
Jemele Hill:
Yeah. Y’all should have got to me earlier when I was a little more insecure, like too late now. Y’all can’t tell me nothing!
Jemele Hill:
So I think that having that background was really helpful, which is why I think for a lot of young women, having mentors, having women encouraging you is very helpful. And so by the time I got to college, I was kind of well on my way. Now, certainly as a professional, seeing how the industry operated was very eye-opening. I remember my second job out of college, I was a beat writer for the free press covering college football and college basketball, and another white male at a competing newspaper told me I only had my job because I was a black woman. And I’m like, “If that’s the case, how come there’s not more of me and there’s a whole bunch of you?” If that’s the case … and I’m like, if they’re really in this business going after … because he was on some white grievance stuff talking about it was harder for people like him in the industry, and I’m looking around the room, like I’m the only woman in here and you’re trying to lecture be about difficult? Sit down.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Isn’t it interesting how, why individuals even go down that road? Because I remember when I was working in New York for the local Fox affiliate … I went to University of Southern California and I happened to go there with the likes of Willie McGinest for the NFL, for anyone who’s paid attention to the NFL. He was a great defensive end in the NFL, and a bunch of individuals that I went to school with and knew them personally.
And so he comes to Giants stadium playing with the Patriots. I see him in one of the corridors and I am well aware that eyes are constantly watching me as a black woman, but as a woman in this sports realm. So I am constantly aware of that. So I see him in the distance. I’m like, “Hey, it’s so good to see you,” and I’m standing back and he literally stood there and put his hands on his hips and said, “Girl, you better come give me a hug. You know me.” And I walked over and we said hello, how are you doing? What’s happening in life?
And wouldn’t you know that probably later that night, there’s a thing on one of the ridiculous websites that they have that I stopped reading that basically just blasts different broadcasters and reporters for whatever reason, saying, “Yeah, she’s out there making out with football players and stuff. That’s probably why she’s got the job she’s got.”
And I’m thinking to myself, “Really?” And thankfully I had a friend on that website who said, “Well, let’s see here. She went to USC and he went to USC. If you do any history, they knew each other because they were there probably at the same time. Chances are they’re actually really good friends as opposed to doing anything inappropriate, not to mention the fact that I’ve known her personally and inappropriate does not exist for her. So why don’t we just dial that back?” But it’s the fact that people do that in the first place, just [crosstalk 00:11:02]
Audrea Fink:
Fragility.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
They need to throw you … fragility. They need to throw you….
Audrea Fink:
White male fragility.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It makes no sense. It’s like, I’m sorry, did I say, “Oh, I wonder who you went and … ” it’s just nuts.
Jemele Hill:
It’s very tiresome because they can’t decide how much negativity they want to throw at us. And then in that, either we got the job because we’re a woman, we got the job because we’re sleeping with somebody, we only want the job because we can get a husband that is a professional athlete or a coach. So it’s just you’re constantly in this web of misogynistic tropes all the time.
Audrea Fink:
And you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, right?
Jemele Hill:
Yeah, 100%. I mean, I’ve had that same experience that you’ve had, not with somebody that I actually went to school with, but it was just a player that I developed a rapport with, a rapport that was never inappropriate, a rapport that if there was a … if it was a man in my position, they would’ve been applauded for developing that kind of relationship with the player and you would hear the whispers. If you got scoops if a guy, if a star athlete or a prominent athlete gave you more time than somebody else, or if you were able to kind of, again, source the way that most journalists are taught the source, if you’re a woman, then you have to be aware of the fact that people are going to make assumptions about why that relationship exists when you’re just doing your job.
And so it could be discouraging for a lot of younger female journalists. I just happen to be, just again, in that space that I belong in this industry as much as anybody else. So while it was irritating, it never was something that discouraged me from what I was doing or convinced me that I had made the wrong career path or frustrated me. But I definitely understand why a lot of women do get very frustrated by this. So I certainly don’t want to position it like I’m somehow special and different and unique. No, it’s not that. It’s just that I just was lucky and fortunate to be honest, because I have definitely seen some other women who I’ve known who have left the business because of these things. So it’s real.
Audrea Fink:
So speaking out about what you think as a woman, when you’re talking about decisions from the NBA or the NFL, it’s pretty straightforward. You didn’t likely have to concern yourself with what will ESPN think if I call a trade a bad one? But when professional sports seems clearly runs smack into social realities of our lives, now you have to think about the opinion you put out. Now you have to think about, well, if I give them insight that’s not just this is a bad sports move, what are they going to think? What was that like for you, that switch between just reporting sports and really putting yourself out there?
Jemele Hill:
The interesting thing is that I’d sort of been reporting on those issues my whole career, but didn’t put a name to it, because when you’re a journalist, I think you do bring your lived experience to the table. And I think it’s very beneficial to do that, especially if you represent a gender or race or community or even a socioeconomic background, that those things actually give you more context and more understanding in your reporting, and sometimes a lot more empathy. And I had done stories about the lack of female coaches in women’s basketball, the lack of, at one point … it’s still this way, but in college athletics in general, there was barely any black athletic directors. And yet you have a sport that is driven by basketball and football, and most of the athletes are black.
So I had done that kind of reporting long before I started sort of commentating on it from a social perspective and getting people see the larger picture. And it never occurred to me that it was something controversial. I mean, I just assumed it was just a fact that everybody knew, which is probably not a great assumption. And then just having read enough about world history, there was just certain basic things that I felt like I understood.
So fast forward when you’re at a place like ESPN, the thing that’s tricky about being there is that yeah, you’re working for what many to consider to be a destination job in sports. But you’re also working with a network that is in business with all the leagues that they cover. And so they’re trying to perform an entertainment function and a journalism function at the same time. And sometimes those things don’t go together. And as the old adage goes, what’s understood need not be said. And so you are already knew. Nobody had to tell you. But you knew there was some kind of line that was there that you could only say so much without it being a bigger issue for the people in the C-suites who are cutting deals and making sure those broadcast rights stay within ESPN’s hold.
So the thing is, once you start speaking out about institutionally, how things are broken and how they work and how they often further dehumanize and subjugate marginalized people, then it becomes a different ballgame, because people who watch sports largely want to be entertained. They don’t want to think about these things. Most of these leagues that are major leagues now that we cover all have segregation policies. All of them did not … the NFL did not allow black players at one time. Major League Baseball didn’t allow black players at one time. So when you have leagues that are rooted in racism and built on that, why would you think it was just going to go away? It wasn’t, okay?
Jemele Hill:
And so sports fans have been allowed to live under this fallacy that real world problems don’t happen in sports just because it’s a results and outcome based entity that we’re talking about. But no, sports is political. Sports is racist. Sports has all these … sports is misogynistic. We’ve seen how female athletes have been treated. We’ve seen how they’ve been marginalized and dehumanized. I mean, it happens in present day. We just saw this with the USA gymnastics team. So we’ve seen this, right?
But at the same time, I also think sports is also a great opportunity for us to not only explain some of the problems that we have, but it’s also a great opportunity to come together on these things, because sports is one of the few things that we actually do together as Americans across different economic backgrounds, racial backgrounds, different genders, sexual orientations. Like anybody can be a Lakers fan, right? And so it’s like if LeBron James is speaking about something that’s important beyond just basketball, that’s an opportunity reach a cross section of people and for those people to come to an understanding.
So while sports has certainly allowed people to sort of live in a lie to some degree, it also gives them an opportunity to develop sensibilities they may not have developed by just watching CNN or just paying attention to the political news.
Audrea Fink:
I think it’s also important to recognize that our entertainment comes at a cost, and that cost is people’s lives. And so it’s fine for you to go to a movie and not want to think about the background. That’s great. But let’s not live in a society where it’s acceptable for us to segregate, to be misogynist, to be racist. I want to be able to enjoy my sports and not think about it. I want to be able to listen to music and not think about it. I want to be able to watch TV and not think about it. But that’s not the world we live in. So instead of just saying, “Well, entertainment doesn’t count,” let’s say, “Okay, well, we’re not going to allow entertainment to be a place where this exists, and that way I don’t have to think about it when I’m watching my movie or watching my game.”
Jemele Hill:
And it’s okay to have standards for it. Like that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. I mean, it’s a place where we can critically think and be entertained, and those things don’t have to be two different things. And I’m not saying that we hold everybody to some impossible standard of perfection. What I am saying is that when there is an opportunity and a clear wrong, that we got to be okay with discussing that, calling that out, bringing awareness to it without … there’s certain … the stick to sports crowd acting like they’re mortally offended by this.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Well, and not only that, because that whole shut up and dribble, just do the sports thing, beyond being excruciatingly disgusting, is the fact that you’re … so what? My brain doesn’t function outside of dribbling a ball, throwing a ball, hitting a golf ball? I don’t have any other thoughts?
Jemele Hill:
You’re dehumanized.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
It completely dehumanizes if I can’t think outside of whatever playing field that I am supposed to be on. It just makes no sense because if you’re going to act like Jackie Robinson didn’t have to carry the world on his shoulders when he stepped out onto that baseball field, with death threats coming to him because why is this black man on the field? Muhammad Ali, all these individuals, to act like that isn’t a real thing, it’s just ridiculously ignorant.
Jemele Hill:
But the problem is though, is that we’re great armchair quarterbacks, right? So Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Arthur Ashe, those are certainly people that we hold in high esteem. And the problem is none of us, or a lot of people don’t want to remember what it was like for them in a moment. See, it’s easy to say you support Muhammad Ali now. What were you saying when he …
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Back then when he wasn’t …
Jemele Hill:
Correct. And this is what I bring up with Colin Kaepernick all the time, is that as much as history shows us otherwise, we don’t actually really learn from it. We literally put him through the same thing that we swore we weren’t going to do after seeing constant examples of people losing their careers, being completely scorned and facing a lot of hate off of the simple principle of wanting equality. To know that that’s the reason that Colin Kaepernick isn’t playing is just ridiculous. It defies all logic.
But the problem is that with this whole idea of shut up and dribble, that it is usually centered around black athletes. And there is this idea that because these particular black athletes have been able to rise to a level of prominence, fame, wealth that typically most Americans don’t experience, that the trade off for being “allowed” … and I’m putting allowed in air quotes right? The trade off for being allowed to reach this position is you got to shut up and you just got to be happy with what we’ve, another air quotes, “given you.” Right?
And so it really comes from a place of racism, to be honest. And we have seen this so often throughout history, that has nothing … that is not even related to sports. That’s generally been the position that white supremacy has upheld, because in order for white supremacy to exist, it relies on not only the lies and the distortions, but the lack of true telling of history in order to thrive. It has to. So that is how it happens.
And so even now as we’re having this conversation about the people who are unvaccinated in sports, I don’t agree with anything that has come out of Kyrie Irving’s mouth, but I don’t care about … but what I will only support his right to say it, but we also have a right to challenge it and tell him where he’s wrong. Okay? But do I want him to shut up? No. And that is the part that we have to be able to kind of graduate to, is that giving athletes the right to have these opinions, even if we don’t necessarily agree, but they got to be okay with being challenged in the marketplace of ideas. And that’s kind of the way it works.
Julie Holton:
Absolutely. I love the thought of challenging them, but I also want to jump back and just say, I think that it makes it worse that we tell our athletes that they’re not allowed to have an opinion, that their job is to be there to play the sport so that we can … it’s like, wait a minute … and I’m saying this of course as a white woman … are we saying that our athletes are only there for our entertainment, that they’re not actual humans who are afforded opinions? I mean, it makes it even worse. And if anyone can’t see the white supremacy in that, it’s so infuriating.
Jemele Hill:
One thing that I am noticing or have noticed about today’s generation of athletes, like Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka, they are not willing to sacrifice their peace for our entertainment. And I appreciate that about them. Because they feel, I think, much more ownership than some of the previous generations have felt over their careers, and certainly with social media and other mechanisms, they’re allowed to have a different kind of ownership over their careers than their predecessors did. And I’m glad they’re exercising it to the degree that they are, because that’s part of how we are supposed to evolve, is like each generation is supposed to have it better than the last. And their agency has really been something very inspiring to watch.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Let’s bring this conversation back to you. Having opinions, especially … and you have very strong opinions and you have no problem putting them out there. It’s what you do. It’s who you are. They became extra, extra famous during the time of number 45. He himself decided he felt the need to speak out against you, which I found interesting, considering you have an entire country to deal with, a pandemic and everything
Jemele Hill:
You would think he had better things to do, right?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
… to attack a sports commentator. I think you have some other things. So what I wanted … what does it tell you when someone, not only just the President of the United States of America, but his staff as well, that they decide that we are going to make this woman the priority of the day, she should be fired?
Jemele Hill:
There’s a few different ways to look at that. When I got into journalism … and granted, I was covering sports, I wasn’t covering news. A lot of my friends covered news or politics. They covered city hall, city governments. And there’s something kind it cool about when city hall comes after you. We all … in journalism class and everything, you were taught that you’re an effective journalist based off if you make the power structure uncomfortable and make them come after you. That’s when you know you’ve done your job.
Julie Holton:
You know you’re doing something right.
Jemele Hill:
You’re doing something right. That’s when you know. So it was always a badge of honor in that regard, is that wow, this really … the president of the United States is that insecure? Okay. A hit dog will holler, as they say. So there was that there was that end of it.
But the other end is that it blew up my life. I mean, there’s no question about it, is that when it reaches the highest level of government, when you have the press secretary at the time, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, saying I should be fired in a White House press briefing where they’re talking about international conflicts and all these other things, and somebody’s like, “Hey, what about this ESPN sports center anchor that said … ” it’s just like … it’s just something ridiculous about that.
The stressful part about it was the reaction to it, and people threatening me and I couldn’t even open up my Twitter app because I was just getting too many responses. And I had to shut off my voicemail at ESPN. There was some good that did come out of it as well, because at that time … this is October 2017. I’d been a sports anchor on … a Sports Center anchor, rather, since February 2017, so we’re talking like I’m six months into a job I hate. That’s the other thing, is that before Donald Trump happened, I wasn’t very happy on Sports Center, and was having a rough go of things there and was really thinking about what my next career move was going to be. And all the things I’ve been thinking about in the back of my mind, Donald Trump sped up for me, right? Because especially in that situation with ESPN, there was a lot of trust that was broken during that time.
And the other thing too, coming from a newspaper background, as I mentioned to you all, there’s this idea that like the people that are in power, you’re going to piss them off at one point. And one thing that I routinely saw in newspapers is that when that happens, we’re going to have your back, right? When that happens, we are going to stand with you because you don’t let the government come after your journalist. That’s a no-no. That’s why we have freedom of the press. That’s what that means. That means freedom from government intervention, government sanction for criticizing the government. That’s the core of what that means, and lack of censorship. So these are the principles of which my profession is based off.
Jemele Hill:
And so while the suspension didn’t bother me, some of the things going on behind the scenes didn’t bother me, the only thing that bothered me is when the president had his say and Sarah Huckabee Sanders had her say, and ESPN was silent. That’s what bothered me. Because in that moment, even though I certainly brought you a new list of problems and that’s fine, but you can’t stand for that, because you effectively tell me that you don’t have the stomach for this.
And so once that was clear to me, I felt like we had reached a situation where our relationship was untenable, because I could no longer trust them. And while I certainly wasn’t under the illusion this was not a conditional relationship … because anytime you work for anybody, it’s conditional, because they can fire you. You can leave, you can quit. These things are meant to come to an end. But there’s just certain things that you got to be able to do. And when that didn’t happen, it just changed me.
Julie Holton:
So how do you start … I mean, where do you go from there? Because you have suddenly become the target of the man who was in the highest office in the world and his administration. You have a company that should have your back, you feel, and doesn’t. You have … not to mention, you can’t even have your voicemail on because you have death threats coming in and God only knows what. How do you start to then for you piece together how you’re going to move forward and where you’re going to move forward from there?
Jemele Hill:
Well, for me, number one was to get off Sports Center. And again, that had nothing to do with Donald Trump. But the reaction to that situation I was paying for on Sports Center, because there seemed to be this fear … because I often have to remind people that what I said about Donald Trump happened on Twitter. I didn’t open up Sports Center at six o’clock and say, “Good evening, everybody, Donald Trump is a racist.” That’s not how that happened. But in their minds, people think that’s how it happens. So they’re just like, “Oh, well, what do you expect if you say things on company time?” I’m like, “I ain’t saying it on company time.”
It’s hard though because social media is foreign territory for most media outlets. And so again, when I was coming back in newspapers, you could not have political signs on your front yard. You could not tell people how you voted, like nothing. The problem is that media outlets have wanted journalists to be journalists first before they’re actually people. Like me being a journalist … I’m a black woman. That’s first. Okay? Like the journalism part isn’t first. But they want the journalism part to be first. And so you’re asking for something that’s completely unrealistic, all right?
So that was … a lot of media companies operated that way, but see, social media kind of blew that up and made it more difficult because suddenly you have people who watch you every night or who read your columns and social media exposes you, the real person, and so they tell you that you have to represent ESPN at all times. Why that is still problematic is because they know that the public is watching, and so they haven’t really figured out how to manage that.
And I don’t pretend to know the answers, but I do know that living under this assumption that you can make people who work for you turn off a part of themselves at your convenience so you can make money is not a solution. Okay?
Audrea Fink:
Which sounds really similar to what we’re expecting for our players in sports though.
Jemele Hill:
Right. That’s the problem in the media right now, is that we … and I get it. When we were coming up through journalism school, they’re like, “You have to have both sides representing an issue.” The assumption was that the issue was something that where a both sides argument belong. There’s no both sides to racism. Okay? There’s not one, right? There’s not a both sides to misogyny. There’s not a both sides to sexism. On policy, there’s a both sides. And so once we deny journalists the ability to tell the truth, we’re in trouble! We’re in trouble! And so that’s why the profession … he forever changed how journalists cover not only the president, but just how we cover a lot of things. I read certain headlines … there’s just been this story out of Texas, as these asinine attacks on critical race theory continue, about how a school administrator is talking about an opposing view of the Holocaust. An opposing view? What?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
We’ve had guests before and talking about meeting people where they are. And I remember posing the question, but if you are not even starting in fact, if you’re not starting in truth, how can I meet you there? I can’t meet you there if you want to act like the Civil War wasn’t about holding onto slaves. I can’t meet you there. No.
Jemele Hill:
And that’s how you wind up giving a platform to nonsense, is when you are still arguing over the fact that we all know is a fact, right? It’s like you still have people talking about heritage not hate it’s like what are we doing? So yes, Reischea, you’re a thousand percent right. It’s got to be basic facts that we all agree on before we can even move a discussion forward.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Jemele, we could go on and on with you about so many other things. And maybe … I hope we can bring you back, because you are also very good at going away from you and making you’re accustomed … she’s accustomed, she is accustomed to the adage of being a reporter, right, Julie? About I am not the story. Except for this podcast, you are supposed to be the story.
Jemele Hill:
She caught me.
Julie Holton:
And apparently instead of a 30 minute podcast, we need like a three hour podcast. We could be here all day. Sign me up.
Jemele Hill:
That’s funny.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
All right. Before we wrap this up, we are gathering advice from you for our listeners. And so it is our rapid fire questions. Are you ready?
Jemele Hill:
I am ready. I love rapid fire questions.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
There you go. All right. Number one. Is there lesson that you’ve recently learned that you wish you had learned earlier in your career?
Jemele Hill:
Not being afraid of the word ‘NO’ … as in me saying it. Like not as in hearing it. I’m accustomed to that for sure. But as Lena Waithe once told me, and I’m not sure if this is an original phrase, as in to be credited so totally to her, is that NO is a complete sentence. Actually she said, “NO is a complete m-fin’ sentence.” But from that, I learned a lot, is that I think we need to be very aware of what our limits are.
And as women … especially me, I’m an entrepreneur now. That’s the step my career has taken me now. And there are limits to my bandwidth and I need to be okay with saying like, “I don’t even how a bandwidth for that right now. I’m sorry.” I’m learning to not blow past these stop signs and understand that I will do you no good if you’re trying to pitch me something, I got to review something, and bandwidth is gone, and I just don’t want to admit the bandwidth is gone. So ‘NO’ is the word I wish I would’ve known earlier in my career.
Julie Holton:
From all of the lessons that you’ve learned, what one piece of advice would you offer to any woman?
Jemele Hill:
To bet on yourself. And I know it’s stuff that they’ve probably … that phrase they’ve heard before, so I want to go into a little bit of detail with it.
One thing that I realized about the journey, my own journey and the journeys of my friends who have been able to become quite successful as just an independent in entity, is that all those jobs you had, all those experiences you had, professionally and personally were preparing you for the moment to bet on yourself. And we sort of ignore the fact that we have worked very hard to make other people money. So why would you not work as hard for yourself, if not harder? So when we get to the point of where we want to bet on ourselves, we have a lot of self-doubt, a lot of insecurity, a lot of reluctance because we’re afraid that it won’t work. And I get that. There’s a healthy fear that can drive you.
But a lot of the fear is thinking that it’s going to fall apart when we haven’t fallen apart for other people. We going to do it for us. That’s when we going to stand up the strongest. It’s for ourselves. And so I realized that so much of that is just us really not understanding or knowing our worth.
And everything … when I left ESPN, and I’m sure Reischea probably heard this too, people judged your success based off whether or not you wound up at another ESPN. That’s not what it is about. What it is about is are you doing something creatively that makes you happy, personally that makes you happy? That’s the only litmus test that matters. It doesn’t matter if you never appear on Sports Center again. It doesn’t matter if you never have the same “fan base” that you did before. That’s all very materialistic, nonsensical, shallow things.
Jemele Hill:
What matters to me more that the life that I’m leading right now I could not have had at ESPN at all. Creatively, I’m very happy. I’m producing the kind of content that I’ve always wanted to produce. I’m personally happy. I’m living in the city I love and not Bristol, Connecticut. I didn’t want to be there. I’m married. I am living the life that I wanted to live. And so if people are judging whether or not I’m a success, like, “Well, but I don’t see you at the six o’clock Sports Center every night.” I don’t care.
So that is why I say the betting on yourself part matters because it can get you to the place where you are able to have that personal and professional happiness, just because you’re going to invest in it in a much different way. So whether that be in creating your own business, whether that be in taking a job. We spend a lot of time worrying about what it looks like for other people, when really it’s just what matters is what it looks like to you. So bet on you. Don’t worry about everybody else.
Audrea Fink:
In today’s world, what do you think the most important skill for a woman is?
Jemele Hill:
Oh, confidence. That’s what’s the most important. It’s confidence. Because I have seen so many women, amazing, fantastic women, talk themselves out of something … god, listen. If reincarnation is actually a thing, I want to come back as an irrational, delusional man, because don’t nobody have confidence like men, I’m telling you. I learn from it. I’ll be like, I respect it. I am not hating on it at all. But yeah, I mean, it’s true. A woman, it’ll be a higher position, and it’ll be, let’s say, a checklist of a hundred things this person needs to have to get this position. We will have 99.5 of them and obsess over the 0.5 we don’t have. Men, same checklist, they could have three things, they’re like, “Yep. I’m going for it anyway.” I’m like, I don’t understand.
Julie Holton:
They can have negative three things and they’re going for it.
Jemele Hill:
Right. Exactly. They could not even have a thing on there and they’re like, “You know what? I need to apply for this.” It’s like, what?
So confidence is really very key for women, because I think we talk ourselves so much out of our greatness all the time and I want us to embrace fully who we are. And even if that makes people uncomfortable, be ambitious, be driven, ask that question in the meeting that nobody else will ask, do that. Because when we start being our own best champion, our own best mentor, we usually pay the price. So I guess I’d say confidence. Have the confidence of an irrational, delusional man. That’s how you perceive your life.
Audrea Fink:
That may be my favorite line that’s ever come out of this podcast, ever.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
That’s pretty on point, with that, the confidence, and I also want to add to the confidence. We also need a little Julie Holton doll that speaks to you because that’s … this woman … you haven’t had that opportunity, but Julie is one of those who is constantly telling you why you’re so great. She breaks it down, and it’s like, I just need that on record and just you wake up in the morning and Julie says, “You’re this awesome because … ”
Julie Holton:
Apparently I just need a Reischea doll to talk me up.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Jemele, what … if people want to get a hold of you or seek out some of that rational, irrational thought process …
Jemele Hill:
Confidence of men that I possess?
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Confidence of men, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you?
Jemele Hill:
Well, you guys, thank you so much for pubbing the podcast, “Jemele Hill Is Unbothered”, which is available on Spotify, Spotify exclusive. So make sure you listen to that. It’s really an opportunity for people to spend time with people maybe they didn’t know a lot about or people they think they know a lot about and to hear some of the goofy questions I ask them. So that’s one place. And of course, I write for the Atlantic as a contributing writer, so you can check out some of my columns there. And when racism goes down to sports, you’ll see me some of everywhere, because apparently John Gruden gets fired, the next thing, I know I’m doing three straight days of TV hits. I’m like, “Golly, this racism definitely keeping me in business. That’s for sure,” unfortunately. So anyway, so yes, I’m of all over, if you will.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
Jemele, thank you so much for joining us today. We thank you for your time. We thank you for your thoughts. We thank you for your confidence.
Jemele Hill:
I appreciate it.
Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:
And this has been Think Tank of Three.
Audrea Fink:
If you have topics you’d like us to cover or guests you’d like to hear from send us a message at thinktankofthree@gmail.com. Subscribe to The Think Tank of Three wherever you listen to podcasts and connect with us online. We blog weekly at thinktankofthree.com.
Julie Holton:
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