Sam Ponder is white.
Sage Steele hates being black and wishes she was white.
Jemele Hill stands up for black people, is against racism and is unapologetically black.
Sage Steele said this about black people in the past.
“The worst racism that I have received [as a biracial woman married to white man], and I mean thousands and thousands over the years, is from black people, who in my mind thought would be the most accepting because there has been that experience,” the 44-year-old anchor stated. “But even as recent as the last couple of weeks, the words that I have had thrown at me I can’t repeat here and it’s 99 percent from people with my skin color. But if a white person said those words to me, what would happen?”
Why must we shun those within our own race who think differently? Or marry outside of our race? Or vote differently? Or have “good hair”? Or speak differently? Shouldn’t we instead be offering up praise for our wonderful diversity?
My mother is a perfect example. Raised by an Irish father and an Italian mother in a small Massachusetts town, she went against her parents’ wishes and married the black man she fell in love with. What she dealt with fresh off of the tumultuous civil rights era was horrific in so many ways — which is one of many reasons why she is the strongest, bravest woman I know. So, instead of rolling your eyes at my black father for “selling out”, shouldn’t you be praising my white mother for following her color-blind heart and not succumbing to the pressures of American society back then? Apparently not. How about now, more than 4 decades later? Instead of giving me those all-knowing looks of disgust and calling me a sell-out when you see pictures of me with my white husband, or see me with my very light-skinned bi-racial children, shouldn’t you be praising that “white boy” from Indiana who followed his color-blind heart and married into a bi-racial culture completely different from his own, to help create a beautiful, color-blind family? Apparently not. Sadly, the list goes on and on, seeping into just about every social and political issue.
Steele is a Trump supporter who has consistently put down black people, so you can’t be shocked that she would come to a white woman’s defense and not say a word about Jemele Hill speaking on real issues.
Barstool Sports said some pretty bad things about Ponder years ago, that Ponder decided to bring up when they had a show on ESPN. It was Ponder who brought it back to light, not Barstool. Jemele is talking about the real things that are happening to black people and every other black woman at ESPN had her back except Sage Steele.
Not a coincidence. In an interview with Refinery 29 she explains why.
Steele expressed that same support for her colleague Sam Ponder, ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown host. When Ponder tweeted screenshots of sexist and misogynist comments about her from the website Barstool Sports, Steele tweeted at her to “stay strong.”
“When I was going through my social media attacks, I felt really, really, really alone in every single way. It’s hard when you’re being attacked and no one publicly will support you,” she explains. “I now know, having experienced it, how important it is to have that. The second I saw what was going on with Sam, like, ‘I got your back.”
And what about her colleague, Jemele Hill, who will soon be transitioning into a new role at ESPN after co-anchoring the 6 p.m. SportsCenter for the past year? “I think Jemele is a completely different story in that she put that onto herself of her own volition. Sam had been attacked,” says Steele. “I think that’s an important distinction.”
Jemele has been attacked 100x more than Sam Ponder because as black woman she is always going to be attacked and as you see people won’t be so quick to come to her defense. If she were white, the story would be different. I didn’t see many white women if any coming out to stand by Jemele.
Point is Sage is a black woman who wants to be white, who voted for a racist, is disliked by every person of color at ESPN and no matter how she tries to spin it, that will always be the case.