Broadcaster Jemele Hill has found herself in hot water after a tweet resurfaced in which she used the word “tranny.” Her would-be cancellation was sparked by Barstool Sports hosts, whom she had attacked for alleged racism.
In a now-deleted 2009 tweet, Hill referred to someone as “Manny the Tranny.” The post was unearthed by Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy after Hill shared a video of him speculating on footballer Colin Kaepernick’s possible “Muslim terrorist” ideology.
This is terrible, but then again, consider the source. https://t.co/1NzbNXP163
Hill was quick to apologize for the decade-old post, saying that the tweet “was wholly ignorant, dumb, and offensive.”
“I kept the tweet up because I welcomed the opportunity to apologize and to show growth,” she posted – right before deleting said tweet.
I kept the tweet up because I welcomed the opportunity to apologize and to show growth. See, unlike some people, I’m not defensive about my moments of failure. I learn from them and own it.
In an apparent bid to turn cancel culture to their advantage, Barstool fans quickly pushed out the Twitter hashtag #CancelJemeleHill to try and draw the ire of social justice warriors in branding her a transphobe.
Guys u can’t #CancelJemeleHill She’s already been cancelled ?Girls gone from 7 figure Espn host to blogger at the Atlantic ?Cancelling @jemelehill would be like cancelling Tower Records….It’s already been done pic.twitter.com/cwEOFVk4TK
The cancel culture feud was pushed up a notch at this point, though, as some users sought to tell the larger ‘community’ that the hashtag was being promoted mostly by “males that are bothered” by Hill, and those who used the hashtag were soon mocked online.
So let me get this straight #CancelJemele is trending because she tweeted something her FB friends said was funny… and its mostly yt males that are bothered… we have more important things to worry about… arrest the cops that murdered #briannataylorpic.twitter.com/lrQlhsVqjF
#CancelJemele is yet another bad-faith and futile effort to silence someone who a bunch of people hate for… well you know why. A single, 11-year-old tweet she has since apologized for and from which she has exhibited growth and learning? pic.twitter.com/TvtICE8gPB
Portnoy, meanwhile, responded to the furore in a short video saying that the “no-fun-club cancel culture” coming after a comedy show and combing through everything they’ve ever said and done in an effort to find something that would now be considered offensive “is not the best use of time.”
The Hill incident is just the latest in a long line of online furores Barstool Sports has been involved in, to the point that there’s a separate Wikipedia entry listing the chief ones to date on the sports blog’s page. From copyright issues to ‘me too’ allegations against him in 2019, Portnoy has even been in a Twitter spat with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over union rights.
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