#BlameBlackMen is trending on Twitter after controversial journalist Jemele Hill set off an online firestorm when she tweeted that Black men aren’t really interested in the advancement of Black women and that they are looking for “better access to patriarchy.”
A writer and producer, Hill is a contributor for The Atlantic. She worked as a sports journalist for 12 years at ESPN before parting with the media outlet in 2018.
“I have increasingly found that many Black men just want better access to patriarchy. They don’t actually want it dismantled,” Hill tweeted on Tuesday.
Hill said she reached this conclusion after conversations with Black men — conversations she said she found “disturbing.” She apparently disturbed many on Twitter, who found her accusations “offensive considering the plight many African Americans and males of color are still experiencing in terms of getting ahead in the U.S. and the continual racism and prejudice performed against them by white counterparts,” Newsweek reported.
One Black male Twitter user posted, “‘Many Black men’. You made a wild statement backed by no data at all.Once you reach a certain level do the powers that be bring you into an office and demand that you trash Black men w/ the most over the top social media posts daily in order to continue to maintain that ‘status’?”
Bishop Talbert Swan, Bishop of the Nova Scotia Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Canada, weighed in, tweeting, “Here we go with the ‘Black men just wanna be white men’ foolery.”
Scholar and author Prof. TJ Curry retaliated with the tweet, “Wait…so she comes from a household that votes republican, and voted for Trump, but still blames patriarchy for Black men’s votes.”
While it seems like Hill is coming for Black men, some wonder why she hasn’t used her platform to attack Democrat-led-and-designed structural white supremacy. Hill, after all, defended Joe Biden’s “‘You Ain’t Black” remark that was intended for Black voters who didn’t vote for him.
It’s true that Hill was once a Republican. When she registered to vote in Florida, she chose to affiliate with the Republican Party, The Tampa Bay Times reported.
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“I just have noticed in other voter suppression situations or states where this is a real issue, Black Democratic voters are often targeted,” Hill said. “I thought registering as a Democrat would be basically like waving a red flag in front of a bull.”
Although Hill has called Trump voters racists, her mother reportedly voted for Trump, OutKick reported.
