During a recent episode of duo Jemele Hill and Cari Champion’s, “Cari & Jemele (Won’t) Stick to Sports,” Hill decided to throw in some questions about racism.
Hill asked Jake Paul about his recent knockout of former NBA player Nate Robinson by asking if the knockout was racist.
Being a good sport, Paul tried to shrug it off and move on, saying he trains to win. But then Cari decided to keep probing for an answer to her co-host’s question. And that’s when Paul seemingly had enough.
“Stop asking me that. I said ‘no.’ That’s a shi**y question. It’s a sport…How does this have anything to do with race?”
Despite Hill and Champion’s laughs that could indicate it was all fun and jokes, people were outraged that they thought it was an ok thing to do.
One Twitter user responded by saying, “The only ONLY person to ever make @jakepaul look like a decent human (I feel dirty just saying it) is @jemelehill. Like damn girl, how you such a wack person that in the “my morals are sh*t” department you passed the shi**iest person ever.”
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In an attempt to save face, the pair went on Twitter to say they made a bad joke. “Y’all, @jemelehill and I were trolling a troll with permission. This wasn’t an interview with weight,” Champion wrote. “It was sarcastic- y’all need context? Bc if y’all can’t hear the laughing, the bad WiFi connection- smh. So for the outraged!”
“NOW, RACISM IS SERIOUS!” Champion added.
“It’s a late-night talk show that comes on at 11:30p. It ain’t supposed to be PBS. I also didn’t realize I wasn’t permitted to joke about race just because I also have the range to talk about it seriously,” Hill wrote before echoing Champion’s stance on the issue.
Still, Champion wanted it to be known she was never serious about her question but accepted that the backlash received was “fair” criticism.
