Jemele Hill, Cari Champion talk armoring up as Black women on ‘Carlos Watson Show’

Citing their need for 'a certain armor,' Hill said, 'the world is not built to naturally protect Black women.'

Longtime friends and sports journalists Jemele Hill and Cari Champion took to The Carlos Watson Show to talk about their lives and careers when their conversation turned to what Hill called a “lesson that all Black women learn.” 

“We have be tougher. We have to be stronger. We have to have a certain armor around us because the world is not built to naturally protect Black women,” she said. “If that is the case, where is the armor or the protection going to come from? It’s usually something you have to develop, or it’s a reason why Black women ride for each other as hard as we do. Because we know that protection is not going to come from elsewhere.” 

The ladies’ conversation with Watson will debut today at 1 p.m. EST. 

The two women share hosting and producing chores for the popular Vice On TV show Cari & Jemele (Won’t) Stick to Sports, on which they discuss sports and cultural topics. 

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Champion recently clapped back at trolls who were up in arms about a question she asked YouTube star Jake Paul after he defeated Nate Robinson in a recent boxing match with a devastating knockout. 

She and Hill asked Paul if the knockout was “racist,” a question they said was in jest. 

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However, Paul fans sent Champion racist messages, to which she replied on air and responded on social media.

“I really have no problem with y’all being mad at the question, the joke, or whatever you say is the issue. But I KNOW it’s about the PEOPLE asking the question,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “Staying in my mentions and DM’s saying I’m a NIGGER, I should be DEAD and or RAPED does not scare me. It is DISGUSTING!! I will continue to talk freely about racism and fighting for equality.” 

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The Carlos Watson Show is in its second season via OZY, the media platform he co-founded in 2013.

The daily YouTube clips feature the Ivy League-educated, Emmy Award-winning journalist engaging in memorable exchanges with cultural and political figures, authors and intellectual visionaries “to make sense of this important time in American history.” 

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