As the world learned when L’Oreal fired Munroe Bergdorf, even mentioning white supremacy can get you fired.

Despite knowing this, ESPN anchor Jemele Hill fearlessly tweeted the following this week:

ESPN was less than impressed, and immediately made it clear that it had given Hill a stern talking-to.

Not happy with that, the White House called for the anchor to be fired late this week.

According to ThinkProgress, she almost was.

Black ESPN host Micahel Eaves tweeted his frustration with his day Wednesday this week:

 

From the outside, it seemed that he was simply expressing how the backlash to Hill’s tweet made him feel.

It turns out, however, that ESPN asked him to take Hill’s spot on the network’s flagship property, SportsCenter.

Eaves refused, and the network allegedly went to another one of its black anchors, Elle Duncan, and asked her to host SportsCenter in Hill’s place. 

Duncan also refused. 

ESPN then allegedly asked Hill’s co-host on the program, Michael Smith, to host the show without her.

He told them to get outta town.

The network reportedly then briefly considered replacing both Smith and Hill with white anchors. They then realized that the optics of that weren't their their favor.

And so, Wednesday night, Hill and Smith did what they do every night: they hosted SportsCenter.

Rob King, the SVP for news and information at SportsCenter told ThinkProgress, “Yesterday was a hard and unusual day, with a number of people interpreting the day without a full picture of what happened. In the end, ultimately, Michael and Jemele appearing on the show last night and doing the show the way they did is the outcome we always desired.”

By “doing the show the way they did,” King means without addressing the controversy.

Hill has however, addressed this week’s events on Twitter. She posted a picture of members of the National Association for Black Journalists coming to support her.

And she issued a statement meant to take heat off of ESPN, too.

She also has not taken a tweet it and delete it approach to the tweets that have cause her professional pain. Those tweets remain viewable by the public.

For his part, Donald Trump did not address Hill’s tweet, but did double down on his “both sides” Charlottesville statement late this week.

“In light of the advent of Antifa, if you look at what’s going on there, you have some pretty bad dudes on the other side also,” the president said. “When you look at really what’s happened since Charlottesville, a lot of people are saying and people have actually written, ‘Gee, Trump may have a point.’ I said there’s some very bad people on the other side also.”

Donald trumpESPNJemele-HillMichael SmithRace in americaSportsCenterWhite supremacy