‘Do some Critical Thinking’: Jemele Hill Believes Racism Played Role in Reaction to Carlee Russell Kidnapping Hoax

Jemele Hill
SXSW/Getty Images
Dylan Gwinn

Shocking details emerged last week after it was learned that a black woman in Alabama named Carlee Russell faked her own kidnapping. Police responded by filing two misdemeanor charges against the 24-year-old.

In addition, an Alabama lawmaker has proposed a law that would increase the penalties for anyone who fakes their own kidnapping.

In news bound to shock no one, former ESPN personality Jemele Hill sees racism behind the proposed law.

Posting on X (formerly known as Twitter), Hill claimed that the law was “overzealous” and would not be proposed if Carlee Russell were white.

“She’s already been charged and will likely have to pay restitution,” Hill wrote. “Zero problem with that. What I’m saying is, this lawmaker is being overzealous because the Black woman was at the center of this hoax. I promise you had she been a white woman, nobody would be introducing a law to strengthen the laws about lying to the cops.”

Hill received considerable pushback for her comments. Most of which claimed that the proposed increase in penalties for falsifying a kidnapping had nothing to do with race.

“Ok, I’ll play along,” Hill responded to her detractors. “Where the Susan Smith law in North Carolina? Where are the laws that strengthen lying to police when we have seen white women continually lie when they call the police on Black people for just existing in the spaces they don’t want us in? A white woman just lied in California about being kidnapped by two Latino people and it turns out she’d spent 3 weeks with an old boyfriend … where’s the new law?”

As Fox News reports, “Susan Smith killed her two sons in 1994 while claiming a Black man had kidnapped them in a carjacking. She is currently serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole in 2024.

“The California example likely refers to the recent jury conviction of Kathleen Sorenson who made a false report blaming a Latino couple for trying to kidnap her children in 2020. In 2023, a judge gave Sorenson a 90-day prison sentence.”

The point Hill misses, though, among many, is that this proposed law does not increase the penalties for black women who fabricate their own kidnappings. The law increases the penalties for anyone who fakes their own kidnapping.

To buttress the point that race plays no part in the law’s formation or application, a Twitter user pointed out how one of the law’s proponents is a black woman. To this, Hill fell back on one of her frequent narratives about black people “often carry the water for White Supremacy.”

“I don’t know why some people don’t understand that marginalized people often carry the water for white supremacy. More than half of white women voted for Donald Trump despite the fact he told them he was taking away their reproductive rights. There are Black police officers who revel in the same anti-Black actions as others. This ain’t hard.”

Apparently, it was “hard” because Hill found herself playing a considerable amount of defense in her Twitter comments section. She also found herself playing defense after former BLM activist Xaviaer DuRousseau blasted her for crying racism when a “Black person is BLATANTLY IN THE WRONG.”

Hill, of course, did not mute herself.

Russell faces charges of false reporting to law enforcement and false reporting of an incident. Both offenses carry a maximum punishment of one year in jail. She was released from jail after posting $1,000 bail on each charge.

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