Word Twister

 So it seems Jemele Hill, a black woman who says what she thinks, is in hot water again for being a black woman who says what she thinks.

Or rather, she's in hot water for saying what people who don't like what she says have decided she said. This happens a lot now in the noxious biosphere of Social Media These Days, as we shall see.

Anyway, Jemele Hill.

What she said in an L.A. Times piece the other day was this, about Caitlin Clark: "We would all be very naive if we didn't say race and her sexuality didn't play a role in her popularity."

That's it. That's the quote. And I'm trying very hard to see what is remotely controversial about it, given that it seems like a pretty "Well, duh" statement to me.

No one with a working brain cell could possible take issue with it, because it's absolutely true. Clark is a white, straight woman playing basketball in a league with a lot of non-white (and white) gay women. This is an indisputable fact. It's also a fact there are people who like that she's white, and also like that she's straight. 

Some of them are straight-up bigots. Some pretend they're not but eventually blow their cover. It takes all kinds, and all kinds are out there.

Immediately, though, Hill was getting bashed as a "racist" by what the Blob likes to call the Usual Suspects. She was accused of once again dragging race into everything, a consistent theme for her detractors ever since she got in hot water at ESPN for calling Donald Trump a racist.

Now, I don't know if Trump is a racist or not. Circumstantial evidence exists both ways. What I do know -- all I do know -- is a whole lot of folks who used to wear sheets and hoods and burn crosses on hillsides (and some who still do) think he's their guy. And I doubt that's because of where he stands on the gold standard.

Anyway ... back to Hill and social media, which took what she said and did a fine job of  distorting it. Suddenly we were told she was saying the only reason for Caitlin Clark's popularity was the fact she was white and straight, which is not what she said at all. And we were told this suggested Hill had a major problem with Clark's whiteness and straightness, which is also not what she said -- or even intimated, given that her feeds are crowded with attagirls both for Clark and for those who publicly support her.

But Word Twister is social media's favorite sport now, and it cuts across every societal strata. Politicians on both sides of the ideological divide play it all the time; Donald Trump himself, the gravitational center of the fringe entity that once was the Republican party, is especially adept at turning the game on its head in his own uniquely dishonest way. 

Hey, I didn't say that. Wait, you have video of me saying that? Well, geez, I was only joking. Can't you guys take a joke?

Maybe Jemele Hill should tear a page from that playbook next time. Just a thought.