Jemele Hill Demands 'Totality' for Charlie Kirk’s Legacy—But Not for Kobe Bryant

Last Friday, Jemele Hill criticized employers who fired workers over heinous comments about Charlie Kirk’s death. She claimed Kirk promoted "white superiority" and that his legacy should reflect it.

"Charlie Kirk, with his words and influence, made a lot of people who were not straight white Christian men feel less than—less than human, less than qualified, just a lot of less thans. That was his entire purpose," Hill said.

His entire purpose?

Hill then explained why she chose to condemn Kirk just days after he was shot and killed.

"I think it’s completely fair, when you remember somebody big, to consider the totality of their legacy, not just the parts you liked or the parts that make them look better," she continued. "Charlie Kirk made his living questioning the humanity, dignity, and respect of others."

We’ve debated before how to cover someone immediately after their death. I’ve argued there’s no obligation to spotlight a person’s worst moments in the immediate aftermath, since it mostly only compounds the family’s grief.

Still, if you’re in the business of scrutinizing the dead, it's important to be consistent. Jemele Hill isn’t consistent.

She vowed to judge Kirk by the "totality" of his legacy. Fine. But why didn’t she do that when Kobe Bryant died? After Bryant’s death in 2020, Hill praised him as "fearless, driven, and excellent" in an Atlantic op-ed.

"But as outstanding as Bryant was as a player, his growth in retirement was more impressive, in a way. Once the epitome of precocious arrogance, he evolved into being a true champion for others. Few players of his stature embraced and supported the WNBA the way that he did—which no doubt was partially related to the fact that his daughter Gianna was beginning to look like a mini-Kobe on the basketball court," Hill wrote.

That is part of Bryant’s legacy. But not all of it.

In 2003, a 19-year-old accused Bryant of rape. The case was dismissed after she declined to testify, but the reported evidence against him was damning: bruises, vaginal tears, bloody clothing, and Bryant admitting he never explicitly asked for consent.

Hill downplayed the scandal in her tribute, framing Bryant as someone "wrongfully accused" and never linking to the court record.

"[Kobe] explained to me that he was speaking from the experience of someone who had been on trial for sexual assault and in his mind, wrongfully accused," Hill said.

A casual reader would assume the woman lied, but the evidence suggested otherwise. According to the New York Times, prosecutors called the case against Bryant "strong" until the settlement.

At this point, it’s hard to avoid concluding that Jemele Hill found Kirk’s conservative views more concerning than the credible rape allegations against Bryant.

Via Getty.

And since Hill was so shaken by Kirk’s words, why didn’t she hold Bryant to the same standard? In 2011, the NBA fined Bryant $100,000 for calling a referee a "faggot" on the court.

To our knowledge, Kirk never used a racial or homophobic slur. Bryant did.

By any measure, Bryant’s legacy is more complicated than Kirk’s. OutKick asked Hill why she gave Bryant grace but denounced Kirk as a "white supremacist." She didn’t respond. We’ll update if she does.

But the answer seems obvious. Bryant was black. Kirk was a white conservative. Those identities matter most to Hill. Her entire brand depends on blindly defending black figures and vilifying white ones.

Just last week, she framed black people as the real victims of the North Carolina stabbing, even though a black man slit a white woman’s throat while shouting, "I got that white girl."

We don’t expect to hear from Hill because she’s not interested in an honest conversation about race. She claims "white supremacy" is America’s top threat, but knows black men make up just 6% of the population, yet commit 55% of murders. She likely also fears someone pointing to recent FBI data showing black people are three times more likely to kill a white person than the other way around.

No wonder she sticks to Bluesky, where she’s safe from robust conversation.

Hill certainly doesn’t want to defend her Kirk claims. She insists his "entire purpose" was to make non-white, non-Christian, non-straight people feel inferior. What’s her proof? The best she offers is Kirk opposing DEI in airlines.

How dare Kirk want only the most qualified pilots flying his children across the country?

As Jason Whitlock put it: "Jemele’s argument boils down to: I couldn’t intellectually compete with Charlie Kirk’s idea and that made me ‘feel’ inferior to him, so I think he’s racist. She never deals with what he actually argued."

"Mental illness," Whitlock concluded of Hill.

Hard to argue.

If you grant more grace for rape allegations than for political disagreements, your moral compass is broken. In fact, Jemele Hill’s race-idolatrous worldview is far more destructive than any belief Charlie Kirk ever promoted.