Why Are Women Mean to Each Other?

Hill and Carrie Champion joined the table. People were trying actively to pit us against each other. I had a rough couple of years. It was bad. I didn't have any friends for a raw conversation about how we as women treat each other. Somebody who was close to me was trying to take me out, and the pay mother's passed to their daughters when you get let down that way, it's just it's really really hard. So it hurts for me to fill it for her. Today, we're doing a

show about mean girl. We can relate in so many different ways. Have either of you ever been a mean girl? I wouldn't say I'm a mean girl. I'm gonna tell you what I am, and that's a petty bitch. I'm a petty bitch because here's the thing. Now, I might not say some mean things and I might not do some mean things, but if you do something to me, baby, let me tell you, I'm gonna hold on to it and to the moment comes for you. And they'll be like, oh,

what did you what you need me? I at a point in my life was just mean to everything because I was hurting and I was angry and I was going through a lot of stuff. People will say that I'm me. They would definitely say that I'm me. That there's a difference in the meanness. I'm not for the nonsense, I'm not for the ble. Probably one of my worst character defects is being judge gudgmental. I'm extremely judgmental, and

I actually just realized that it's my own insecurities. I didn't even realize that that's where that judgment comes from, you know. So what I don't like in somebody else is what I don't like in myself. Real talk, I'm definitely a work in progress. Well, we all are. Recently, when Mega Stallion went through a very painful and personal trauma, a disturbing reaction unfolded. Women came out in full force,

publicly mocking and criticizing and doubting Meg. Meg clapped back at the hurtful gossip, urging women to check themselves before being nasty to other women. It got us all really thinking about how we as black women treat one another and the roots of this toxic mean girl culture. It was really jarring to me because it was almost like we don't even take care of our own, right, So

that was that's really painful too. That way we are as a culture are attacking one another absolutely, and even we as black women understanding what we're up against culturally and in society, right, and so it was really disheartening to But were you guys really surprised, because I wasn't. I kind of was. I kind of was considering that it's coming from black women, right. We have some guests that are going to join us today. I think we're missing a big part of the story. I think everyone

knows this. The NBA is a business, So let me get this straight. Sports anchors Carry Champion and Jamal Hill started off his rivals, two black women competing for the same high profile hoole spot. At ESPN carry got the job. Even though they were pitted against each other, the two forced an unlikely friendship, often defending one another when no one else would. Now they've joined forces to co host their own series. Welcome back to Sports, Jamal. We're still here.

We're obviously we're doing something, okay, proving sisterhood can prevail. We're so exciting you were having coming here with them last We're so happy to have you here. We were about every everything. So you started your relationship as rivals for the same jobs. People were trying actively to pick us against each other. My agent is in my ear. He's like, look, just stay away from Jamal. She's supposed to get this job, don't. I'm right right right, you know.

I'm just listening to all of this stuff. The streets was talking social media and people are like, you should have that job. It shouldn't be heard. And I just didn't want that to be our story. So from the beginning, I was like, she's gonna be my friend. Like the job was really hard. It was very hard. I felt very lonely. I felt afraid I didn't have any friends. I feel like no one liked me, which because no one did but she wasn't projecting, but she truly reached

out to me. Then was like, we're gonna go to dinner, and I unwillingly went five minutes and she's like, let me tell you what ain't treating you right? Let me tell you who you work with, ain't nothing. The girls don't like you. You need to demand better. They disrespecting you. And I'm just like, oh, so much, everything right, because at that point I was sort of a o G in the system. So you know, I'm trying to break

her down. Let me give you what it is. And it's like, I now understand why she totally would question my motives. Because sometimes when you get in that kind of position and then there's somebody else, another woman that's like, oh do this, they might be plotting on the load. My first thought is to be skeptical. Why are you sitting down immediately telling me don't like this person? And like this person, I'm grown, I'm growing as hell whenever

I want to like. So we have this dinner. I walk away feeling so confused because her spirit is so pure, right, I like her, but then I'm like, day, she's talking so much. She continuously reached out to me after that dinner, she went out of her way to be kind to me. Um, I had had a rough couple of years. I'm not lying. It was bad. People try to divide us. I mean, please consistently, she would tell me, without gossiping. Yeah, they don't like you. Why why do you think no one

liked you? And you all can relate to this, like I like to be great at what I do right, and I'm a hard worker, and I demand a lot for myself and from others. And if you present and look a certain way, you're coming in with a little skirt and high heels, people like, who do you think she is? And I'm aware of it, so I and I don't change who I am because that's who I

am at my core. But I can count on my hands how many friends I've ever had that have never been jealous of me in any moment I tried to throw me under the bus, and she was truly one of them. Jamal, tell me why it was so important, like for you because you're like, no, she's gonna be my right, because sometimes that's what it takes. You talk about the dedication. Sometimes it's like oh no, no, no, no, we know only two black women here doing this thing.

We're not We're not about to do that. I've just had seen too many situations, especially there at ESPN, where people really started battling and hating each other and it turned out it was really over nothing, over nonsense. As black women, we can't afford to do that as it is. It's hard enough once we get into that room, Once we get to that position, we bring in a whole bunch of battles with us. Right, So what do I look like with this woman who's come to ESPN getting

this position being her enemy? I think in a lot of environments that we get into as black female professionals, unfortunately, we're made to believe it can only be one. It's like, no, we only have room for one. I think it's fighting

for that acceptance. It's feeling like you had to fight so hard to get that specific kind of acceptance to be in this specific position, and then when someone else comes in, like, oh, no, you're not gonna wipe away all the work that I did to get myself here, did you wipe I was talking to one of our young producers here. One of the things that she brought up is the idea of survival over sisterhood, survival before sisterhood, And this is one of those instances where you were like, no, no,

we can survive systems. Well, I don't think. I don't think people get that. That's powerful, and that's why we find ourselves in competition with other women, other women. Now, Jamale, you went through your own firestorm. Yeah, and I had some thoughts about our president that I shared on Twitter and let everybody know, and it created quite a firestorm and professionally put me at risk. And you know, the whole country if I like, the whole country was bad

at me. The president called for me to be fired. I think that's one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make, and certainly something that I think is firable offense about ESPN. No one had her back, no one, like I can count on my hands how many people had her back within the system. Oh yeah, listen. I would just send a tweet. I would just say I got your back, or what's happening isn't right. I would tweet very comfortably because the lack of support from black

women was so crystal clear at that moment. This woman had made this company millions and give them straight credibility. They had put her in a position to win and survive and thrive and one hint of controversy, and they took that all away from her and they and while she left on her own accord because she couldn't thrive there for her old mental you know, sanity. The way that they treated her, the same people who loved her one day next day. I have never seen anything like

it in my life. That's how it goes. But it was that kind of support is why I was able to weather all the things that happened. And that's when you find out who really is now for you, because that's when you really find out who's not. Yes. So with the whole Mega stallion situation, I think really the disappointing part is just with black women period. We can be so hard and cruel to one another. I'm not surprised that so much of that energy, unfortunately came from

Black women. It's our inability to see the humanity and each other. We're begging the world to see us in a particular way, but we don't see it in each other. We don't and it is for me so frustrating and painful that we're begging for the world to to see us in a certain manner, and we just we can't offer it for ourselves. And my belief is that if we can't give it to ourselves, we never we can't expect it, right. I just feel like it's it's such a distance, you know, between being a black woman and

her self love. There's there's this big chasm between them two, you know what I mean. And a lot of it is the way we've been socialized, as I love it is the way we've been socialized in our own home. Is that, honestly, some of our mothers have been really responsible for the toxic relationships we have with other women. It's like how we hear our mothers talk about other black women don't trust her, she ain't this and that. Like we'll hear them have a full scale conversation with

another black woman that's their friend. As soon as they get off the phone, they someday like it would mean we see it right, and we take those lessons of mistrust that are bred in our own home, and then when we get out in the world and we're looking at another black woman, instead of celebrating her finding something great about it, we'll be like she thinks she cute with them shoes? What about this? What about that? I

think it's how we're loved. Like I know, for me not having a father around, really, it's hard for me to be vulnerable. It's hard for me to love you and trust you and be around you and say who I am and love myself because I think lot of the times the women I see who have self love, how to father around to remind them and love them and their first lessons of beauty. Those of us who

had to grow up without a father. But we grow up in violent neighborhoods and we have to put up these walls and this armor, and then you click up with a group of girls and then you end up being you know, you get betrayed. We come from so many worlds of mistrust and trauma that it makes it

very difficult. It's how we've all been taught. Eventually, the press begin to take on the traits of the oppressor, and that is that's where we're mirroring the patriarchy and the sexism and the misogynists and all of that that we have to deal with. We're just turning it on each other. And unfortunately we've been conditioned this way for so long. We literally spend a lot of time on learning.

That is my biggest piece of advice to people out there is that if you want to be different, if you want to be the change you want to see, as they say, you have to unlearn, okay, and you have to be willing to be self aware enough to know where you're vulnerable, where your most pettitous. You have to be realistic about the ugly that that's the only one, right.

We also got to be honest that a lot of us are doing performative sisterhood, which is straight up sisterhood, because we have, certainly all of us have encountered those women who you know, at the women's conference, at the you know, little get together, they're like woman is black man, that being the most trifling backstabbing to remember that one time, when that one time, like like they all there too,

it looks good. They're only doing this because we used to sounds because but like, deep down their actions they are not supporting other women at all. We have at our jobs. Remember when the athletes would be friendly with us, right and then the wives start talking like hey girl, hey girl, and I'm like wait. We'd be like wait, do they like us to do everything? They're trying to

sleep with their man, or they'll say that when they're there. Yeah, you see that same woman out socially somewhere else, and she will treat you like listen here, I just look. I might be getting a little five met the journalism here because and you will recognize, like, no one's perfect, but you will recognize the sisterhood. We don't do that. What would you say was the worst betrayal by a woman friend? I had a cousin, actually who have but

we've settled our differences now. She like developed super faster than me, and she had like the long flowing hair and my hair. You know, I got the afro vibe, you know what I mean. I was super skinny. I was like tomboy. And I would always tell her the dudes that I liked. Like, I was always be like, oh my god, he's okay. Every time she went for that, she would date him every time. And so after like three times, I was like, you know what, Ye're the dumb one. Keep her, you keep on telling her she's

going for those guys. Well, I'll tell you I had a girlfriend who brought some dudes to my house who stole my I d and got my name caught up in a credit card scamp somebody who was close to me, like trying to take me out. Yeah, that that goes to show you how like envy. You know, I really feel like a lot of us get so riddled with envy, like envy or justify so much like it's one of the most destructior. There's no resolving, there's nov it's envy. There's nothing, you know, and there's a lot of that

that just happens amongst women. What about you too. I don't have to say this within context because I don't I don't want the headline to be she said her mother betrayed her right and so but that is probably my deepest betrayal. You know, my mother is a recovering addict um and we went through a lot when I was growing up, and um, you know, there were some incidents that we had where I felt, um, you know, like, oh, surely I know, you know she's got a bad drug habit,

but they won't go there. And when it went there, it just left me with this incredible sense of disappointment and to be that vulnerable and then for it to happen with a parent. I think it trained you the rest of your life. And so, unfortunately, one of the things that I still struggle with is that it is very hard for me to be vulnerable. I have repaired our relationship. She's great, but I think a lot of

the betrayal I experienced with her growing up unfortunately. Um you know, my therapist said this to me one day, and it really sat home with me, is that childhood lasts forever. It lasts forever, and so I didn't realize that until I got good and grown and much more self aware and much more um comfortable going into those deep parts that I realized that because of that sense of betrayal, it impacted how I was able to even have certain friendships. Not a lot of people get here

because I learned that blockade early. So once I experienced that sense of betrayal, it didn't fortunately stay with me, and I'm trying to unlearn that. So I don't always keep people there when you get let down that way. It's just it's really really hard. Well that's my story too. I mean, you know, we've had a lot of healing, but it does you know, your childhood stayed with you and you just be like, God, damn it, get away. I thought that. Yes, So what are you feeling over there?

I can Yeah, it hurts for me to feel it from Yeah. One of the things her and I bond with the most is our childhood and our parents, and we tell the same story. Yeah, scary will be like remember when you were seven years old your mom told you to go make a drink and you're like that, I'm seven drink mom. Or saying things that hurt you because they don't see you hurts. Yeah. I think this brings up a lot in the sense of like what

we deal with as a community. We can sit in this pain and feel it, and you can imagine that people who don't have a way of working it out right, you can see how they can strike out at other people for their anger, their disappointment, their insecurities just flare up. So if you come in and you've got them pretty legs somewhere she thinks she cute, she ain'tin't all that, you know, you could just see as though strong feelings come up, you know, and need a place to release.

It's like as soon as you see something that you can just go at, you know what I mean, and you just do it. And well, I don't think my mother intentionally is trying to hurt me. I think all of her pain is passed on to me because she doesn't know how to process it because of what she dealt with, right, And so while I'm sure she is so very proud of me, there is such a level of resentment towards me that she expresses, which hurts me. And it probably comes out for you and your relationships

with other women. For sure. It's really deep. Because a lot of people don't have great relationships with their mothers. That's probably where it first starts. It's like, if we don't really know how to relate to our mother's, then how do we learn to relate to ourselves and then to others. If I don't have this connection with my mother, I haven't been able to be seen through my mother's eyes in a certain manner, you know, which that is your first them in the mirror, you know what I mean?

And so then and trying to learn how to connect to other women, and it's hard, hard, and I don't know why those relationships are so difficult. Some of it is like, you know, black women, we buy into that strong black woman facade to a degree that's a detriment to us to where we think we can weather and withstand anything. And she's from a generation of women, like a lot of black women who that's what they did.

They just sucked it up and kept moving right, And it's really painful and hard, and we had to be the people who were unfortunately absorbing their trauma right. And because we had to absorb it, then we just continue to pass it down. And once I realized, like all the things I mean my mother happened when she was eighteen years old, right, so you know I was seen right,

so I had to be there. She went through all these stages of womanhood and you have to right so hard mode was I'm not here to be your friend, like we're not here to have this certain kind of relationship. I'm here to protect you, to save you from yourself and to make sure you don't do any of it up.

Did so because you know, there wasn't really an opening for me to look at my mother as and this is the person I tell everything and this is to us to have I think the kind of the kind of relationship that you guys have now, which is a tremendous is that you have that open communication, but no open communication right. It was like, got this, this is what I gotta be right. I tried to do therapy

with my mom. It was crazy because she felt too vulnerable and as for her, Black women think vulnerability is weak and she was so weak and so seen and she hated it. She did. She didn't want to see it. She was like, I don't remember that happening. You know how we bring up stuff, you like, but what about when? And you know that didn't happen. You're like, but yeah,

if we're not saying that right now, it's cool. Like I'm going through things that really hurt me when I was a kid, and I want to talk about it. And for her, it's an indictment on how she raised me. She was like, you were alive, right, you you you're doing good? Right. I'm like, Mom, no, I just want to talk about what happened. Yeah, And it's even with data. Was just the opposite because I wanted her to come

into therapy with me and she refused. You refused only because I felt like, oh no, you're not about to take me into that abyss of pain and drop me off. And I was like, oh no, no, we don't need to do that. I will figure out my own way of how to deal with this, but it is it is hard when you talk about, you know, as an indictment. You know, sometimes when I listened to Willow, I have to just be quiet because it doesn't matter what my intention was. It's important for me to just listen. Have

your reality. As hurtful as it is, it's not about trying to make excuses it's really or even explaining to her at that moment, it's just about just listening, like, you're right, you got to work. I think the friction that my mother and I have now is because she wants me to judge her by her intention, and I'm judging her by her action. And I may realize that the action was because she had a good intention, but

that's not always the way it comes out. And I'm like, and she was like, oh, I was just trying to protect you. That's her line to excuse everything. And I'm like, that doesn't excuse this. And I get that you thought this is what was happening, but let me tell you what I was receiving. Because she feels like you're saying she did something wrong, and it just feels like if I'm saying anything just to express my thoughts, she goes on defense. She thinks, no one wants to feel wrong. Yeah,

and it's just me saying that hurt. Let's work through that moment. One of the things that I realized and you're talking about when you said nobody wants to be wrong. I think specifically for black women, they're always wrong. Word, they're always wrong. That's the word. Let me have some empathy. I have to keep that in mind, because you're right,

it's just hard, you know. And it's like for us as black women, and even having this conversation is given more understanding, even deeper understanding of why we as black women could be so cruel to each other. It's not you know, it's like we get judged on everything. We get judged on how we look, we get judged on our hair, we get judged on we can't even love who we want to love. We got a white man that loves us. That's the problem, you know, you know

what I'm her like, you're a girl. No, But it's really like we can't even love when we want to love. I can't even have a fake crush on Chris Evans on the Internet, Chris, if you have a girlfriend, ignore all this. But if you don't, if you don't like me, you can't even have a fake crush on a white boy without being a sell out and shame. But the Twitter come at me, they told me, I sell out to the culture over if you know what, Yeah, that's why you wear are we even? You know? We're like

what you know? But you're right. We're always all, always wrong. And I think that's where we as black women, we gotta give each other more room. Yeah, each other more case. It's like if we don't do it, if it don't start with us, it's a done data. There's like we literally can't make mistakes. I have a thing about that in my own mind, like having to do the right thing, like having to know what the right code of conduct is, and like having an anxiety if I don't know what

the right choice is. It probably comes from that feeling of like, oh, I was never right. So somebody needs to explain to me how I grew up doing so much wrong in my young adult days and as a mother, and then now I've gotten to this place where I think everything that I say is right. How did that happen? Yeah? Yeah, that I think that I'm right all the time, and that's where a lot of the judgment it comes from.

The judgment comes from insecurity, yes, but it also comes with this false thinking that I have in my head that my way is right and how I was raised was the right way. How I dressed is the right way, how you dressed is the wrong way because you need to be doing what I'm telling you. Where did all of that comes from? That's that's that's the truth. That's a problem. Honestly, I need. I needed to tell that because like, okay, so I saw you. Remember we were

so excited with our show. We went on gm A. Mom was like, so you can wear that. I was like, we were talking to Robin Wobbers when we're idols and sports but that and then you cled you here that way too, and I was just like my mother was on me about dropping f bobs and I was just like, I'm sorry. You remember the house I grew up. We forget you think culturally it comes from this concept that we have to be hard on each other because the

world is harder. That's what you would tell me. Yeah, that's true, Like you better be hard as nails because I had to learn even in raising my kids, I had to get up off that because I was still in that Baltimore Street mentality. I was like, oh no, y'all can't do this and do that because it's too danger and I was like hold up day in Calabasas more every more, different, field is different. I just want to bring up there is a difference between how black

moms will treat their daughters and their sons. Oh my good, alright, let's get I just got to say it because it's real. It's true. Let's get that. Let me tell me it's I mean I you know, when I was younger, something as simple as just like getting up at the right time. It would be like you wait, like you better get up to me and be like, oh no, no no, school school is about to be you better get dressed. We need to get that. And it would be like I'd be in my room like okay, I gotta get it.

But then Jane is nul like not seeing Jaden would say the different and he'd be like there's maybe one moment and then I'd be ready at the door like okay, here we go, and he's getting his shoes and he's getting point she might have a point because I would be like, no, you gotta be on it, you right, So where is that right coming from? Its coming from? Because I gotta be on it. We gotta be on

We have to hard, we have to work harder. And then and then I'd be like, and his father will deal with that, yeah, but you your mind, you know, and so it is. I will say, I do be getting up. I did getting to work on time, all right, Yeah, because for me, I knew that she's gonna have it twice as hard. I needed you to be strong because I know what this world is like for us, it's

black women. But it works both way. It works because whatever is your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness, right, And so what happens is as mothers do they have to protect us from all things that we're not even thinking about. But when you drill that down, is that we then we're not only internalize it, but we're going to take that and do that to each other. I think they have to harden us in the world, and

then we're never able to be vulnerable with each other. Right, yes, right back were I just had a lightball, a lightball moment because it's the same damn thing. So my fear for having a black daughter and what I felt like she needed to be in this world put me in a position to be a little harder on her. And that's probably how we are with each other. It's real,

it's a real deal. It's it's a real deal. Most of it that raised with the level of harshness that sets the expectation, And that's why we're so hard on each other because in our own home, Yeah, like you're wearing that, don't wear that because this kind of things happen to people who wear that, like all those things that we wind up repeating, and people would tell me, people be like they'd be like, oh my gosh, like why are you being so mean? And I'm like, do

you think this is me? I think that women have to This is so hard to do because we're so trained and socialized so differently. But we have to throw that all out the window and and forget every single thing that we have been taught and be willing to be uncomfortable with one another, because that's the only time that you really see any significant change. Everything in my spirit told me that she was great, but I was so uncomfortable being vulnerable and open and allowing her to

be my friend. And I have to be willing to get out of that. And I still struggle with it to this day. Um. Yeah, because it is a risk. It's a risk. It's a risk, and we can't deny that. Yeah, it's a risk, and you do have to allow yourself an opportunity to get to know the women around you. As women, we have to have more responsibility in regards

of how we take care of one another. But at the same time, what we're asking men to do, we need to do the same thing of course, as far as respecting one another, you know, and and caring for one another in a certain manner. What she taught me was to hold the door open. Yeah, and I didn't know how to do that. So here I am, as a grown as adult, just now learning how to hold the door open. This was a great table. That's what

I love about. Like, this was great because we started in one direction and ended up going into it was it really got Dave. It was awesome. That dog is living a life. That's a very well behaved dog. My dog would have been here, pan, right, He's like, what y'all talking about me? I wouldn't, not even too, but he's not poppy. You like cats, have three cats? She has three? Do you not? Cat Laid cats are okay,

but I'm a dog. To join the red Table Talk family and become a part of the conversation, follow us at facebook dot com slash red table talk. Thanks for listening to this episode of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook, Watch, Westbrook Audio, and I Heart Radio.