Joe Tsai said Friday he is disappointed that Kyrie Irving appears to support a film “based on a book full of antisemitic disinformation.”
Kyrie Irving : Antisemitic | Atlantic slave trade
Irving played college basketball for the Duke Blue Devils before joining the Cavaliers in 2011. He won the Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for the 2014 All-Star Game.
In the 2016 NBA Finals, Irving made the championship-winning three-point field goal to complete the Cavaliers’ historic comeback over the Golden State Warriors.
After another Finals appearance in 2017, Irving requested a trade and was dealt to the Boston Celtics.
Kyrie Irving Antisemitic
Kyrie Irving continues to do the questionable.
On Friday night, the Brooklyn Nets guard tweeted an Amazon Prime Video link to the 2018 film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America.”
The film “uncovers the true identity of the Children of Israel” and unearths “what Islam, Judaism and Christianity has covered up for centuries in regards to the true biblical identity of the so-called ‘Negro’ in this movie packed with tons of research.”
The book also notes that “Since the European and Arab slave traders stepped foot into Africa, blacks have been told lies about their heritage.”
A Nets spokesperson told the New York Post: “The Brooklyn Nets strongly condemn and have no tolerance for the promotion of any form of hate speech. We believe that in these situations, our first action must be open, honest dialogue. We thank those, including the ADL [Anti-Defamation League], who have been supportive during this time.”
Atlantic slave trade
It is a most wretched word, in all of its iterations: with “er” at the end of it, as well as “ga.” The former is, of course, the most vile curse word in human history, a grotesque bastardization of negro, the Spanish/Portuguese word for Black.
It was adapted over decades by White people in America, for one purpose and one purpose alone — the degradation of the Black Africans who were sold into bondage and slavery in the United States and the Caribbean.
To call a Black slave that word was to separate that person from his or her humanity, to stress that they were not subject to the rights or privileges of White people, beginning with life itself.
The formal end of slavery and Reconstruction did nothing to stop the word’s use by White people; rather, the word became cemented in the American lexicon, in a way that, say, “anti-fogmatic” — what we now call “whiskey” — did not.
The latter is an attempt by some in the Black community to “take back” the word, or reduce its hurt or power, by trying to make it a positive reference to friends or like-minded people who are respected.
If we can own or run little else, goes the argument, at least we can put our stamp on this and make it our own. But good intentions do not always mean good results.