Unless Kyrie Irving apologizes, it’s time for Nets, NBA to administer consequences | Opinion
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The film that Kyrie Irving publicly promoted this past weekend and then doubled down on Saturday night is so virulently and unapologetically antisemitic that a mealy-mouthed statement from NBA and a tweet from Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai do not come close to addressing the seriousness of the situation.
Especially not right now.
Whether he intended it or not, Irving’s tacit endorsement of “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” – a film that suggests modern-day Jews stole the religion and identity of the original Israelites, leading to the enslavement of Africans who were brought to America – is a grenade thrown directly onto the wave of antisemitic attacks on Jews that have been smoldering across the country lately, led most notoriously and shamelessly by hip-hop artist Kanye West.
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And if Irving won’t apologize for his cavalier “I’m just asking questions” routine or retract his support for the film, then it’s time for the Nets to retract his place on their basketball team.
MORE: Kyrie Irving: ‘antisemitic’ label not justified, meant no disrespect to anyone’s religious beliefs
NETS RESPONSE: Owner ‘disappointed’ Irving promoted work ‘full of antisemitic disinformation’
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I don’t say that lightly or without deep consideration for what it means. My first instinct when this controversy bubbled up Saturday was to put it in the same category of Irving nonsense that has fueled other high-profile missteps like espousing flat Earth theories and refusing the COVID-19 vaccine even though it was legally mandated for him to play games in New York most of last season.
Silly as they were, those stances were only destructive to his reputation and the Nets’ chances of winning games. And Irving has a right to free speech and a set of beliefs no matter how wacky or ill-informed they might be. That’s potentially shaky territory for the NBA or the Nets to get involved in given that he did not directly say anything antisemitic.
But then I watched Irving’s press conference after the Nets’ game Saturday night and the testy exchange he had with reporters. Then I watched the movie he promoted – all three-plus hours of it – and have come away with a different feeling about the threshold Irving has crossed here.
First, a disclaimer. I am Jewish, and the current climate in this country is frightening in ways that I have never experienced before. The mainstreaming of blatant antisemitism whether it’s being led by a celebrity with a large devoted following or streamed across a lighted sign in Jacksonville during the Florida-Georgia game is hurtful and unnerving.
And what Irving unleashed Saturday is dangerous. If he doesn’t understand that, can’t admit it and figure out how to make amends for it, then his time in the NBA needs to come to an end.
Here’s what Irving said Saturday night: “My response would be it’s not about educating yourself on what Semitism is and what antisemitism is, it’s about learning the root words of where these come from and understanding this is an African heritage that is also belonging to the people. Africa is in it whether we want to dismiss it or not. So the claims of antisemitism and who are the chosen people of God and we go into these religious conversations and it’s a big no-no.
“I don’t live my life that way. I grew up in a melting pot of all races, white, Black, red, yellow, Jewish, Christian, Muslim and you see the way I live my life now. I’m not here to be divisive. I’m in a unique position to have a level of influence on my community and what I post doesn’t mean I support everything that is being said or being done or that I’m campaigning for anything. All I do is post things for my people in my community and those it’s actually going to impact. Anyone who has criticism, it obviously wasn’t meant for them.”
Not only is that a cop-out, it makes me wonder whether Irving even watched the film he promoted or processed the blatant antisemitic tropes it contained. I’d be willing to give Irving the benefit of the doubt that he does not hate Jewish people, but much of the material in the film is culled directly from false narratives and easily disproven theories that people like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan have promoted for decades to whip up resentment for Jewish people within some Black communities.
At one point, the film even cites a purported quote from Adolf Hitler – which, by the way, is most definitely fake – that “the white Jews know that the Negroes are the Real Children of Israel and to keep America’s secret the Jews will blackmail America. They will extort America, their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they are.”
It cites the writings of Henry Ford, who might have been America’s most notorious anti-Semite. And twice it quotes an essay called “The Hidden Tyranny,” which was published first in 1978 as a purported confession from Harold Wallace Rosenthal of how Jewish people conspired to control the world through banking and the media.
The problem, of course, is that Rosenthal, a 28-year-old Congressional aide, died two years earlier in a terrorist attack in Turkey and would have been a curious choice to reveal the big secret an entire religion has been hiding. The Anti-Defamation League has called the interview completely fabricated.
Woven in with all kinds of anthropological tracing of language and DNA and Biblical folklore, much of the film focuses on diasporas and how the ancient populations of the Middle East and North Africa did not look like the White or European people that represent most of the world’s Jewish population today. That is almost certainly true in the broadest sense and would not be problematic if that’s all it was.
But it comes with a hard pivot, unmistakably blaming the history of hardship Black Americans have endured on Jewish people.
“Satan knows if he can hide the true identity of the ancient Egyptians and the sons of Ham, he can keep the real Israelites from waking up to their true identity,” the film’s narrator states. “So how has this mastermind deception continued for so long? It’s easy. The powers that be simply have to present another people to the world to be the Egyptians and Isrealites of the Bible using the mass media or Western education. The mass media for centuries has whitewashed the true black identity of the ancient Egyptians.”
And also this: “Little did we know that the three Abrahamic religions that shaped the world were the same religions that enslaved the so-called negro. Perhaps this is why the true Israelite identity of the so-called negro has been covered up for so long. The mass media is the biggest tool of indoctrination, brainwashing and propaganda the world has ever seen. For centuries it has been helping Satan deceive the world including the Christian church.”
It’s junk, it’s hateful and it sows divisiveness between two minority groups that have largely enjoyed a productive and positive alliance in modern America. But it’s not surprising that didn’t set off alarm bells for Irving, who a few weeks before this controversy endorsed a diatribe from Alex Jones about the “New World Order,” another conspiracy theory rooted in the idea that Jews secretly control the world.
“It’s true,” Irving said Saturday when asked about that tweet while saying he didn’t endorse Jones’ other ridiculous theories.
Typical of Irving, he’s blabbering out of both sides of his mouth. On one hand, he says this is all no big deal because the media is fabricating the amount of influence he has. But in the very same press conference, he said he was in a unique position of influence and posted about the film to his 4.6 million Twitter followers because “history is not not supposed to be hidden from anybody.”
The cumulative effect of all this is that Irving is talking his way out of the NBA, one disgraceful tweet at a time. Perhaps it will end with the business of the league taking its course. Irving is a free agent after this season, and despite his still immense ability, it is hard to envision any team committing significant money to a player who is this problematic. Even beyond the current issue, the Nets are now a third consecutive franchise that Irving has left mired in dysfunction without nearly enough impact on winning to show for it.
But the NBA cannot be a league that champions inclusion and diversity while having one of its most prominent stars promoting virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric at a time when antisemitism is on the rise. It’s not just bad business, it’s wrong and it’s dangerous.
The NBA’s statement on Saturday denounced antisemitism but didn’t even name Irving or make reference to what the entire sports world was talking about. And Tsai’s Tweet that he was “disappointed” in Irving does not account for the fact that he is 30 years old, considers himself enlightened and has purportedly thought enough about these ideas to make them ingrained in his belief system. Irving is a phony, of course, who has shown that his understanding of many topics he speaks about was culled from YouTube University. But this isn’t stuff he has stumbled into. He seeks it out.
If Irving won’t answer for that or explain it better than he did Saturday night when his arrogance and defensiveness was on full display, the NBA and the Nets need to start upping the consequences. If he’s this willing to debase the NBA and drag it into America’s antisemitism spike over a poorly-made movie full of falsehoods and hate, it’s time to take a much harder stance.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Unless Kyrie Irving apologizes, it’s time for Nets, NBA to administer consequences | Opinion