There is no doubt that Kyrie Irving has had a lot of negative media attention during his time with the Brooklyn Nets. He has dealt with many controversies, with the latest one involving him posting a Tweet featuring the movie called “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” which had a lot of anti-Semitic content. There has been a lot of criticism directed at Kyrie Irving due to those actions.
It seems as though the Brooklyn Nets have decided to take action and punish Kyrie Irving for his post featuring that movie. The team will suspend Kyrie Irving for at least five games without pay.
The Nets have suspended Kyrie Irving.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 3, 2022
Nets statement pic.twitter.com/8movfKNRdT
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) November 3, 2022
Over the last few days, we have made repeated attempts to work with Kyrie Irving to help him understand the harm and danger of his words and actions, which began with him publicizing a film containing deeply disturbing antisemitic hate. We believed that taking the path of education in this challenging situation would be the right one and thought that we had made progress with our joint commitment to eradicating hate and intolerance.
We were dismayed today, when given an opportunity in a media session, that Kyrie refused to unequivocally say that he has no antisemitic beliefs, nor acknowledge specific hateful material in the film. This was not the first time he had the opportunity – but failed – to clarify.
Such failure to disavow antisemitism when given a clear opportunity to do so is deeply disturbing, is against the values of our organization, and constitutes conduct detrimental to the team. Accordingly, we are of the view that he is currently unfit to be associated with the Brooklyn Nets. We have decided that Kyrie will serve a suspension without pay until he satisfies a series of objective remedial measures that address the harmful impact of his conduct and the suspension period served is no less than five games.
It is easy to see why the Brooklyn Nets decided to take this course of action. Promoting or reposting material with hate speech is unacceptable, and a suspension definitely seems like the right thing to do.
It is definitely concerning to see that Kyrie Irving refused to flat-out disavow antisemitism. Hopefully, he can learn and change his stance in the future, and we’ll see how Kyrie Irving reacts to this suspension from the Brooklyn Nets.
