Nike ends endorsement deal with Kyrie Irving over antisemitic tweet

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Originally published at: Nike ends endorsement deal with Kyrie Irving over antisemitic tweet | Boing Boing

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Good. His supporters will claim this decision is more “evidence” for their warmed-over Elders of Zion conspiracy theory, but that only deserves our mockery.

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Tens of millions in lost Nike revenue. 15 million lost due to covid non compliance. 2 million lost due to the suspension over his antisemitic tweet. Because he believes so strongly in what he says? Or because he is just so dumb he doesn’t realize that there are consequences for these actions?

Here’s his quote: “I just want to offer my deep apologies to all those who were impacted over these last few weeks, specifically my Jewish relatives and Black relatives, all races and cultures,” Irving said. “I feel like we all felt an impact. I don’t stand for anything close to hate speech or antisemitism or anything that’s going against the human race.” Deep impact for him, i’d say.

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All races and cultures matter! /s

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Irving has been surrounded by arse-lickers for more than a decade, including those who did his homework for him in HS and college so he could continue to play without actually receiving an education. That tends to dull one’s ability to think critically.

Also…

specifically my Jewish relatives and Black relatives,

Whoever wrote this non-apology for him was educated enough to leave out “and some of my best friends”.

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Good.

So, I was just thinking when I saw another clip of Kanye’s interview and this time focused on Nick Fuentes who is sitting there grinning like an idiot.

The White Power/White Supremacist types are loving this. There has been some tension between the Jewish and Black community for years, partly due to racism and partly due to some to Islam/Judaism tensions. I can remember Professor Griff from Pubic Enemy being in the spotlight for it back in the day.

Anyway - people like Nick are in Kanye’s ear and flaming it, stoking his hate. He and the other White Supremacists want to have two othered groups at odds, which can only support their rhetoric than they are both “bad”. I don’t know if anyone is in Irving’s ear, but even if not, he is doing their bidding unwittingly. And I am sure there are others who feel the same way who may start to speak out and flame this tension where there should be none.

For people saying that they have legitimate gripes as artists and athletes who are making other’s rich with their talents - their problem isn’t with Jewish people, it is with the exploitation of the capitalist system.

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It seems that this was the topic of the tweet:

The 2018 film Hebrews to Negroes, based on director Ronald Dalton Jr.’s book series of the same name, is a three-plus-hour effort to “prove” the Black Hebrew Israelite (BHI) belief that certain people of color, including Black Americans, are the true descendants of the biblical Israelites.
The film promotes beliefs commonly found among antisemitic and extremist factions of the BHI movement, including claims that modern Jews are imposters who stole the religious heritage of Black people and have engaged in a “cover-up” to prevent Black people from knowing their “true” identity.

And it pretty much gets worse from there.

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Gotta love that phrasing. I know this is merely a business decision, and they could’ve said something like “we’ve terminated our deal with Irving,” but it really does sound like they dropped him on principle alone.

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Also, not responding to this would be “evidence” for their conspiracy theories.

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I’ve been sick of stupid, willfully ignorant, hate-spewing jocks since high school, and it has only gotten worse.

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