Getty Kyrie Irving of the Brooklyn Nets.
The Brooklyn Nets‘ Kyrie Irving has faced criticism for his October 27 tweet in which he linked to a film filled with antisemitic tropes, but Bally Sports’ Brandon “Scoop B” Robinson appeared to diminish some of the backlash against Irving, saying it lacked context.
“I understand the way Kyrie thinks in a lot of aspects, and in this one, it was open to so much interpretation,” Robinson said during an October 30 appearance on Pix 11 News. “In conversations with folks in the know, they shared with me that he is not antisemitic, but in this instance, it was part of his journey.”
Robinson said some of the criticism has been in “poor taste,” especially because of Irving’s looming free agency.
“I think this backlash is really in poor taste because he is in a contract year, and I’ll even take it a step further,” Robinson said. “When you look at this instance here, if the Nets were 5-0, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I think that when you look at a team that is 1-4. … We should be talking about the Nets and their dynamic more than we should be talking about a movie.”
Irving Calls Himself an Omnist
Irving had posted a link to the 2018 film “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” which is “filled with antisemitic tropes,” according to an October 29 article published by Rolling Stone. Irving’s tweet caused him to come under the scrutiny of many, including Nets owner Joe Tsai, who said he was “disappointed” in the All-Star guard. Irving, known for being one of the more outspoken players in the NBA, pushed back, in an apparent response to Tsai’s tweet, against claims of him being antisemitic.
“I am an OMNIST, and I meant no disrespect to anyone’s religious beliefs,” Irving said via his Twitter account. “The ‘Anti-Semitic’ label that is being pushed on me is not justified and does not reflect the reality or truth I live in every day. I embrace and want to learn from all walks of life and religions.”
I am an OMNIST and I meant no disrespect to anyone’s religious beliefs. The “Anti-Semitic” label that is being pushed on me is not justified and does not reflect the reality or truth I live in everyday. I embrace and want to learn from all walks of life and religions.
Hélà🤞🏾♾
An omnist is one who believes in all religions, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. “Omnists generally believe that you can glean wisdom from all of the world’s religions,” according to an August 2022 blog post on the A Little Bit Human website. “Because of this, they are typically familiar with the beliefs of other religions, even if members of those religions aren’t particularly aware of the omnist worldview.”
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Jesse Jackson Sounds Off on Ex-Nets Coach’s Suspension
A week before the Irving controversy, Robinson interviewed civil rights leader Jesse Jackson on his “Scoop B Radio” podcast to discuss, among other things, a controversy with the Nets’ rivals in Boston.
After taking the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals in his first season as head coach, Ime Udoka was suspended for the entire season due to violating team policies. Jackson compared Udoka’s situation to a “big football game.”
“You know, all these guys — it’s like you have the officers in the field and then you turn around and someone pulls you into the stands,” Jackson said on the October 21 episode. “Some on the police force and the secret service; so, in many of these cultures they have the same views as the people in the stands have and they say some awful things. When it comes out, now it becomes embarrassing to your team or company.
“The way I look at it is like when I see Alabama play Georgia which is a big football game. And you see women crying over this black guy when he scores a touchdown, or makes a pass, or make a tackle and the other team does the same thing,” Jackson said.
“In the midway sports has become the great transformer by society. This stuff is led by children; these kids are 18-19 years old, and they are packing 100,000 people per week in the stadium. No one else does it better than they do it; and so, the rules by what they are playing should be the rules that everyone should be governed by, and I look up and see these white ladies crying over this black quarterback to see him through and what they’re saying is that we’re not superior. It’s me vs another lighter skin color. So that’s why it appealed to me so much; I went through high school playing ball and went to college riding a football scholarship and got a good time with it going to college.”