11/11/2022
Jay Williams: āEvery day of my life I approach it with a state of empathy. Regardless of what color, creed, or race you are, I look at people as human beings. I think thatās important. But life is always about taking a stand and holding principles, so I want to explain what I feel my stance is as a Black male in this world. In conversations Iāve had with my brothers and sisters in the Black community, I want you guys to empathize with me and hear me on it. So when I hear what Kyrie Irving has to go through in order to be reinstated Iām appalled. Let me give examples of how I feel like we donāt have the same energy and hold other people who have dealt with racial tropes accountable. So when Sarah Silverman does blackface, or when Don Imus says ānappy-headed hoesā, or when Howard Stern calls somebody the n-word in a skit, or when Brett Favre takes money from the state of Mississippi, we donāt ask them to get 'sensitivity training', we donāt ask them to donate $500,000, we donāt ask them to meet with the Black National Caucus... They apologize and then the rest of the world moves on. In the Black community, thatās what weāve been told how the process works. Somebody does blackface, āoh, it was a misunderstanding, we got it!ā OK, is that person racist? Probably not. Was it ignorant? Probably so. OK, we understand it, we move forward. We donāt like it, we would love to hold them accountable, but society, and not having a lot of Black people in positions of power, we donāt have the governing ability to do that. Even after an apology with Kyrie, itās not enough. We feel like there needs to be more. Older mentors of mine talk about ābuck breaking.ā This is something that happened way back in the day where if there was a slave that was defiant, he got broken in front of everybody in order to show that he was not in a position of power, and at the end of the day he has to do what he was told to do because thatās what was mandated of him. There is a bigger situation going on with what is happening with Kyrie Irving. If the Nets donāt want him to be there, just say you donāt want him to be there, but we should hold everybody accountable, even owners of teams accountable with things that are happening in other countries, i.e. China, and Uyghurs, and the Muslim genocide that is occurring that we hear Enes Kanter talk about. But we donāt keep the same energy for everybody, we pick and choose what conversation points we want to make more polarizing. I might lose my job, I might lose deal opportunities in the future for speaking out. Even the platform continues to profit off a movie that was considered anti-Semitic to billions of people. They donāt have to be held accountable. Who is held accountable?? Weāre going to put everything on the shoulders of Kyrie Irving, even though he said āI cannot be anti-Semitic because I know where I came fromā stating that heās one of the four lost tribes. Heās saying that Blacks and Jews come from the same entity. But we donāt understand nuance, we want to be triggered by words, and we like fire, and we like things that are going viral on social media, and everybody has some sort of hot take, and weāre calling people idiots, and calling people names because thatās what we do. We just destroy each other. Iām not going to ādestroy each otherā, man. Is Kyrie Irving anti-Semitic? Hell no. Could he have gone about it maybe a different way? Thatās what I would have advised him to do. Iām not going to sit out here and let you guys make this dude out to be like heās a villain, like heās a bad person. He is looking to explore his heritage. You can crucify me if you want, I donāt give a damn anymore. Itās time for people to start speaking out with nuance, and speaking out on the principles they stand for.ā
