Kyrie is dirty rotten no good and we have schadenfreude…?
- Thread starter jose melendez
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I think his (B.S.) apology makes it clear that he plans to go through the motions of fulfilling the requirements for reinstatement for the Nets. I'm sure he didn't want to "give in," but there must be someone (agent, manager, PR rep) still able to get through to him. Probably by making it clear that no team would sign him next summer and that he was going to lose his endorsements. While there's always a chance that he doesn't care -- he's made $200 million -- I doubt he apologizes (and this quickly) if he wasn't going to "satisfy a series of objective remedial measures."
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If you would've told me the final crack in the dam against antisemtism in this country would come from the NBA and Kanye West...
Yeah they put out a new one just about every year. All the major endorsees have a new version of their shoe annually or every other at least.
Yea there’s been 7 prior editions. If it were the Kyrie 88 you would’ve been on to something.
the 3 mamba mentality inspired by Game of Death were the best ones. I was never able to get a pair
Are the red slashes supposed to be a callback to the significant number of lacerations observed in Kobe’s rape victim’s vaginal area? That’s an odd marketing ploy.
They're the scratch marks from his fingertips on the window of the helicopter.
Those were the two best posts in the history of this website or probably any other and I can’t imagine they’ll ever be beaten.
Right? I mean, poor Kyrie. Can’t even manage to be the #1 alpha in his own hate thread.
Let’s get back on track before we start getting too dark in here. Those marks on the shoe are inspired by Enter the Dragon, the colorway is inspired by the jumpsuit in Game of Death.
Were you afraid that that somehow wasn’t clear? But you're quite right: That's a great way to get the thread back on track. Because those shoes...Let’s get back on track before we start getting too dark in here. Those marks on the shoe are inspired by Enter the Dragon, the colorway is inspired by the jumpsuit in Game of Death.
Like, the shoes are designed as an homage to Kobe's killer instinct... by making reference to a movie that literally had another NBA player in the fucking movie. A Laker in fact. And one who was better than Kobe. And why was that guy in the movie? Because he actually studied martial arts—he was the real deal—whereas Kobe, by contrast, gave himself the nickname "black mamba" after watching a movie about martial arts. Plus, Kareem and Lee were both pioneers of liminal spaces of race, culture and identity in an emerging new concept of America, so it made all the more sense to cast Kareem.
Given all of that, could there be anything more emblematic of Kyrie's relationship to history, authenticity, and understanding meaning itself than putting out Game of Death sneakers in homage to Kobe and not Kareem?
The fact that Abdul-Jabbar has in the past waxed poetic as to Kobe's greatness and more recently called Kyrie "a comical buffoon" is the final, most elegant of touches on what makes these shoes truly Peak Kyrie.
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Kobe had shoes almost like this (Kobe 5, maybe) because he said watching Enter the Dragon changed his approach to the game. So the Kyrie shoe is based off of a preexisting shoe
That makes more sense, I mentioned 2 movies in that post so didn’t know what you were referring to
I missed the second one because G.O.D. was on my mind. The category was something like Actor vs. Actor and the clue was Bruce Lee vs. Kareem. No one even tried to guess
Black Twitter is really mad at Shaq today for what he said about KI. And there are posts calling him out for promoting the vaccine and masking during the pandemic.
I think this whole incident is becoming very relevatory, and not in a good way, about how a lot of people may secretly feel about Jewish people in this country. With everything else going on right now, it's very scary. The amount of people mad that Kyrie is being punished for expressing that line of thinking is stunning. It's almost like the group think is that because he's a talented Black athlete and very cerebral, that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants and that any notion to the contrary is about race and control.
Someone said "I Am..." by Nas, or at least the album cover, was somewhat indicative of antisemitism (or maybe the lyrical content). KI ended his fake apology with "I Am," which seems too coincidental to not be related.
Is there a lot of antisemitism in hip-hop these days? Or is it from a bygone time where KI and others were children and it subtly indoctrinated them? Is this going to become an expansive issue in the league as time goes on? Is it an Islam vs. Judaism thing? I'm honestly a little shocked at how much negativity there is surrounding his punishment.
I think this whole incident is becoming very relevatory, and not in a good way, about how a lot of people may secretly feel about Jewish people in this country. With everything else going on right now, it's very scary. The amount of people mad that Kyrie is being punished for expressing that line of thinking is stunning. It's almost like the group think is that because he's a talented Black athlete and very cerebral, that he should be allowed to do whatever he wants and that any notion to the contrary is about race and control.
Someone said "I Am..." by Nas, or at least the album cover, was somewhat indicative of antisemitism (or maybe the lyrical content). KI ended his fake apology with "I Am," which seems too coincidental to not be related.
Is there a lot of antisemitism in hip-hop these days? Or is it from a bygone time where KI and others were children and it subtly indoctrinated them? Is this going to become an expansive issue in the league as time goes on? Is it an Islam vs. Judaism thing? I'm honestly a little shocked at how much negativity there is surrounding his punishment.
It's always a mistake to venture into the comment section of any news article or social media post, but there's a disturbing amount of support for what Irving has been propagating. Citations of biblical prophecy and accusations of truth suppression are everywhere you look. I think the other aspect that comes through unequivocally is that people feel that not only should Irving be able to say whatever he wants, but that he is 100% correct and is some assbackwards prophet (Irving's own "apology" alludes to his own God complex in the way he concludes). That's at least the angle I see in a lot of the support Irving has amassed.
It has me deeply disturbed, and that's as someone who's an agnostic gentile. The hate goes in all directions and knows no bounds.
Agreed, and a lot of the chatter seems to amount to the sentiment that the White man is just trying to keep the Black man in line, which would be more of an insane take if there was not so much systematic racism in the country. Maybe hearing a successful Black man refuse to toe the line determined by White men is enough for some Black community members to cleave to his views, regardless of how hateful they are. Refusing to cooperate with the narrative seems to be a real thing people are pushing these days, to the point where reticence to comply matters more than why people are being asked to comply.
Lebron speaks out:
"I don't condone any hate to any kind," he said. "To any race. To Jewish communities, to Black communities, to Asian communities. You guys know where I stand."
James cited his media company Uninterrupted's recent decision not to air an episode of his YouTube show, "The Shop," featuring Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, as a guest because of those same values.
"Part of the reason why I didn't air 'The Shop' episode, why we kicked that out of the archives," James said. "Because it was hate conversation going on there. And I don't represent that. There's no place in this world for it. Nobody can benefit from that, and I believe what Kyrie did caused some harm to a lot of people."
James acknowledged Irving's apology, but pushed back at Irving's initial argument that he was not promoting the documentary by sharing its title and streaming information on his social media platforms.
"He caused some harm, and I think it's unfortunate," James said. "But I don't stand on the position to harm people when it comes to your voice or your platform or anything. So it doesn't matter what color your skin is, how tall you are, what position you're in. If you are promoting or soliciting or saying harmful things to any community that harms people, then I don't respect it. I don't condone it."
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34947484/kevin-durant-wants-nets-move-kyrie-irving-incident
"I don't condone any hate to any kind," he said. "To any race. To Jewish communities, to Black communities, to Asian communities. You guys know where I stand."
James cited his media company Uninterrupted's recent decision not to air an episode of his YouTube show, "The Shop," featuring Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, as a guest because of those same values.
"Part of the reason why I didn't air 'The Shop' episode, why we kicked that out of the archives," James said. "Because it was hate conversation going on there. And I don't represent that. There's no place in this world for it. Nobody can benefit from that, and I believe what Kyrie did caused some harm to a lot of people."
James acknowledged Irving's apology, but pushed back at Irving's initial argument that he was not promoting the documentary by sharing its title and streaming information on his social media platforms.
"He caused some harm, and I think it's unfortunate," James said. "But I don't stand on the position to harm people when it comes to your voice or your platform or anything. So it doesn't matter what color your skin is, how tall you are, what position you're in. If you are promoting or soliciting or saying harmful things to any community that harms people, then I don't respect it. I don't condone it."
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34947484/kevin-durant-wants-nets-move-kyrie-irving-incident
Good. Not a PR expert so maybe there are things about that statement that will bother folks. But LeBron saying this is a positive thing overall.
Yes. There will be some number of people who want Lebron to just destroy Kyrie but that’s neither realistic nor his role. Instead he’s saying just because he’s Black it doesn’t excuse saying hurtful or prejudiced things.This is good.
The stuff I see is more Nation of Islam than standard Islam. This was a big thing in the early 90s. A professor, Leonard Jeffries, was fired(as dept chair, think he kept professorship)for the same type of “research” that is in this Hebrews to Negros movie. Million Man March was 95 and Farrakhan was controversial for antisemitism of this type.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Jeffries
His claims that Jewish businessmen financed the Atlantic slave trade and used the movie industry to hurt black people, and that whites are "ice people" while Africans are "sun people," received national publicity in the early 1990s. Jeffries was discharged from his position as chairman of the Black Studies Department at CUNY, leading to a lengthy legal battle,[3][4][5] ending in the courts supporting the college's right to remove him from the position due to his incendiary remarks.
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Yeah, it came across as heartfelt and honest. Going to miss the hell out of that guy when he's gone.
That does not seem like a particularly prepared statement. Lebron is a pretty savvy guy so you never can be quite sure of his motives but a cynical as I am I actually read that and think he is saying it because he believes it. And wants others to know he believes it.
If there is a concern that maybe many NBA players are having trouble appreciating the problem with Kylie’s conduct, it seems to me that Lebron’s message — which is in part that a rising tide floats all boats — is a really good one to win over hearts and minds.
If there is a concern that maybe many NBA players are having trouble appreciating the problem with Kylie’s conduct, it seems to me that Lebron’s message — which is in part that a rising tide floats all boats — is a really good one to win over hearts and minds.
We are talking about this in V&N but I think your estimate of 99% is way high.
James Baldwin wrote an essay in 1967 entitled, "Negroes are anti-Semitic because They're Anti-White." I was going to link it but I'm trying to be careful not to bring V&N into this forum. It's available on the internet and it's also being discussed in V&N.
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Another vote here for that being a great statement by LeBron. To echo @Van Everyman 's point, this is better than if LeBron had eviscerated Kyrie or something. For starters, I think that would be inauthentic anyway; that's not how he feels. But, like, that's not a bad thing; we don't eviscerate or publicly gun down family even when we think they are behaving poorly or when they believe stupid shit, even hateful shit. (Not usually anyway... and I suppose there are alternative definitions of "family"...)
And I think LeBron is also brilliantly subtle in how he doesn't hammer the point, but he makes a contrast between Kyrie's platforming that film and his decision not to platform Ye. That speaks to a very direct parallel between LeBron's beliefs and his decision making about not giving voice to something "even if it's already out there" and Kyrie's behavior, thereby offering himself as an alternative model to Kyrie.
This is savvy, yes, but it's well beyond that. This is leadership. Not that LeBron needs my approbration, but I think he did a phenomenal job here, and I am glad he did it: It had to be him. It could only have been him. And he stepped up and knocked it out of the park. I'm happy, impressed, and even grateful to him for it.
The post referring to Nas was me, responding to you, in fact.
As to it being not coincidental, did you see the post I made lightly breaking his apology down with some Twitter context that I made here (#1779), during a convo about that "I AM" stuff in his "apology" from about #1763 until about post #1798 (With a great and highly relevant callback by @Myt1 at #1814 )?
So, yeah, it's very much not a coincidence. It is, in fact, intentional. More to the point, though, Kyrie isn't referencing Nas, but rather, they are both speaking to the same thing. And I think that's where the revelatory nature of the thing comes in (no pun intended, just responding to the language being used. [I think that's what you meant by "relevatory" and that was just a typo?]). Which is to say, this stuff has been kicking around, just most people weren't aware of it. And it's also really hard to say from an outsider perspective how pervasive things are when they are quiet or underground subcultures, but yeah, it's been around, and it's only visible if you know what it is and, therefore, what to look for. Which is part of why this is so jarring for so many people: Wait, has this been there the whole time?
And the Islam v. Judaism thing is a good question. I'd say... no. Not exactly. But not unrelated. I'm working on trying to put together a post on some of how this thing works—it's not my specific area, but adjacent and I know my way around it, i.e. the historical conspiracy theory stuff—but it's difficult to figure out where to begin. If anyone has any questions, shoot, and I may be able to explain some and it might help us flesh this out.
All historical conspiracies related to Western Civilization run into ones featuring The Jews at some point. The Jews is the godfather of them all. But while that's a function of how they work with some specific sociological reasons and artifacts of history, in effect it means that whenever there is evolution or development in historical conspiracies, it once again finds The Jews which then reaffirms the place and, in the eyes of many, the truth of The Jews in the grand conspiracy of history.
Like, as far as historical progression, if there isn't something here, then why do they keep coming up? Huh? Well, they keep coming up because they keep coming up, which means they'll come up more and more—think how the roots of trees will eventually merge with one another until they're all connected. And then each new tree is connected to the original connected trees. And then the whole grove becomes connected to a new grove—then each tree in the new grove is connected to the original connected trees too. So if you follow the network from any number of recently added trees, no matter how far apart geographically in the network, you will eventually find the old grove trees. So, in terms of the human mind's ability to impose narrative, it may seem like the old grove trees are propagating trees outwards, when in reality, it is just newer trees connecting to the existing network.
So that raises the issue of why the historical conspiracy theories involving The Jews® hold such primacy of place. Well, there are a few reasons for that, many of the important ones being sociological. A good place to start there, especially for the versions of antisemitism and historical conspiracy theories specific to Kyrie, is with the James Baldwin that @wade boggs chicken dinner posted—a brilliant pull, by the way. Baldwin's account is asynchronic in nature, though (That's not a shortcoming, just his project.), and there is then an historical overview of how that sociological element developed. And that's what I'm trying to figure out a good way to cover without writing a damn book..
Like, as far as historical progression, if there isn't something here, then why do they keep coming up? Huh? Well, they keep coming up because they keep coming up, which means they'll come up more and more—think how the roots of trees will eventually merge with one another until they're all connected. And then each new tree is connected to the original connected trees. And then the whole grove becomes connected to a new grove—then each tree in the new grove is connected to the original connected trees too. So if you follow the network from any number of recently added trees, no matter how far apart geographically in the network, you will eventually find the old grove trees. So, in terms of the human mind's ability to impose narrative, it may seem like the old grove trees are propagating trees outwards, when in reality, it is just newer trees connecting to the existing network.
So that raises the issue of why the historical conspiracy theories involving The Jews® hold such primacy of place. Well, there are a few reasons for that, many of the important ones being sociological. A good place to start there, especially for the versions of antisemitism and historical conspiracy theories specific to Kyrie, is with the James Baldwin that @wade boggs chicken dinner posted—a brilliant pull, by the way. Baldwin's account is asynchronic in nature, though (That's not a shortcoming, just his project.), and there is then an historical overview of how that sociological element developed. And that's what I'm trying to figure out a good way to cover without writing a damn book..
It's basically Imposter Jews South. It has an analogue, Imposter Jews North, better known as Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry (wiki) which is much, much older, and bears many striking similarities to the Imposter Jews South; one would think this would give more conspiracy theorists pause, but people into the one rarely know about the other, and vice versa—which is also how this stuff "works."
It also bears mentioning that the Khazar hypothesis started kicking around a lot in the last year or so, first in some QAnon circles, but then got a blast of oxygen from the war in Ukraine as a justification for Russia's invasion, as per this ISD dispatch from May describes. It bears mentioning because it's a good illustration of how historical conspiracies are easily appplied to other social, econonomic, cultural, etc. conflicts to "resolve" complicated tensions into a coherent story, even if the story is bullshit and harmful—in particular, the story has a general appeal in that there is a "simple" explanation—ironic given the immense mental gymnastics it generally takes to get there—for really complex social phenomena, generally owing to the identification of historical "bad guys" who are responsible for everything that is wrong (that's what is meant by "simple": That there's, like, some secret cabal doing everything to us is simpler as compared to, oh, the tensions attendant late stage capitalism's roots in feudalism).
It also bears mentioning that the Khazar hypothesis started kicking around a lot in the last year or so, first in some QAnon circles, but then got a blast of oxygen from the war in Ukraine as a justification for Russia's invasion, as per this ISD dispatch from May describes. It bears mentioning because it's a good illustration of how historical conspiracies are easily appplied to other social, econonomic, cultural, etc. conflicts to "resolve" complicated tensions into a coherent story, even if the story is bullshit and harmful—in particular, the story has a general appeal in that there is a "simple" explanation—ironic given the immense mental gymnastics it generally takes to get there—for really complex social phenomena, generally owing to the identification of historical "bad guys" who are responsible for everything that is wrong (that's what is meant by "simple": That there's, like, some secret cabal doing everything to us is simpler as compared to, oh, the tensions attendant late stage capitalism's roots in feudalism).
Zero chance he completes all 6 tasks
View: https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1589057509393735680
