Kyrie Irving‘s latest venture into conspiracy theories and controversy has drawn condemnation from Brooklyn Nets team owner Joe Tsai and his own team for its clear antisemitism.
On Thursday, the Nets point guard tweeted out a link to a documentary called “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” based on a book of the same name by Ronald Dalton Jr. As Rolling Stone explains it, the documentary puts forward “ideas in line with more extreme factions of the Black Hebrew Israelites, which have a long history of misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and especially antisemitism.”
Making use of fabricated quotes and debunked hoaxes, the documentary and book reportedly lay out a number of antisemitic tropes to claim Jews control the world and are responsible for centuries of Black oppression.
A day after Irving tweeted the link, Tsai posted a response outright stating the movie to be “full of anti-semitic disinformation” and suggested Irving had promoted hate.
I’m disappointed that Kyrie appears to support a film based on a book full of anti-semitic disinformation. I want to sit down and make sure he understands this is hurtful to all of us, and as a man of faith, it is wrong to promote hate based on race, ethnicity or religion.
— Joe Tsai (@joetsai1999) October 29, 2022
The Nets also released their own statement to Nets Daily, saying they had “no tolerance” for “hate speech”
“The Brooklyn Nets strongly condemn and have no tolerance for the promotion of any form of hate speech. We believe that in these situations, our first action must be open, honest dialogue. We thank those, including the [Anti Defamation League], who have been supportive during this time.”
Irving has obviously never been afraid to speak his mind, but his public persona has steadily warped in recent years, starting with the infamous battle over his refusal to get vaccinated last season and more recently posting a video promoting conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, a man recently found liable for $1 billion in damages to Sandy Hook families for promoting the lie that the massacre was a hoax.
The Nets have been navigating Irving’s extracurricular activities for a while, but have never gone as far as Tsai outright calling him out for spreading antisemitic disinformation. What further action that leads to, either on the Nets’ part or Irving’s, remains to be seen.
The Irving tweet came amid what had been a surprisingly normal season the court so far, given that he and Kevin Durant tried to leave the team during the offseason. Irving has played in all five of the team’s games (never a certainty) while averaging 29.3 points per game.
