There have been conflicting reports regarding Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving and whether or not he suggested NBA players skip the Orlando restart to create their own league.
It’s not an entirely crazy theory from the eclectic Irving, as millionaire players understand they’re the product in a league where the average team is worth more than $2 billion. But even if the All-Star guard didn’t suggest players form their own league, we do know Irving has been against resuming the season in the midst of the fight for social equality.
“I don’t support going into Orlando,” Irving reportedly said. “I’m not with the systematic racism and the bulls–t. Something smells a little fishy.”
Irving believes going to Orlando to play basketball will blindfold the issue of social inequality that is currently at the forefront of the national conversation. But according to ESPN Radio’s Will Cain, Irving’s actions and ideas support segregation and racism.
“The headline has been ‘Kyrie Irving talks about establishing a players-owned NBA,'” Cain said. “Kyrie Irving is talking about a secession. Kyrie Irving is talking about segregation. Kyrie Irving is talking about racism, but in support of it.”
“What is Black Lives Matter shooting for?” Cain asked during his Wednesday show according to Insider. “What is the goal? What is the sign of progress? Answer that question. If you’re not seeking the answer to that question, or providing it, not only do I not think you’re an ally, I think you are probably working against it. Without an answer to that, what we have is a society spinning off in different directions.”
“Every day it’s something new and every day there is a different direction that is pointed at, yelled racist and that’s the next thing that’s gone from society. That doesn’t represent true progress,” Cain added.
The radio host quoted the following excerpt from Irving’s Instagram post in support of #blackouttuesday. “FREE OUR PEOPLE,” Irving wrote. “Because we know all this talking and protesting will get us maybe a few law changes and conversations, but at this point it’s bigger than that. It’s time we take all our Native Indigenous Black culture, business, ideas to a new place as a collective and protect it just like other cultures have done. Build our own!”
“We’re separating each other based on our shallow differences. So, is this the agenda? Cain asked. “”If I tell you that this is not just wrong, this is immoral, does that make me a racist?”
Offering the opinion that Irving’s ideas support segregation and racism is a sort of last hurrah from Cain who built his platform as ESPN’s predominant conservative voice in recent years. The radio host and First Take contributor is set to depart The Worldwide Leader for FOX News at the end of this month.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
